How to Keep Track of your Trapline
A great option we have now is using a cell phone to keep track of the location and info of your sets or areas of interest when scouting an area. I use OnX on my phone while trapping and there are a lot of useful applications for tracking various information. This technology allows me to be more organized and run a longer trapline than if I had to use a paper and pencil to keep track of everything. Here are different applications that I use on my personal trapline.
Running a roadline can be a rewarding endeavor,
Utilizing pins in my opinion is the most important part of using OnX on the line. When I get to a set, I will drop a pin to save its location. From that point I will edit the pin by color. You can use the color of the pin for any number of reason, but personally I use it to record if a set is lethal or not. This allows me to look at the map and see if a certain area needs to be checked daily or if I can do a two or three day check for those traps.
I’ll also write a description for the set location stating how many traps, where they are located, and what type of set they are. Say I’m trapping a bridge and have castor mounds nets on each side of the river on the North side, and one blind set on the South-East side. I would type it in as follows: 1 CM NW, 1 CM NE, 1 Blind SE. I have various ways to shorten the set names and other information so that I can input the info faster. You could also record what lure and bait you used, catches, or any other facts that you find helpful or interesting.
One might think that doing this is over kill and that the trapper should be able to remember this in their head. That may be possible for some, but personally I have a terrible memory. After you put in a hundred sets all of the river crossings or coon trails seem to blend together and look alike, especially if it’s dark out or there is fresh snow on the ground.
Another great option is the fact that you can see who owns parcels of land or search by the land owner’s name. The parcels of land are colored different so can quickly identify if it’s county, state, federal, or private land. If you get permission from a rancher you can type in the rancher’s name and it will show you what parcels of land he owns. This saves both you can the rancher a lot of time.
The other thing you can do is mark your track or also known as leaving a “bread crumb trail.” This will record where you have driven and make repeating the same route a lot easier. It’s not a huge deal if you’ve trapped the same location before but can be extremely useful for when you’re cold rolling through new territory. The next check you can just follow the previous trail and know that you didn’t miss anything.
“ I keep pretty much all of the pins and routes on my phone for future trips. I have found that this helps speed up the first day of setting exponentially.”
Storing set locations and route for long periods of time can be very useful for when you return to a location after a few years. Everything you learned from the first trip is already in the system so you have to spend less time trying to remember where to go and what locations were worth setting. I keep pretty much all of the pins and routes on my phone for future trips. I have found that this helps speed up the first day of setting exponentially.
Lastly, I will use pins to record any information that I may need in the future such as lost or stolen traps. If a huge rain came through and flooded a creek, I’m trapping causing me to lose a trap I will take not of that. I’ll right down what dates I searched for it and any other facts about the situation. That way if I ever get questions by a game warden I can show that I had looked multiple times for it, or that I had recorded the trap stolen. Having pins for each set location also allows me to rest assured that when I pull my line every trap has been retrieved. For me using an application like OnX is well worth the money and allows me to be far more efficient on the trapline, and I think it will do the same for you.