Trying out some new hog trap doors

[jmorris]

We have been doing pretty good for the last decade or so but they are becoming more damaging and it gong away under normal hunting pressure. So I decided to do a larger corral style trap on their trail. I have the drop gates working how I want, 5 game cameras out to see the best spot, to drive T posts and set panels. Hope to set up this weekend and activate cellular next week.



It’s not as cool looking as commercially available stuff but so far is from stuff I already had gathering dust.

 

[rdnktrkr]

How will you trigger the gate when it is full? Where I hunt we are lucky and don't have a hog problem but friends hunt south of us and they have them, they use green laser and green lights around the feeder. I've been looking at bigbore ARs and planning on going there for a weekend

 

[jmorris]

I have a couple options, like the shock sensor on the lid there at the bottom, when it gets bumped.

Or using the motion sensors I use on my game radios.





However, I intend to use a cell phone.

I bought one of these.



That was a bust. In fairness it may be due to a lack of instructions, help or information at all but I doubt it. Every place that sells SIM cards will check the device IMEI number so I took it apart to find it.



I couldn’t find a provider around here that could activate it though. Might work great in some other Country so check the IMEI # in your location and I’ve got a great deal for you.

After waiting on that for a week and a couple hours becoming frustrated I decided to just activate an old cell phone I had using a $5 “Pay as you go, no contract” Tello account. I can trigger the trap for $5 for a month and cancel once I have gotten rid of the group tearing up the hay fields. Then spent another hour digging around to find an old Velleman project I had messed with a decade ago.



It’s less than ideal in that any incoming call that lights the display will “trigger” so I left the phone on to see if I get any incoming calls.

The other problem is how to know what’s in there or when to trigger it.

I rigged up another one of the game radios above with a longer TX relay time and external mic, instead of the digital playback location recorder, so I can hear sounds in the area. If you have been around a sounder of feeding hogs, you can instantly tell the difference between them and a boar or two.

I also have been playing with a few GSM game cameras, Spypoint and Moultrie but haven’t had good luck with either at the farm over the last 3 weeks. They send photos just fine at the house to my phone but when we are both down there things fall apart. Not sure who’s at fault but have some other devices to try this weekend.

 

[rdnktrkr]

A friend has one that sends pics to his phone but he gets a lot of pics of squirrels, rabbits, birds, and other things along with the pics he wants.
With all the robo calls out now with a cell phone you gate would stay closed.

 

[Tilos]

Thanks for the vid
I watched it full screen looking for any latch mechanism that holds the doors down, didn't see any.
Are you relying on the weight of the door to keep it from being lifted...by a nose?
just askin'

 

[jmorris]

I have them ready to put out tomorrow we’ll see how it goes.

I’ll set it but if they act like they normally do it will take a week for them to get used to a new feeder.

 

[Bwana John]

In the "old days" we used a rat trap as a trigger/sear mechinism.

All this electric stuff is beyond me.

 

[jmorris]

Well, that was more work than I thought it was going to be. Needed some more buddy’s down there this weekend but I guess they are all paying “honey do’s” so they can come down next weekend.

Anyway, we got the pin together and the gates up and tested to confirm function and setup a game radio, before I decided to quit for the day.



The blue arrow is the control box, the red one is the game radio inside the pin, the yellow one is the rear gate.

The game radio went off once during the night then as I was getting in the shower this morning but I couldn’t hear anything on the keyed up mic there, guess the boys were not making a lot of noise this morning but they did hang out for a half hour or so.



Normally 8 would have been a good catch but I didn’t have the GSM camera or even a feeder setup yet so I didn’t know what was in there and it turns out the girls passed it by and went to the feeder instead.



Today we set up the feeder and GSM camera, it caught me exiting. Pretty crummy images but for $119 and having them sent to my phone, I just moved it inside the pin so I have a better chance of seeing what’s there.


Looking promising so far.

 

[rdnktrkr]

All this sounds promising, I hope you thin them down

 

[jmorris]

A different group is there eating now.

 

[jmorris]

Looking better.

 

[Axis II]

@jmorris How come your not letting the gates down when they are inside? Also curious how you deal with them once pinned?

 

[jmorris]

The idea is to get as many at once before you teach the ones I don’t get to avoid the trap.

I figured this is why my 4x4x8 ft traps never worked very well.

And each day I am counting more and more in there 15 or 16 in there this morning.

 

[jmorris]

It’s a different group than the above but these came in this morning.



Gate closed


and after they settled back down.

 

[jmorris]

One jumped off the top of others and escaped when I walked up but got 13 good eating size.

 

[Axis II]

Just walk up and shoot them?

 

[jmorris]

Just walk up and shoot them?

Pretty much. A couple days figuring out what you want to do, a couple more building it then a few weeks baiting, then figure out when you want to drop the gates, so you can get there to go to work and make the call.

Once we got there it was only an hour from the first shot to the final rinse on the meat back at the cabin. I was smart enough to drop it when I figured, I would have help, the 4 of us made it short work.

I save “sporting” for things that are not varmints.

The deer do come into the trap too. That was one reason I never dropped the gates before.



I didn’t realize I needed to set “notifications” on the app to see things as they were happening.

A friend of mine once came across a trap with a deer in it and from the description, I knew I didn’t want that. The adults could jump out like they do all the other feeders we have with cattle panel, to keep the cows out, but the little guys and gals could get pretty messed up if caught.

Knowing how to use the technology made it acceptable to me, for what I wanted to do.

 

[jmorris]

Took them a couple weeks but the larger group came back. Of course on the one weekend I'm not there.

Called a couple of my friends that were down there and sent them a couple photos but not sure if they went after them.

I didn't have the trigger setup because it only lasts a week, need to setup a larger battery for the cell phone in there.

 

[rdnktrkr]

Just WOW. That's a lot of bacon
What about a small solar panel and a battery with a charger hooked up?

 

[jmorris]

Every time we clear out a sounder it takes 2-3 weeks for others to make it to the original location, while we still have activity at others.

So I built a smaller set of doors for the feeders that already have panels around them, to keep the cows out. Will be much easier to move around, all we have to do is cover up the “jump over” notches for the deer and place the doors over the “under” cutouts, while we trap. Also easier to build with 3 ft doors vs 8 ft (no need for extra stuff for the heavy doors) but in the original location they were not used to going into panels.

Used an inverted unistrut with a hole drilled in it for the “driven” gate trigger, with two chain links welded so the smooth round chrome plated links are the friction points and a stainless steel pin.



With a chrome eyebolt on the door.



The “drive” gate uses the same solenoid as the original but holds the weight of the door directly, added a cover to keep the elements out of the latch.



Welded box tube to the sides to wire to the T posts this time. Just need to set them up and move the control box/camera and we’ll get another group and move around or go back to the other trap as needed.

 

[MCgunner]

Too pricey for me. But, I have been wanting one. I just have a regular old welded up box trap and I get too many deer in it for my liking. Deer will jump out of an open topped trap where hogs can't.

 

[jmorris]

The most expensive parts are the continuing costs of the cellular camera (above the 100 free app photos) and the $5/month cell phone for the trigger. As soon as it is a burden to get rid of them becomes more than repair of the land in time and diesel, I’ll keep up the elimination of them.

I am all in for a better solution though.

 

[der Teufel]

How are the photos sent? That is, do they go by text msg or are they sent as data?
I ask because my phone plan (Google Fi) allows me to get extra SIM cards which can be used for data only (no phone or text) with no extra monthly charges other than for the actual data used.

 

[jmorris]

The notifications and images are through the app, that’s downloaded from here.

https://www.spypoint.com/en/spypoint-experience/spypoint-app

No phone call or text to see the photos but I have to use one or the other to drop the doors.

That’s where you can also see the history of photos, view them and other data as well.

The top line that reads “Trap” is where you select what unit you want to look at, if you have several operating but if you just click on the notification when it pops up it sends you to the photo/camera that took the most recent photo. Then you can click on the thumbnail and view the full image.









Allows you to change any settings anytime anywhere except for where it is physically aimed.

 

[Speedo66]

One jumped off the top of others and escaped when I walked up but got 13 good eating size.

"The Great Escape" with Steve McSwine. Good thing there wasn't a motorcycle in there.

What does one do with all that pork once you've filled your freezer?