I just picked urw back up after a several months of not playing it, pretty amazing how new and amazing it still feels!

Anyways, I wanted to get some input on what people like to do with the smaller traps in the game. I just started a new character with the trapper start, and I'm finding it really hard to catch anything with the smaller fox traps and loop snares. My current strategy is to go to close up map and place a trap within visual distance of where i started in that zone. Then go back to big map and move to a different tile, go to close up map and repeat the process. Is this a good strategy? Should I be placing multiple traps in rather close proximity on the close up map?

I know placing lots of traps will increase the odds of catching something, but there's gotta be more to it... What are some strategies you guys use for trapping smaller game?

I'm no trapper, but what i have gleamed from the forums is to make fence line traps


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or use the trees as part of your fenceline


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about placement, you should put it where you see tracks, or places you have seen multiple animals?




hope this helps

I should have been more clear in my post. I know how to use fences and gather quite a bit from them, but what I'm talking about are the smaller traps, such as loop snares and deadfall traps. They're not really necessary once you're catching elk and deer (and traders) in fences, but I'd like to figure out how to use them effectively anyways, more as a personal challenge than anything else.

Placing traps in the terrain you see the animals in helps some, I've had decent success placing clusters of fox traps in ope/pine/spruce mires. Loop snares seem to do alright in meadows but I would not call it a food source by any means.

Ive had absolutely miserable luck trapping, but I suppose my character has very low trapping skill. I built a large trap fence for a game course, it was about 600 metres long - but ive caught precisely nothing in it so far. The problem is that no animals seem to move through that particular area, and its hard to gauge what areas animals prefer to hang out. I dont see the appeal of trap fences, even if you had a working one surely you have to check it every other day in order to obtain meat before it spoils? For large fences thats a big time commitment.

Ive placed down some of those fox traps as well, and ive actually seen foxes on the overland map a tile away, but they never seem to take the bait!

If you use pits without spikes you can check it much less often. If you check it too often, you will actually keep animals from approaching it. Are you setting the pits or just digging them? If they are not set the animals will never fall in. Bait helps too if you don't mind carnivores.

They are definately properly set spiked trap pits. I think the main problem is that I have set it too close to my log cabin, the furthest point is still only a few squares away. Is that enough to keep animals from approaching do you reckon?

I still say its just a lousy spot for a trap fence regardless.

A few squares on the overland map? Probably not an issue, but you might be blocking some access to it (animal approaches your cabin from the other side, senses you, moves away instead of towards the fence).

A few squares on the zoomed in map? definitely too close.

But you may be right, it might just not be a good location period.

Im not used to trapping but hey! I tried it out earlier.

I tried setting a trap like 2-5 zoomed out tiles away from my home. i set about 4 in random zone's near tree's (My idea was to try and get animals that like tree's :P)

I check back 3 ingame days later and nothing. So im like ok fine. i put some bait in there 2 days later still got nothing. then again it might be cause of my recent activites (Ahem hunting plenty of animal's... :P)

I'm curious if anybody has actually caught a bear in a bear trap. I've placed a bunch of them and occasionally managed to snag elk & stag, but never seem to get bears.

I'm also with Kpn on not being able to lure animals into small traps, though I haven't tried placing multiple next to each other. Will give that one a shot!

I also have been experiencing this glitch in which 2/3 of traps don't stay marked on the map, either the map itself or the zoomed out terrain marker, so it's hard to remember where I left them. Anybody find a good hack around this short of screenshotting every trap?


How are animals tracked, anyway? Does trapping spawn animals, or is actually a certain fixed number of animals traversing their usual patterns and you just really hope they walk into that square? Or if the animal's natural path takes it, say, right next to the trap, will it still get caught?

Traps don't spawn animals, so if there's no animal activity at the area you won't catch anything. Baits however, can attract carnivores from great distances. The most effective trapping method is to set your traps where you actually have encountered animals.

from what i understand your trapping skill greatly determines the success of an animal wandering in the trap

Trapping actually doesn't affect to animals at all - they wander as they please - but it's a skill that determines the quality of your traps and their set-up. Animals may find poorly set traps suspicious and refuse to approach them. So, it may seem like a good trapper could attract animals to his snares, but actually it's the poorly set/built traps that intimidate the game. Poor traps may also fail to trigger properly so that animal can "walk through" them or get free from a triggered trap.

Thanks! Good to know.

So anybody actually caught a bear in a trap? :-) What does it take?

Though the hunters request to catch a fox ritual seems to summon a fox. Also use favourableness of the trap (as well as baiting the trap with meat, of course).

Here's my statistics for fox hunting:

From the beginning of autumn to the beginning of December.
9 Fox traps, 6 in one area where I've spotted foxes several times, spread out with 4-5 tile space(world map) from each other, 3 in another area. They all had the trap blessing(not fox ritual) and meat bait. I didn't check every day but at least once a week, more if I had time.

3 foxes caught in that period.

I got one yesterday! I checked on my trap fence and there were bear tracks who just missed it so I followed it for about half an hour in the dark, I could see 2 or 3 tiles in front of me, I was hoping I'd catch it asleep. So I followed it for a really long time in a huge circle until it eventually led back to my trap fence and there I found the bear growling in pain in one of my spike pits! :D

Wow thats got to be pretty rare, bear in a fence trap. How long was the fence trap? Was it in a kind of natural choke point? Did you bait the traps?

No choke point really, around 100 tiles long and using a lot of trees instead of fences, 5 pits and meat baits.