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Knowing how to make a snare trap can save your life during an emergency.

Apart from using your outdoor survival kit while in the wilderness, making a snare should be among your list of things you should be skilled in.

Did you know that you can capture some dinner with a simple snare wire?

On top of step by step instructions, you’ll also find detailed videos below. Just expand the table of contents to quickly find them.

What’s a Snare Trap?

A snare is a trap often designed for catching small animals with the help of a noose. Snares are some of the easiest and most effective traps.

You can easily set them in large numbers and producing them is also cheap.

A snare is designed to trap an animal around the body or neck. The noose is made using a robust string or wire.

How to Make a Rabbit Snare 

If you live in disaster-prone areas, having basic survival tricks and skills can come in handy to save your life.

Knowing how to build a snare, for instance, can help you hunt for food at least to help you survive through the emergency. 

Many people assume that prepping only involves storing water and food. If you’re among this group of people, you are forgetting that you can’t be assured of having sufficient food and water when disaster strikes. 

Sometimes, the situation may be too dire, forcing you to flee your home and even forgetting that you had any survival food in the first place.

Still, the situation can go on for a long time within which you could run out of food.

What then can you do when faced with such a predicament? 

how to make a rabbit snare trap

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How to Make a Snare Trap (Step by Step)

Are you interested in learning how to build a snare?

Here’s a step by step guide to help you become a professional in the field. 

Basic Snare (Video)

Step one: Place the Snare Cable and the First Ferrule

Cut the cable depending on your preferred length, preferably between 7 to 8 ft for a large snare, 5 to 6 ft for a medium snare, and 3 to 4 fit if you’re making a small snare.

Now secure the cable.

Remember, the cable will often have a right or left curve along one end as a result of being enveloped around the cable spool. 

Whichever side this curve lays should be your anchor point also known as the cable’s head.

After establishing the anchor end of your cable, install the ferrule, also known as the end stop along the end of your cable.

This is the side that has the curve. If you can’t notice any curve, install the end stop on any of the ends.

Fasten it in the cable using a hammer and be gentle while at it.

Step Two: Fix the Washer

Fix the washer on the other end(where you’ve not attached the end stop) of the cable.

You want to ensure it slides down to the just installed ferrule. This will be used to fasten the swivel head in the subsequent step. 

Step Three: Fix the Snare Swivel Head

Hold the open end of your cable and place it in the swivel’s barrel opening. Drop, the swivel down the cable. 

Step Four: Fix the Twist Lock 

The twist lock is also known as the snare support collar or the whammy.

From the cable’s open end, drop the snare support collar or the twist-lock down the cable.

Make sure the bigger end is covering down the cable close to the swivel head.

Drop the collars down and push it out of the way towards the next part. 

Step Five: Fix the Snare Micro Lock

Fix the micro lock from the open end of the cable.

Ensure the long section on the micro lock is directed towards the cable’s open end. 

Step Six: Create the Shepherds Cane

This is a decisive part that you can’t afford to get wrong.

Remember, you can get it right through practice.

Studies indicate that many people struggle with getting this step right so you need not worry.

The good thing is that people who had problems excelling in this step are today professionals, which they attribute to continued practice.

In the end, you should ensure that the micro lock settles well along with the snare and closes fast in the best way possible. 

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Step Six A: allow the Cable to Lay Naturally

Hold the snare loosely on one hand.

Allow the cable to lay naturally on your finger or hand.

You’ll see that it will fall back into its native form. After being in a spool, chances are that it will have a curve.

By holding it, you’ll allow the curve to form naturally. After establishing the natural lay of the cable, making it the Shepherds Cane.

Step Six B: Grip the Cable at a Left or Right Hand

Ensure the cable is in its natural lay as much as possible.

With a pair of needle-nose pliers, grip the cable at the left or right-hand level position.

This will depend on whether you’re left or right-handed. Bend the cable back so that it faces you.

Maintain the cable in its natural lay as much as possible. Use your thumb to clasp the cable’s end.

Step Six C: Use a Pliers to Coil the Cable

Coil the cable to create 90 degrees in the cable.

You’ll notice that the end of your cable will be somehow frayed. You can cut off the frayed part and fix the en stop.

You can also choose to utilize a nail 1/16 inch diameter nail punch to tap the hole lightly out.

This will ensure that the cable launches with ease.

Further, you may want to drill in a 1/16 deep pilot hole to launch the cable in. 

Step Six D: Fix Your 90 Degree End

Fix in your 90-degree end inside the long slot.  

Step Six E: Fix in the Final End Stop

Use crimpers to hammer the final ferrule into the cable. 

Know-How to Tie a Snare

Such dire situations call requires you to have some good hunting skills. One of the skills you may want to nurture in preparation for an emergency is knowing how to make a rabbit snare.

You may never know when such skills would come in handy.

With a snare, you can catch hares, rabbits and other edible games without having to use your knife, gun, or any other weapon. 

All you need to set a snare is basic knowledge and skill.

What’s more, understanding how to set a snare trap helps you catch the game without having to remain on site.

All you need to do is set your snare and continue running other errands and executing essential tasks. 

Snare Video

Making the Snare Loop

When it comes to making a rabbit snare, you need to build a snare loop.

You can source snare wire from any hunting retail shop within your locality. You can also purchase some of the outdoor retail stores in your local region.

Whether you get a 22 or even a 24 gauge wire, you can use it with ease. The preferred types of wire include steel wire, brass, and copper.

You don’t have to use wire however; you can as well use a thin rope or even a string. With your wire in place proceed to:

Cut a 2.5 feet wire length using wire cutters

  • Bend the wire around one side of your finger to form a loop. This should be approximately an inch diameter wise. Leave behind a backend of wire to ensure its either 1 or 2 inches.
  • Roll up the backend that’s been left hanging from the loop and around the long end of the wire just below the loop. This will help secure the loop. Ensure that the loop is tight to make the loop solid enough to prevent excess movement during the preparation process. The loop of your snare plays the role of a slip knot. 
  • Now take the remaining end of the wire and take it through the loop you created. 
  • At this point, your snare loop is ready. As a result of the slip knot, the size of your loop will adjust to tighten around your budget or the animal you catch. 

How to Set a Hog Snare

A hog snare is designed to catch a feral hog around its leg or neck. As the hog inserts pressure on the flowing locks, the loops tighten to prevent the animal from escaping.

To snare a hog, you need proper equipment, identify a proper locating to set a snare, and position it strategically to allow it to catch a hog depending on the size you want. 

Locating a Hog Trail

Remember, hogs are creatures of habit and they like walking past the same trail searching for food, especially if the location has a sufficient supply of food in various areas.

Understand that hogs follow trails that other domestic or games animals probably use frequently. Where possible, ensure the trail you identify is only used by hogs. 

Identify your strategic location on the trail and position the snare. Further, you want to establish the right location for your snare along the trail.

Remember, snares function appropriately when hogs are forced to follow through the restricted area.

When choosing the ideal place, ensure it falls between trees and bushes, is around a rock outcropping, under a fence, or a body of water. 

Setting the Snare

  • Secure the swivel at the end of the cable to a support system cut as a fence post, a T-anchor steered to the ground, a tree, or any other component that’s robust enough to handle pulling pressure from a mature hog. Attach the snare’s loop from a light gauge, single wrapped piece of wire, or even two that are capable of splitting from the suspension point. Configure your suspension point between one and a half feet and three feet high.
  • Suspension points can be; a nylon cord driven between a hard piece of wire enveloped around an object and suspended over the trail horizontally, or two objects, a piece of wire around a fence, or a limp. Set the elevation and the loop size on the snare. The loop should be between one and two and a half feet diameter wise. Remember, the loop size depends on the hog size you wish to capture.

How to Make a Wire Snare

To make the wire snare, you’ll need two items which are readily available in any of your local hardware stores.

The first item is a wire and cable ferrules, also known as fasteners.

If you’re searching for the fasteners at the hardware store, you’ll find them in the small parts section and they come at a reasonable price too. 

Ensure the fasteners you choose are the correct size for the size of your wire. They should neither be overly small or overly big.

The fasteners come in handy to clamp and fasten the loopholes at both sides of the snare wire.

With these items ready, here’s how to make a wire snare.

  • Cut the wire in different sizes ranging from 24 inches to 36 inches. 
  • Create a large loop and ensure it’s larger than a pencil’s diameter. Achieve this by delivering one piece of wire in and out of the cable ferrule.  
  • Use wire cutters to crumble the loop down. Be careful to avoid overdoing the process and eventually damaging it.
  • Envelope the small nail at the main leg for a clean finish. Repeat this process on the other end of the piece of wire.

Ensure you can thread through one loop end to the other to form a noose.

Avoid constricting the little loops towards the end.

Doing so will make the process of accessing the ends to form a snare noose a difficult task. 

Locking Snare Video

The Essential Parts of a Snare

For many people, preparing a survival bag involves stocking enough water and food to last them up to 72 hours.

If you fall into this category, there’s one thing you may not know.

Disasters happen without a warning. They could even happen when you have no food and other essentials left in your survival bag. 

What’s more, you can never predict how long a disaster will last. Some of them can stretch beyond 72 hours.

This means that you will finish all your survival food and have nothing to survive on.

Such moments call for you to look for alternative ways of finding something to eat. This is where a snare trap comes in.

Do you know how to set a rabbit snare?

Do you have the necessary tools and expertise to hunt for food and prepare it? 

About Trapping

Trapping is one of the most essential skills that any survivalist can have. With these skills, you won’t need to depend on commercial food sources such as grocery stores.

An experienced survivalist trapper will survive with a minimal struggle in the wilderness during disasters.

Mastering trapping skills is no mean feat. 

However, you can still learn and master the skills with regular practice.

What better place to start learning than by figuring out the fundamentals of using a snare trap, and the best way to choose the ideal snare for your disaster preparedness kit.

Without a snare trap or the necessary skills expertise to make one, you can’t excel in the trapping process during an emergency. 

Critical Components of A Snare Trap

Snare traps are great hunting gadgets during an emergency.

This is because they enable users to passively hunt in multiple locations with minimal struggle.

Assuming you had approximately ten snare traps set across your camp, you can hunt in ten different areas at the same time without lifting a leg. 

If all your traps catch a wild game, you can be sure that you and the entire family will have sufficient food to last you a few days.

Before you can embark on using your snare trap, it’s important to note that there are numerous snare designs across the world today.

Still, a big percentage of these utilize the same concepts and come with comparable components.

The components include:

Snare cable

Nearly all snares in the modern world feature some kind of a curved steel cable.

When this cable is made purposely made, it should create a main loop with a constant locking operation.

The cable and locking methods are the core operational components of the snare trap. This is because they are specially designed to tightly drift down over an animal’s neck to kill it.

It’s worth noting that the main loop of the cable should be large enough to accommodate the size of the targeted animal.

You may need to conduct some research to establish the wild game available in your area.

The other end of the cable is a smaller loop located on a swivel. 

The loop comes in handy to support the cable while the swivel is utilized to stop the cable from unwinding in the event the animal thwarts the trap.

The anchor loop, one-way locking method, the main loop, and the swivel are the essential parts of a snare cable. 

Snare Anchor

For snare traps to be effective, they must be well supported. The ideal place to attach the support system is the location where the targeted animal travels regularly.

You can identify these areas by checking for animal droppings, tracks, and old animal trails.

Once you identify the ideal location, you should attach the snare cable of a robust component such as a tree with a robust wire such as the coat hanger.

Ensure the snare trap is firmly fastened to prevent the animal from escaping.

Snare Prop

After attaching the trap, you need to brace the snare to the proper height depending on your target animal.

For instance, a squirrel is shorter than a fox. You need to adjust your snare accordingly.

You can use a thick piece of wire or a stick to adjust the cable and ensure it settles at the appropriate height above the ground.

Here are some measurements to help you figure out the appropriate height of your trap depending on your target animal. 

  • Beaver: loop size 10” – 12” and snare height 3”
  • Racoon: loop size 8”- 9” and snare height 3” – 4”
  • Coyote: loop size 9” – 12” and snare height 10” – 12”
  • Bobcat: loop size 7” – 8” and snare height 10” – 12”
  • Fox: loop size 6” – 8” and snare height 6” – 8”

Survival snares also known as trapping snares can be designed using different sizes and types of cable.

Understanding the different types of cables that are available helps you choose the best for your needs. In this case, we feature a cable that’s available in fluctuating diameter.

The wire is a 1/16 and 3/32 aircraft galvanized cable. The snare, however, will be made using the 1/16 7×7.

Cables are available in varying strand configurations. These include: 1 x 19, 7 x 7, 1 x 7, and 7 x 19. 

What do these snare cable statistics mean?

The commonly used cable dimensions when it comes to building survival trapping snares are 1 x 19 and 7 x 7.

In this case, we shall use the 7 x 7 cable. 

What’s the Weight Rating for Each Snare Size?

Understanding the weight rating for each snare size will come in handy to help you establish the best cable for your target animal.

The weight rating includes:

  • 3/64 1×19 cable: Maximum break strength -375 lbs
  • 3/64 7×7 cable: Maximum break strength -270 lbs
  • 1/16 1×19 cable: Maximum break strength -500 lbs
  • 3/32 7×7 cable: Maximum break strength – 920 lbs
  • 1/16 7×7 cable: Maximum break strength -480 lbs
  • 1/8 7×7 cable: Maximum break strength – 1700 lbs
  • 3/32 1×19 cable: Maximum break strength – 1200 lbs
  • 1/8 1×19 cable: Maximum break strength – 2000 lbs

The above example should give you an idea of the cable you should utilize.

While a coyote and foxes lunge pressure is uncertain, some studies suggest that a big 4.5-foot coyote can produce up to 250 lbs pressure.

The Best Snares for Specific Animals

  • 1/16: Rabbit Mink Marten Small Raccoon, Small Fox, Beaver
  • 3/64: Rabbit, Mink, Marten, Small Raccoon
  • The 3/32 and the 5/64 are ideal for larger wild game such as; large fox, coyote, and wolf. 
  • 5/64 and 3/32 are used for larger prey such as wolf, coyote, large fox. The 3/32 snare can hold an alligator and even small to medium black bear or deer (snaring of deer or black bear is not recommended due to regulations and should only be done in survival situations)

Types of Snare Cables

The 7 x 7 strand setup comprises of 7 strands of wire enveloped into one.

7 of those strands are enveloped once more around one strand for 49 total strands of wire.

This setup is the most flexible among the cable configurations found in snare making.

The configuration is robust and doesn’t break easily when the trapped animal is struggling to escape.

Animals can’t chew on this cable to break free once they’ve been captured.

Like everything else, the 7 x 7 comes with disadvantages with the most notable being the fact that it hardly forms a rounded hoop with ease. 

Often, the hoop is teardrop-shaped and setting it up requires more expertise.

The swivel is designed to be the snare’s attachment point. The swivel enables the cable to rotate as the trapped prey turns and twists.

The snare swivels are critical when it comes to building effective snares. 

Some snare manufacturers, however, desist from using swivels as they come at an additional cost.

However, lack of the swivel leads to loss of fur or cable breakages.

In worse situations, the prey could escape meaning you’ll have nothing to east.

Swivels are available in #11 and #9 gauges. 

The End Stops

The end stops are also known as the Ferrules.

They are used to secure various components in the snare in place.

They are available in single and double barrel, and the single comes in handy to protect swivels and secure all the snare parts.

The double, on the other hand, comes in handy to create loops in the cable. 

The end stops are crimped or squashed easily on the cable to guarantee a safer hold.

They are available in various materials such as steel, copper, and aluminum.

To apply the end stops you’ll need specialized machinery or a crimper. Still, you can utilize the heat tempered steel nuts option.

End stops can either be purchased or you can do them yourself if you have sufficient time. 

The Micro Lock

The micro lock is used on nearly all the available snares.

This is one of the best locks especially because it features minimal pelt damage and quick closing action.

It’s fitted at the end of the snare loop and is a core part of the snare.

A lock is essential in your snare trap as it prevents the prey from escaping. 

Snare Reinforcement Collar

The snare reinforcement collar is specially designed to offer support on the snare loot at varying heights.

Further, it facilitates enhanced positioning when you’re setting the snare. All you need is to tuck in the wire and twist the reinforcement collar to achieve a proper fit.

Some people utilize the barrel type but the twist-lock collars are firmer and better. 

The Washer

The washer is a simple albeit essential component.

You can buy a washer from a local hardware store near you. These come in handy to fasten the swivel head on the cable. 

Snare FAQ

How can You Make Animal Snare?

There are various animal traps you can make as we’ve already seen in this post. You may choose to:

  • Build a free standing snare
  • Build a hanging or tree snare, and finally
  • Setting your traps effectively

How do you make a strangle knot?

Pass a rope or string through the bar and create the first turn.

Traverse your rope or string around for the second time while maintaining the same path.

Tuck away the rope beneath the first turn and drag it tightly. 

How do Snare Traps Work?

A loop wire is suspended from a tree from where the snare captures prey by the neck as it passes through the trail.

As the animal struggles to free itself, the snare pulls tightly to trap it until the hunter fins his prey. 

What’s a Snare Trap?

A snare trap is a simple albeit effective trap that’s easy and affordable to make. It’s comprised of a noose, often made with a robust string or wire.

Snare traps are used by hunters to catch prey.

Finally

Now you can use your snare trap to catch wild game for survival purposes in the unfortunate event of emergencies. 

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