[KegRiver]

All I ever did was soak my traps in muskeg to darken them, then wax.

I figured that darkening made them look more natural since a lot of roots are very dark or even black. One never knows when a squirrel or weasel will knock some dirt off the trap.

And natural scents I figured were better then scents of man made items or chemicals.

Many animals can smell odors we can't. Their noses tell them something is there even when they can't see it.
And they are used to bits of steel laying around in farm country but not gas or painted items.

I figured dig outs were due to curiosity, they are smelling something they don't recognize. Or they smelled food.

Why would they dig out a piece of steel, they know it not something to eat.
If it alarmed them they avoid it.

Bait smell on a trap is almost guaranteed to result in a dig out, they think it's a food item.
It could be bait smell on gloves used to handle a trap, it could be a chip off a piece of bait that dropped in while digging the trap bed.

I always set bait off to one side and only used gloves that never touched bait when handling traps. And placed the bait after the trap was covered or before the trap bed was dug.

It's the little things a guy never thinks of that cause issues. Like a runny nose dripping onto the trap or transporting traps along with a leaking jerry can.

I had a separate box for traps, and I lined the bottom with spruce or pine branches, needles and all.

I never had any faith in commercial trap treatments or baits.

I never knew what was actually in the commercial products or how carefully they were made.
Content labels only tell you what the main ingredients are. And they say nothing about possible contaminants.

I also never had a trap dug out. I did have too many that were avoided but the many of the Coyote I targeted never stepped foot on a farm.
To many of them, steel was unfamiliar.

One last thing. I only treated traps for Coyote and Fox, all other traps were used as is. And occasionally one of my untreated traps would catch a Fox or Coyote. That tells you something about how much steel worries them.

I should also mention that I hardly used foot hold traps for anything other then Fox and Coyote after conibears hit the market.

About the only other things I used foot hold traps for were Weasel and Lynx.
And I preferred snares for Lynx.

I only boiled new traps and then only to remove any oil.

Trap dye does nothing to prevent rust, that's what wax is for.