Well last week I was checking marten boxes loaded with 120 Belisles. I came to a set and noticed the trap was out of the box. My traps are secured to the tree with a fencing staple hammered through the trap cable swivel. I scaned the side of the tree and no trap! At first because the set was by the road I figured someone had stolen it. I started to look around and there 8 feet in front of the trees under a dusting of snow was a 10 pound male fisher with the 120 belisle tight behind the head. I'm lucky it did not snow a foot or I would never have found that fisher.
Upon investigating I found the swivel still attached to the tree. It appears when the trap fired the fisher dropped or threw himself off the tree pulling on the 1/16th attachment cable. Well he pulled the cable right out of the aluminum stop in the swivel. I checked some other traps and the stops seem like they will hold so maybe this was just a "one of". In the future I will be cripping these stops more myself to be safe.
This is just a heads up for everyone to take an extra step and check your stops. I'm not bashing Belisle as they make a great trap and I will be buying more in the future. Better safe than sorry.
Thx for the heads up BG. I use a lot of the bel 120s and to date have not had that happen to me even with fisher in them. If he couldn't swing far from the tree, he was maybe able to get a foothold and that may have helped him get free, needless to say, it should not have pulled out. In other situations, same as yours, I have found my trap gone from it's mooring and luckily enough, had my fisher lying only a short distance away and as you said, thankful there was no recent snow ..
Brian, I feel safer with a big fence staple then wire. I've seen animals bust through barbwire fence breaking the wire before any staples pulled out. I staple as high as I can also so an animal can never get a straight pull on the staple.
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