Deadfall Dead Weight

Don't Believe the Hype

If fire by friction and making spoons rank highly as bushcraft skills, then making traps, especially the figure four deadfall, is on the top of every survival whittler's list. The figure four deadfall trap has long since been near the bottom of my list of skills to teach as food from furry animals is very low priority, let alone the fact that this particular trap is hard to make, hard to set and for the effort, not sufficiently effective in a general survival context. In this article I'll justify my disenchantment with this ridiculous contraption. I am constantly amazed that it is described as "one of the most important skills", to make one. Personally, I think firecraft, construction of weatherproof shelter, signalling, water treatment and plant identification are somewhat higher.

Figure Four Deadfall Trap

It's a rubbish trap for tons of reasons, but I made one as an exercise with the the chaps from Natural Bushcraft on one of the meets some time ago and it appears that someone has made a page about it:

http://fromtheold.com/steve-marvells-figure-four-deadfall-trap

I'm so proud :)

Here's the original video: