We love baitless woodchuck trapping with our compact 18 and 24 inch long Comstock double door cage traps, especially when combined with sheet metal nose cones at dens. It’s not uncommon to make these positive sets and get a call a few hours later, “you have a woodchuck in every trap.” Many times traps can be placed with a nose cone dropped over the den hole, connecting the trap to the den in little more than a minute or two. This will of course take chucks coming and going, while requiring no bait or maintenance in a set that is less likely to take non-targetted animals.
 
With nuisance trapping time is of the essence. At times there are odd situations that require additional fencing, blocking or narrowing to direct a chuck into a trap. Without the right, easy to use material, constructing a set can be time consuming or all but impossible. I found that 12×16 and 12×32 sheets of aluminum, when used with T-bar support stakes, make the job a snap. You can even bend the long pieces in an arc if necessary to direct woodchucks into the traps. You are only limited by your imagination. Of late I have used the 16 inch sheets, as shown, to support the blocking as you would a T-bar for supports.
 
When chuck holes are large and wide and not completely covered by the nose cone I will cover the portion of the hole not covered by the nose cone with the aluminum on one or both sides if necessary, placing dirt on top of the aluminum to hold them in place. It seems that with regularity I find new uses for these light weight, compact sheets of aluminum.