This trap from John and Gerri McPherson’s book, Primitive Wilderness Living & Survival Skills, is one of the more complicated deadfalls that you can build. But with a little work, the explosive firing ...

Why It Made the Cut. Clay Hayes, winner of Alone’s Season 8, pegged Brown’s survival guide as his go-to survival book, which has illustrated instructions that cover tracking and killing animals, ...

The first trap is used to pull the crank which gets the board game going when the mouse steps on the pad (a piece of wood with padding prevents the bar from actually hitting the animal).

Brad Salon kneels in the dirt of an outdoor classroom on a broad ridge in East Calais. He’s gingerly setting a primitive trap, propping up a heavy plank with a few notched twigs. “Traps are ...