I learned something important this morning:
Never trust your brother or brother-in-law, who have never used a spring trap before, to tell you how to secure it.
We went with an 8-inch-long, 3/4-inch wide "nail" and staked it to the ground. The area there is soft from forest mulch decaying over the years, with red clay below that. I figured maybe they were right - if we got low enough with the stake and hit the red clay.
Nope!
That trap sure as hell caught something this morning. And whatever it caught, disappeared with the entire trap, chain, stake, and all! There is no evidence of any of it left! So now there is some fox, coyote, possum, raccoon, SOMETHING running around with MY TRAP stuck to it's **** leg! And I doubt it would keep the stupid animal from coming back after chickens anyway, so I guess that was pointless.