Thought Proctor was a new design lol,iv'e never seen a decent trap in any garden centre or agricultural dealer stores.They are all cheap crap and your wasting your time with them.
That's why I stick with fourteen acre though I think I've bought of flatpack in the past also.
I don't believe everything I read and never have, I process it and disregard the bits of no use to me.
Buy my traps from fourteen acre, Duffus and Talpax with a few nomoles lying about also.
All I needed was the theory and links to suppliers, the book gave me the encouragement not to give up. It was a valuable tool in getting me started and I have no regrets buying it.
I'M busy working sheep land at present (still snow behind the dykes) and doing very well, like you say your learn the skill yourself with time.
I like books and am an avid reader on all subjects.my first book was "the cat sat on the mat" and funnily enough it helped me learn to read and write.
Maybe my nursery teacher should have started me off something much more complex?
Keep reading folks it's good for the brain, anyone that thinks they don't need to learn is a fool.
I look forward to reading OTC's best selling book as he seems to have plenty of opinions. Like you say I found it a good read and it helped me from knowing nothing about moles to quite a good hand at clearing them up.
memory like a sieve here regards where I have set traps,started to use my phone and voice recorder feature describing the field and run system,works ok but not foolproof,what do others use apart from flags and a good memory?
As a side note I will be spray marking my traps in future alongside flag marking, some idiot left a gate open and 300 ewe's came onto my patch and knocked the markers over.Think I'm only 3 traps missing (duffus) the talpex were still easy to spot.