run the traps
v. phr.— «A related metaphor is run the traps. A hunter will check his traps in the morning to see what animals were caught; a reporter will “run the traps” of his sources to check out a story.» —by William Safire Safire’s New Political Dictionary , 1993. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
What if, instead of being an inanimate object, a dictionary were alive? That’s the idea behind a lavishly illustrated new children’s book called The Dictionary Story (Bookshop|Amazon) by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston. This is part of a...
Katie in Kalamazoo, Michigan, wonders about the expression throw the book at, meaning to “try every means possible.” Did it originally involve literally throwing books? It’s just a metaphor in which the book refers to “the...