Trapping pictures Repost.

Carl

Well-known member
Staff member
Byu popular demand, I will re-post my trapping pictures from the 194-887 seasons.
I hope this works, I did this earlier but it crashed when I tried to preview it. Gotta remember to copy my text before posting big posts!

Here I am posing with a coon I caught during the 1984-85 season. He was a little pissed and would not turn towards the camera. I used 1.5 coils short chained & swivels with notched triggers for all my dry land sets. For lure & scents I used Wildlife Scents by M. Stechnicki (sp?) out of Latrobe PA. He non-meat bait was deadly for coons!
Notice my proper Mountain Man hair & attire!
CF85-86Racoon.jpg
Here are my furs for the 84-85 season. Prices that year were $25-35 for coons, ~$7-12 for 'rats and ~$7 for grinners (possums). Most coons I caught in PA were 20-25 pounds, the big one in the pic was 35!
CF84-85Furs.jpg

Here I am with my first fox I caught during the 1985-86 season, my senior year of high school. The night before I had caught a snowshoe hare in trap and something had eaten most of it. I shoved the hares foot, which is quite big, down the dirt hole & re-set. Mr. fox came back to finish his meal and that was his undoing.
CF85-861stFox.jpg

Here I am making a beaver set in Dec. 85. The beaver were coming out at this spring to cut trees in the snow. I made a slide set with a #3 jump on a drowning slide. The burlap bags you see were to hold rocks in at the deep end of the slide wire. I used a little castor to hold their attention when they came up. Caught one the first night at this set. I also used under ice pole sets for beaver this year with good luck. Pole sets work good but cutting a tree, building the shelf for the trap and cutting a 3' hole in the ice is a lot of work.
CF85-86BvrSet.jpg


Here are my furs for the 85-86 season. Not bad for running the line before school in Moms car. Coons, 'rats & grinnners. I had also caught two mink, a female and a huge black male. Prices were good for the mink, $25 & $35 respectively. However, other prices had fallen. Coons & grey fox were down to $20-25, 'rats $7 and possum $5.
CF85-86Furs.jpg

I will post more in a follow-up.
 
The next year, 1986-87, was my first year of military college in Marion, AL. My Mom's family is from there and my uncle has a 350 acre ranch close to town. Over Christmas break, I trapped on his ranch before heading back to PA. I had to adjust my techniques. I quickly learned that my 1.5 coils were too big for the smaller Alabama coons, which weighed 10-15 pounds. I started using #1 jumps and coils for them instead. Also, where all my coon sets in PA were dry land, all of them down here were water sets.
I caught this bobcat in a fox set. He was an old tom with worn out teeth. That is the first & only bobcat I have ever killed. I kept him to tan but lost the hide when a buddies freezer died and everything rotted.
CF86-87Bobcat.jpg

That season was a good one. I caught lots of coons, fox, the cat & even an otter. I caught the otter in a coon set and was lucky to hold him. Prices that year were bad. The otter only brouht about $30, fox ~$15 and coons were ~$10.
Here is my catch for the year:
CF86-87Furs.jpg

I trapped the next year for a few days but stopped because I couldn't find a fur buyer. Prices had fallen so much, nobody was buying. What a shame, I had more places to trap, was really set-up and could have filled a freezer that year. It was the last year I trapped.
I really enjoyed running a trapline, it taught me more about wildlife than anything else. If I had time and the places to do it now, I would.
Hope you enjoyed!
 
I will print the pictures at work tomorow and show them to my buddy. I dont think he will sighn up for the site and they dont show unless you are logged in. Great photos and story. I went round and round a long time ago with another guy about the effects of predator trapping on the prarries. I have since learned how effective it can be to help keep a local population in check. Like you said though, a lot of hard work if the price for fur isn't there to support the effort.
 
I just got started trapping 2 years ago and I love it. No there isn't any real money in it but it's what we as hunters love. Trying to outwit animals in their habitat. The farmer where I hunt greatly appreciates us controling the population of Muskrats that keep tearing up his ponds, and the raccoons that keep raiding the corn he uses to feed cattle. I'm no great writer but I tend to liken trapping to hanging up your stocking on Christmas eve, You know what you want but you are never sure what you'll find come Christmas morning. Sometimes when lucky it far exceeds your greatest hope.

Kyle
 
Kyle,

You need some used coon traps? I'm bringing back all of my old traps from my Moms house on Saturday. Dave Parks has first call on the 'rat traps but I have a bunch of 1.5 coils set up for dryland coon sets that I need to get rid of too. I don't think he wanted those.
I will post an inventory on Sunday or Monday.
 
Let me know what you have and how much you want and I'll see what I can get. Of course I am the low man on the pole at work right now so I have to work a double(7am-Midnight tomorrow and friday) so I should have some extra cash pretty quick.

The very first animal I trapped was a bobcat cub. I was after the mom but I was still hooked.

Kyle
 
Hell, I didn't know what a pm was till now. Sounds great I'll go over that list this weekend after I've had a chance to get some sleep. Still on standby !!!! There should be an IQ test to buy a turkey fryer, 2 fires so far.

Thanks,
Kyle



I'm still trying to figure out how to make my pic a smaller file size for my posts.
 
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