I had a couple coon traps stolen. Just after I saw they were gone the guy called and apologized and went brought my traps back to the location

Oh geez, I forgot about this one:

During the last ballot measure to ban trapping in Oregon the anti's had attack ads with a bunch of "facts", anecdotes, etc. One of those was how indiscriminate traps were and the story of a young woman who got her arm caught in a 330. Turns out that one of our better trappers (now passed) had a legally set underwater 330 on private property and this young gal saw it and was trying to steal it to save animals. She had to wear it in to the sheriffs office to have it removed if I remember correctly.

The only screwy part of the story was our guy didn't want to press charges as he figured she had suffered enough.

Not me but my dad had Muskrat stole out of a shed one night.tracks in the snow led back to a neighbors house.when they were confronted they denied taking them.dont remember how many but was quite a bit of money back in the 70s when rats were good money.

Caught a coon in trail with a 160, it was stolen, trap was reset and put back on the stand, but not the way I do it. I remember Dad saying once he had a red fox stolen from him and the thief reset the trap and left it lying on top of the gournd!

Cuz an i were out trapping beaver there was a bounty on this one spot for beaver as they were flooding the road so we set it up caught one the first day second day pull up an there's a guy pulled over there with a fresh wet beaver in his truck ..the 330 was fired an threw off to the side guy denied it up an down but we knew what he did was just a small kit but 25 dollar bounty on the tail he peeled out of there never to be seen again

Not trapping but about 15 years ago I was buying Silver Dollar City tickets on craigslist. Had done it before but always by check. Emailed person and they want me to money wire them at Wal-Mart. Only time I have ever wired money and as we were in a time crunch to get them before we left I did. Three days go by and no tickets. I email and tell the person if this was a scam then just let me know and I will move on so can get tickets some other way. Get emailed back saying how dare I accuse them of scamming, hurt their feelings, sad story, etc. and they did send them. So I apologize and two days later we leave without tickets and they never came. I'm sure they got a laugh out of the deal.

I caught one of my thieves one time and beat the snot out of him. Worked him real good.

I was in high-school and fox were bringing good money then. Had one set with a fresh catch circle with fox tracks, scat and cowboy boot tracks. Seen the farmer combining n a field close by so stopped to talk to him. Didn't know anything about it but fresh blood on his cowboy boots and the gloom of his combine said otherwise. Pulled all my traps and never went back.

Back in the '70's when I first started trapping, I made a nice coon set on a wide trail, almost like a two-track. I used a long hardwood drag just like I read about in some of the trapping mags and books.
Next day went to check the set. Trap and drag gone. Up the trail a ways, there lay my drag and trap. It had a pig hide that had been skinned out and the hide was left in my trap with the foot in trap.
Never figured that one out. No one around that area had hogs. One of the strangest things I've encountered. I still wonder who found that hog and skinned it out.

Saudi Arabia they cut your hand off for stealing, now that may curb the US stealing problem.

That's the wrong way to look at it. Take all the money from a anti trapping tree hugger!.

When I was in high school I was trapping rats on a river, two days in a row i had all the rats stolen. Well the next day I skipped school and got to the river in the dark, sure enough here the thief came, I saw him go up to the upper end of the sets so I snuck down to the lower end sure enough here he came with a dozen rats. I stood up from behind a big bolder, he dropped the rats and tried to run. I got ahold of him smoothed up his head a few times and threw him in the river. Never had any more thefts

I was snareing coyotes one time, had someone take 2 coyotes with the snares. That evening I had a young cowboy come to the house and wanted to know if I'd buy a couple coyotes from him, yep my coyotes and they still had my snares on them. He said he had snared them, l said how come they have my trap tag on your snares? I told him if I lost anymore coyotes I was coming to see him. Never lost any more

Here's an opposite..

Had a trap location all pre ready. Been spraying urine on this end of a log when we'd go on a wheeler ride.
Opening day pull up with trap in hand and there lay a $5 bill exactly where I was gonna set the trap..

When I was about 14 years old I had a muskrat trap set on a floating log in the creek at our cabin on the lake.
There was a kid same age from the city whose folks had a camp on the lake not far away.He was banned from hanging out with me and coming to our camp cause I drank a bit of whiskey once in a while
Anyway I found my rat trap knocked off the notch on the log a couple times and had seen that kid hanging around that area a few times previously.
Anyway I caught up with him one day and worked him over for knocking my trap off the log even though he whined profusely that he didnt do it..
I found out later from an old trapper that I should have a bit of sod on the log notch to keep the rats from knocking it off,lol.

I had 17 cage traps stolen. I know who did it and it's not over yet.

Some stories are better not told if a guy was smart about it.

Most of mine are not funny but one thief in particular was so stupid I did laugh about it. Apaerently he went back to his truck to get a pair of bolt cutters so he could steal my 220 that was cable staked to the ground, guess he couldn't pull it, but the really stupid part is he cut the SPLIT RING that attached the trap to the stake. LOL Obviously too dumb to work a key ring. Yu can see it here with these broken snares...

Lol that’s great!

i guess i have a couple others about some fine fellow sportsmen.
first is bird hunters im assuming because of the area ( i always waited till late season and set in out of the way spots) found my trap smashed beyond recognition almost, hangin on a gate to state ground. hope they had fun yankin the chain stake by hand.
second im guessin late muzzle loader hunters, checkin coyote sets again on state ground. good bit of snow i see drags marks to the parkin lot. was super early but though to myself o thats cool that they got a deer. headin to my set i realize the drag marks are coming from that direction... sure enough had a coyote circle with blood in in and drag marks startin right there. atleast they left the trap on this on, prolly only due to chain stake in frozen ground.

I was having trouble and took a small muskrat put in my trap by the hind foot. After work I checked the trap. The rat was gone and there was a front foot in the trap. Ran into prime suspect later and told him exactly what I had done. He stood there and tried to explain how the rat escaped and left the front foot in the trap.