"The greatest trapper ever"

While unpacking some items in my shop, I was reminded of a long ago day trip 1989.

My wife and I had moved to Clark county Washington. For the opening of trapping season I had driven 45 mi into the Gifford Pinchot national Forest. I had set four snares on a log crossing on Rock creek. Then three other snares and 4 ft holes on drags about a half a mile away from the creek.

The owner of the construction company we worked for came out of the job site. Tell us he was buying us lunch and we're going out to check my traps that had set the day before.
The boss had done a little trapping when he was younger. And today was a reward for us completely passing framing inspection without corrections.
We walked back to the Creek crossing, with three of the 4 snares down. I had two bobcats and a coyote on a log crossing.
A short drive down to Forest service road and a little hike in to check the remaining traps and snares I had another bobcat and three coyotes.
So three bobcats and four coyotes in 11 sets. Seven snares four traps.

My boss proclaimed me the "greatest trapper ever."

I'm guessing most of us have had a unique situations that thoroughly impressed someone else or others.


Let's hear some of those stories.

I have kind of another unique story.
It was Christmas break and a buddy and I were duck hunting.
We were in the middle of a 3000 acre lake. And I had made an off-handed comment that I can catch a beaver anywhere .
Next day I took a steel T post, three snares and a handful of alder branches.
I was about 3/4 of a mile from any shoreline.
I set the snares.

The following day we came back and I had a beaver.
My buddy was so impressed He wanted to learn how to trap. He has run a beaver removal business ever since.

I got a call from a guy who explained he had beaver problems. When I met him on location I asked how he got my number? He explained that he got it from “so and so”, and he says you are the best he has ever seen. Wow!
The following day when I stopped by “so and so’s” place I asked him how many trappers he knew? He replied, “Counting you, two.”

I was trapping nuisance beaver on the railroad north of Otter rapids in the James bay lowlands in late October when the beaver were still cutting feed.
I set 34 beaver traps the day before,and when I checked them the next day I had 32 beaver and 1 muskrat.Almost all were blind sets.
Never had anything close to that before or since.

I didn’t know that it was legal to snare in Washington.

1989

I once set up a nuisance beaver job on a small creek. I put in 5 sets, 4 footholds and 1 snare. The next day I pull in the field and the farmer says "Dang you got 4 beaver down there on the creek! You sure are good" of course I had to act like I did that ll the time.

I did wipe out the colony in that one night though

I did animal control for mostly timber companies for years. I got map and directions to a new spot for a new company one year. I found that I was on a new road with fresh logging here and there. When I arrived at the problem area it was quite a sight. There were 4 culverts plugged up and water was running everywhere. I set 9 conibears and felt pretty confident I would do well. A few days later I was back and had 8 big beaver. As I was removing my boots for the drive home a pickup pulled up. It was the forester for the company, he was pleased. A few days later I got a call from my boss, he said he had just talked to the forester that I just mentioned. He said he was really impressed, I told my boss that I had impressed myself quite a bit!

The first time I ever set traps in Siltcoos lake on the Oregon coast it became obvious to me that it had not been molested in years. Beaver scent mounds were often two feet tall! I caught 22 beaver out of 23 traps. All conibears. I was trapping out of a 12 ft Jon boat and barely had 4" of freeboard. Luckily the lake was flat that day and I got home without mishap. On many winter days the lake had whitecaps!

Out of curiosity I weighed all those beaver and they averaged out at 45 lbs each.

I have hung 1 snare in a STRATEGIC spot more than once and caught a wolf, does that count…lol

I've had near 200 traps out b4 and caught only 1 possum.......does that count?

I had nearly 100 traps out and didn't even catch a possum so you got me beat, lol.

Yea but Jtrapper if you would have staked your traps you might have caught something. I was looking the other day for a writing instrument and low and behold there was your pen !

haha, i think ol maw had about a million of those stupid pen's made, probably be some of them floating around long after im gone, lol.

Had a nuisance job for beaver at Attica prison. For liability reasons they had to have a guard accompany me wherever I went. Told him to wear muck boots or hip boots if he wanted to stay close. First day was a walk in to scout the problem area, one guard with me. Was a small colony and it looked like a half dozen 330's would do the trick. Next day same guard follows me as I set, nice guy, I learned alot about prison politics as we chatted while I set.
First check day, same guard, we run the sets and 4 sets connect. The guard couldn't believe it. Next day, second check, three more guards showed up to "tag along"...lol. Took 2 more and they carried them out for me.

Side note...we got back to where I park next to the maintenance building, a few NY city prisoners were painting steel rails. One of the guards picked up a beaver and walked over to them and says "you guys ever see a water woodchuck?"

Back in 2010, I set 34 rat floats, two traps to a float. I had 62 rats the next day, less than a 24 hr check. I thought I was superman, then the reality of finishing them all so I could do it all over again the next day with an additional 40 traps out set in.

Years ago, my brother and I were checking traps after school. I had just started driving he was only 14. I parked the truck and we ran down this creek to check otter traps and I had a snare on a log crossing over the creek. I had a gray fox in the snare. The snare was destroyed, very kinked up, and we didn’t bring one along to replace it. I opened the loop about 3”, and laid it flat on the log crossing, with the twisted support wire to hold it in place. (Just for the heck of it really). The next day we had a red fox by the foot in that same snare. We couldn’t believe it!

Replaced the snare that time though, that was a great log crossing.

John

well this might count, yesterday while I was working a gun and knife show, giving out free samples of beaver slim-jam's , a guys and his son start talking about his neighbor having a real good trappers come in and trap the beaver, he goes on to tell me that this guy set 4 sets and got 3 beaver, on the first night, he say maybe I know of him, his name is trapper ROY , lol

Roy,
THAT is funny friend!
Thanks for the chuckle.

Blessings,
Mark

Catching a target animal with just one set is certainly a good indication that you know what you are dong.

Well it would not be far to say that catching a possum does not count . But it only makes sense to inform everyone that the possum is the fastest animal on earth .How else can you explain that nearly all of the perfect can canine sets you made the day before are all clogged with psosum

More than once I remade a set that had connected And even though it was not te way I would have liked it to there was a animal waiting there the next day Only traps that are set can catch an animal.

I've been trapping 15 years before I caught my first possum.

I once set six Conibear buckets on a marsh island across from a fish house. Baited the buckets with fresh tuna caught that day. Next morning I had five raccoons and a nutria. Often wondered what the nutria was doing at my set since it was a vegetarian. I could have gone six for six except for that darn nutria.

Those were resident coons. Workers threw them trash fish every day. I snuck in late and checked out early and had to keep a secret.

When I was 10 I found 3 1 single longs and started pocket gopher trapping. That summer I caught 22 or so at .25 each I had $5.50. My mom got me 1 dozen victor single long 1s through Montgomery Wards and the next summer the first day I set 15 sets and the next day I had 11 gophers! I was the king of the township!. I caught enough the rest of the month to buy a $4 bike and now I was a long liner! lol. Trapping has always been rewarding but nothing as an adult gave me the rush that that day as an 11 year old did.

Bryce

I've had 3 high % checks.

The first one a friend asked me to trap a stretch of the raccoon river west of Desmoines IA
The coon where leveling his corn. 1 put in 13 sets in about a 1/2 mile and had 12 the next AM the last trap had a paint turtle lol.

#2 I set up a farm near a feed lot in Central Wyoming. There was good fox sign, I put in14 sets . This was on a 320 acr farm .there was lots of coon sign, so it was a challenge to avoid coon. 12 fox 1coon and a coon pullout the next day. Always that one tough bolt.

#3 this one was a head scratcher, I stopped to ask permission to trap a farm in Eastern Wyoming. The rancher said somthing was killing his chickens, after finding a 3" hole in the chicken wire with brown hair I told him he was feeding a mink. His wife had several barn cats,but they had a mile long drain going through there property dunping in to a larg slough. So I put in 12 pocket sets, each one was on a drain pipe or spring seep, exept for 2 wall sets at the drive way culvert. I caught 4 buck mink and 4 females the first check. Then in the next week I caught 3 jumbo rats and one coon. I told the rancher I thought his mink problem should be good for now. He said we had more chickens killed last night. Sure enough there where big dusty mink tracks leaving the coop. So he had his wife lock the cats in the barn. In three nights we had a huge buck mink in the 110. I trapped that farm fore 3 more weeks and not another mink. An the water sets were still operating.

One fall we had a black wolf that would come into the village every night. It became famous and all the men in the village were locked and loaded and driving around hunting it every night with lights.

This went on for about a month and folks were getting paranoid about sending their kids to school in the morning.
Some were carrying guns to walk in town or to the store.

One day I walked up the hill behind my house and set a single snare on the narrow part of the ridge barely wide enough for a snare. On the third day I was fishing eels and forgot to check it but a buddy came and picked me up and said he shot the black wolf and asked if I had a snare set . I confirmed I did set a snare. He brought me to the gas station where most of the village had gathered to gawk at the now dread famous black wolf that was terrorizing the village. I got a hero’s welcome and felt like Peter and the wolf for a day.

I have outsmarted Possums for years. and for $ 29.95 I can teach you how to do it too. Never have I ever caught a possum. been trapping over fifty years now.
The Number to cal is BR - 549 .

Been there and done that makes one scratch his head doesn't it

I think my greatest success story on the trapline was where I had set one 330 Belisle Super X on each corner of an old beaver dam for otter. As was often the custom with otter, nothing for about a week. Then one day I checked and had two otter in one of the traps and one otter in the other trap. I thought 3 otter for 2 traps was pretty good.

Not I.

My hero! Sounds crazy, but I think a lot of new trappers need to see this. I know when I started out I almost quit because I’d catch like crazy at first then nothing. I thought I didn’t know what I was doing (still question that at times) and thought maybe they need to get someone else to trap for them. It took some asking and reading to realize you’re not going to have a full line every single day. Generally the more sets you have out the greater your odds. But, you can’t catch what ain’t there in some cases.

I've also caught 6 coyotes in the first 12 traps checked. Had over 100 sets left to check (a 42 thousand acre property) ....... didn't catch another coyote that day.....

Trapping rats in the Miss. refuge in Mn.You can only run 40 traps I had set all feedbed sets. Checking the next day I caught like 25 or so in a row and began to think I will run the table and the next trap was snapped and empty. Started catching again and was almost done and had 2 rats in one trap so now I'm back to 100%, last trap.... empty.

My first year trapping a property that had never been trapped I called the landowner because I started feeling bad about all the critters I was catching. He said catch everything I could, so I did. At that time I was just trapping in exchange for a couple of turkeys. I thought I was a trapping God. Doubles every single day for a 10 days. Coyote/coyote, coyote/fox, coyote/bobcat, bobcat/bobcat, bobcat/fox, fox/fox. And all that was on one stretch of road through some small pines. I always wondered who was caught first. Those sets were maybe 10yds apart on opposite sides of the road.

Since that first time that road hasn’t produced but maybe 2 coyotes and about 3 bobcats over the last 4-5 years, lol. I quickly realized I wasn’t anywhere as good as I thought. Still learning to this day.

Catch will naturally drop off as time goes on.generally speaking.Exceptions are sets made on dispersal routes at choke points earlier in the season.And a couple other instances like some late spring beaver set locations,Millette set in winter,etc. These sets will produce fur on extended checks.
A savvy trapper will add new sets by extending the line,and leave productive sets and move the dead ones.
This will keep you skinning.

Once set 2 snares and a foot hold at a bait site. Next day caught 3 bobcats at this set. Can it get any better ?

The “dead sets” are the most productive I have found. If I move a set thinking it’s dead that set location will invariably be visited. I just expand!

This ^^^

I leave a set a minimum of 10 nights....

I expect an animal to be in every trap I check. Been doing that since I was 12.
I can say that in the 50+ years of trapping, I've only succeeded once. That was last week. I set one foothold on a 2,000 acre island and caught a coyote, the only one on that Island. The ground nesting birds are safe for one more season, unless another coyote walks across the high rise bridge.