Maybe You Guys Know...

I was asked if I could purchase some graspers for the employees. Well of course I can but my questions is: What for? We have no

snakes that need grasping and if we did they would send me anyway. The vast majority of our animals consist of raccoon and

squirrels and I don't think a grasper would be good for either one. Opossum come with built-in handles and if one of our guys

grasps a skunk, I want to be there and take pictures. ( With the telephoto lens, of course ) So those of you that find a grasper

handy, what do you use it for? ( I do have one guess, but I'll see if someone else says it first )

Dead animal or bird retrieval.... Though a glue board on a pole with gorilla tape works too!

Other than snakes, my Beagle Club does trash cleanup at a Conservation Area we run our field trials on, and it's handy for picking trash out of the water and poison ivy. And, it's a dumpster divers delight! LOL

I have gotten baby raccoons out of a soffit with grabbers from the attic side. Had a Ridgid camera snake in one hand so I could see down in there.Saved time over taking the wood soffit apart in that case.

Those cat grabbers are an excellent tool for coon pups in a tight spot.

I use the blue ones from WCS.

I have used them on a skunk with no issue Paul, but I can't tell you how

I've used them on bats. I purposely don't have a catch pole on the truck so they are less likely to send me in after raccoons. There's a different guy that likes to do that stuff. He gets sent after all the babies.

have gotten dead animals out of chimneys using a set OOS on a rope...drop slowly down til get to the animal and then drop fast...gives a great hold

That's a good idea with the O/S trap. Since we are telling stories here is a good one.

Had a customer that got curious many years back about how an O/S trap worked. So he progressed to pick one up from his lawn after being told not to do so. He later said he just wanted to examine it and put it back. He didn't see any harm in doing so was his comment.

In his handling the trap it some how slipped from his grasp while examining it and it fell landing on his one foot. He was wearing flip flop footwear at the time. Naturally the trap hit just the right spot and fired across three toes.

He never told me the story but his young son did the next time I ran traps he was home from school and couldn't wait to tell me what happened to daddy. LOL

I bet that felt good.

Like Ron White the comedian use to say in one of his monologs. You cant fix stupid.

I prefer the snake tongs over the cat grabbers.

Ok, I've seen a few mentions of O/S trap. What is this?

Have used snake tongs on coon pups many times. They work great for reaching in tight places. You can grab a tail with them if you need to. Like a furry snake.

"Out of sight" mole trap

Yeah, "cat grabbers" are handy for coon kits, grey squirrels, various and sundry pick-ups.

Dave, if you can grab a grey squirrel with a cat grasper you must be aging a lot more gracefully than I!

bob..now that I am done crying from laughing about the guy with flip flops and the trap on 3 toes...wow...I envisioned that all the way

reminds me of a story I read on tman trapping forum where an anti watched a guy setting a coyote trap in a field...then went to find the trap when the guy was gone and apparently was on his hands and knees "feeling" around...that number 3 bridger 4 coiled trap got him right across the knuckles...he used his cell phone to dial 911 and that is how they called the trapper back with the tag on the trap......we all wanted to know what the catch circle looked like and if he had catch pictures

I got a red in one out of a closet. I think he wanted to be caught. He'd been trapped in the closet long enough. I opened the 2nd floor window and tossed him out rather than try to carry him through the house. The whole time I'm thinking he's going to be right back in one of those holes I spotted up on top. The people were having work done and I'm sure the noise and activity chased him down the walls into their bedroom.

? Can somebody post or send me a pic of "Cat Grabbers"? Thanks, BB

Snake Tongs
Cat Grasper

OK, thanks LAt

Yeah, thanks Ron. Now that we've got that taken care of, I have to order some catch poles for the guys. What's the handiest size? I

think they come in 28", 36", 48", and 60". I believe they also have adjustable 6 to 12 footers for people like me who are not allowed

on ladders.

I use the 60 inch catch pole. I have used it on critters from cat size to large dog size, including beaver, otter, bobcat, coyote fox, etc. If I need something longer, I use a snare attached to a Telescoping Extension Pole

. The padded roller can be removed from a roller frame and the frame then bent into a “J HOOK”. This comes in handy for removing dead animals from under narrow crawl spaces, porches, and other restricted areas. Snares can be made to hold almost any sized mammal.

Paul, I had one of those adjustable ones, Ketch All 6-12 foot. Seemed like a great idea at the time, being able to reach into those dumpsters and grab a coon with it. I sold it real quick, after my first attempt at putting a coon into a cage from 12 feet away. The customer got his fee in just free entertainment that day. We keep a 5 foot Ketch All on the truck now. It seems to be the handiest size for what we run into. It is long enough to keep me at a safe distance, and short enough that when working alone I can still manage a coon on the end and get it into a cage safely.

36"- 48" is usually plenty for me in most cases. But I have many years using a control pole for fox and coyote work in my live market trapping years. You lose control of an animal if you get much bigger. I did few thousand canine removals from coil spring traps then transferred them to a smaller cages or a larger capacity holding pen. Longer poles have their limited place but on a daily basis I would rather use a modest length control pole.

Most of my work has been up close in most cases but we carry 3 sizes on our truck that fit most situations.

Of the people that buy from, most ADC guys buy the 5 ft. The coyote live catch guys buy the 4 ft. ones. Hope that helps Paul.

Thanks guys; that was some great information. I haven't had a catchpole or a graspers in my truck since somebody borrowed them and

that was years ago. ( Which is kind of funny since I still probably do more hand to hand combat with animals than any two employees )

Since these guys are fairly new, I think a four footer is all the can reasonably handle. I am not making this up: I had to stop

posting to go out and get a distemper raccoon. Just me and my trusty landing net. That raccoon may have been sick but he sure could

run. I had to chase him halfway through the woods and had to knock him off of two tree trunks before I could get the net over him.

I've decided that the reason I use a landing net in my old age is that there is way more room for error.

Wink, my Ninja training enables me to catch greys going by at a dead run. I am also invisible and bulletproof...
Maybe I used the term "cat grabbers" too loosely; I have several sizes of "pick-up tools", and the smaller ones are great for pulling a squirrel out from behind something.