Well I caught the fever! I saw my first raccoon while I was out deer hunting, this was a very new critter to me and I wanted to harvest it. I drew me bow back as it stopped at about five yards. I centered my pin between its eyes and I let my arrow fly. Right above its head, I missed and the coon ran up a small tree. It stayed there until after I left when it got dark.
I thought for a while about how I could get just one, and seeing more raccoons out hunting and me and my dad were both seeing red fox. We never got any shots at them but were close. I decided I would try and figure out this trapping thing that I only knew nothing about. That year for a Christmas gift from granny I got a gift card to Gander Mountain, the next day I went to spend it. I bought four duke 1 ½ and a bottle of lure and a trapping book. I read the book a few times and set and reset the traps several times. I couldn’t wait for the time next season rolled around.
During the summer my grandpa who is also my neighbor who had woodchuck problems for a few years asked if I wanted to try and trap em. So later that day I was over setting the traps. I waited a long week and a half until I caught one. I was so happy and so was gramps because it was a big old female. I ended up getting four more for him and the last one granny fried up for us and it was delicious.
Finally when season rolled around I was out the first day to set my traps. I didn’t know much but I made sets in what I thought were likely locations. The next day they were empty but the second day I made a catch two in fact. I caught a nice female coon and a opossum. I was really excited and hurried home to show my dad. I did what I thought was good for the next month and a half by getting two more opossums and three more coons and a bunny and a squirrel. Then when Christmas break came I decided I could try for a muskrat in the swamp next to my drive way. I ordered four duke 110’s and a colony trap. They came the day after Christmas and I got one while settin traps. I saw it head first halfway into a clump of grass. So I decided to give it a Big Stomp and it took off like a rocket for the culvert under my drive but I stupefied it and it missed the culvert, and died beside it. I didn’t have any waders so I decided that I would just be setting the culvert. I got four more rats by midway through January. I also caught two more raccoons. I got to experience my first tag along on my buddies beaver line, he used some “colorful” language when he pulled up a trap with only a few toes in it. But a few sets later he got a beaver. It was a really cool experience when a beaver tail slapped the water, it startled me cause I didn’t know what it was.
Well this is pretty much a quick sum up of my first season and how I got into trapping.
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07-08 TRAP TOTALS
COON-15 (1-4xl, 7-3xl, 4-2xl)
GRINNERS-9
GREY FOX-2
MINK-1
SQUIRREL-1
