Two Year Trapper

By Jake Sanford

I have been a two year trapper and I  am really getting into it. For my first year, I had come across a box of  traps. My grandpa had loaned me 15 traps and I had started. I was all by  myself because my dad didn't trap and my grandpa was too old to get outdoors  and start me off. I looked online and just started to experiment, along with asking my grandpa for tips and hints.

I am 17 and I have a steady job. I work on a farm and I have about 750 acres of trapping grounds all to myself. I tried to find time to trap around school and work. It is kind of hard. My first year I ran a small trap line and had only came out with 2 raccoons, 2 skunk, and 3 muskrats. I didn't make a profit of any kind. I think my pride and joy was my first Raccoon that I had trapped and I had also tanned it. It is wonderful stretched out, hanging up on my wall in my room.

This year I had saved money and I had gone to my local trap store and had purchased as many tools and traps as I could. In the pre-season I had gone out on my line with no traps in and found tracks of the up coming season. I had made some pre-sets with bait and scent for fox and coyote. I had started to notice the animals were scrounging around in my area. I thought it was great. I had brushed up on my work in the dirt hole set area and had started to scout the patterns of the feeding muskrats.

I was starting to think of how trapping was a great sport. It is very time consuming and a learning experience. I had set my traps opening night and it was only a day later in which I had taken a wonderful red fox. I had only made 5 bucks off that one because of the warm fall which caused the fur to be not as mature at a 25$ fox. It was only 2 days later in which I had trapped a wonderful grey fox on the same line. I had known they were very rare in my area. My dad had not even known they were around. I had this guy mounted and is on display on my shelf. After I had trapped those two great fox I was thinking to myself, "You know Jake, the more time and effort you put in to this sport the more you are going to get out of it." In the first couple of weeks of the trapping season,  I had taken my time on eat set, and they were coming out wonderful. I was paying attention to wind direction, avoiding human scent, and how I had set each trap to the minor and little detail.

I had started to put more and more hours in at my job at working on the farm and I had to pull my traps just a few weeks into the season. It was short but I think it was well worth the 25 minutes that I had put in at each set. I had taken 4 more Raccoons and 5 more muskrats. I had come out with 2 fox, 4 Raccoons, and 5 Muskrats. This year was short, but it was priceless. I feel the up coming next few years when I get out of school, is going to be great.

Running the local creek, trapping that local pond and watching the fence row for the fox or coyote that may make that one step right in the perfect spot, between the guide sticks, over the pan, as the paw sinks into the sand. You walk in from a distance. You notice that there is some kind of animal, but you think, will it get up and run, no, it doesn't. You walk up to the trap you had spent time on. Preparing it with rust, dye and wax. You see the animal struggle, listening to the tune of the clink in the trap chain on the dirt and against itself. This is the prize. Adrenaline running thru your body. You go along with the routine, dispatching the animal. Then moving on to the next trap, hoping there will be another. Good trapping to all...