I don't really know how I got into trapping. But I remember the first time I tried to trap something. It was by one of my friend's uncle's houses for a so-called badger. He told me he had gone out their to set traps for it and when I replied that my dad also has some traps he'd let me use, he told me I should set them out their.  So for a couple of days I read up on trapping in any magazine that had anything to do with trapping. The particular magazine was Fur Fish and Game. After reading a few of those I went out there to set my own traps.  Not ever making a set before and trapping with no one that had ever caught an animal before. For I live in North Dakota and their aren't many people that trap up here so we were on our own.  We made some of the crudest sets that I have ever made. However, I checked the traps every day with no results.  And then one day came when a trap was sprung without anything in it.  After that we brought every trap we had and set them in a 10 X 10 area.  After now having a trap per square foot we came back anxiously the next day to find nothing and day after day this was repeated, until I pulled my traps.  I hadn't given up on trapping though as the magazines kept me interested.  So I proceeded to find a different area to trap.  After doing a little scouting I came upon a nice creek system that flowed out of a lagoon system back into the Souris River.  Along this were nice trails came in and out of the water. So using some of the rusted #1 and #1.5 long springs of my dads I drove south of my house and set them in the trails trying to remember as much as I could from the reading that I had done. Well after a couple of days I had one of the traps sprung and a foot in it from a muskrat. This surprised me that it could chew its foot off in less then one day since I check my traps everyday and I decided it was time to buy a conibear of the type I had read about in Fur Fish and Game. So I purchased one #110 Magnum and that night I set it. And the next day returned anxiously to check traps and what lie in the #110 Magnum was a nice size rat that stretched out to 16 inches. I asked the guy at the trapping supply store how to skin one and he told me how to after buying five muskrat stretchers from him. I skinned it without putting one hole in it and fleshed it out. Well now after all of this I was hooked. And I started to buy traps. I asked my mom to buy traps long before Christmas just in case they would sell out, like that would have happened. So I tricked her however and got a couple of traps to use before Christmas out of the 3 dozen that I bought. Of which half a dozen were #330 Magnums for beavers.  Using the one #330 she let me use. I set an entrance to a Beaver hut and the next day had a nice beaver. Since I didn't know how to skin beavers I went back up to the local trapping supplier and he showed me how and I sold it to him whole.  This is when I knew I truly would never be able to quit trapping.

As once I got my traps for Christmas I set for my first mink and a couple days after had a nice bull which I sold whole and another after that a couple days later. In fact I trapped more mink then muskrats or anything else. As my year total came in I had 8 Bull mink and 4 muskrats and 1 beaver.  I figured this was not bad being this was my first year of trapping and I was teaching myself. And was I hooked is all that I have to say and started as soon as possible this year.  And in late October when the fur is just starting to prime I have discovered raccoons and their ease to trap and have already got one Mink by mistake and 5 raccoons as I trap only on Saturday night and pull them on Sunday.  However over the last year I feel that I have learned a lot.  Looking back upon how I used to trap to how I do now it is quite a shock, beings I've had to teach myself how to set every trap on my own and where to set them.  This I think should prove to other kids reading this who want to get involved in the outdoors that you don't always need someone to show you, if you try hard enough and don't give up easily you will succeed sooner or later.  In fact, I believe that learning how to do it on your own makes you better at it as you don't have to rely on someone to point out a set.  However there is a growing problem with today's youth and hunting and trapping, as more and more become against it.  As they all feel it causes pain to the animals which in school (which I still am) whenever we give reports to the younger classes I almost always do it on trapping and show them how it is done and clear up any myths brought about by the media.

Which is why I feel others who read this article should help young people get involved in the outdoors as our young people are in trouble.  Trust me I'm only 16 and I know this. However teach them to respect a gun and they use it responsibly. Let the media teach them about guns and teach them to hate them.

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