My First Trapping Season

By Sean

When my dad came up with the idea of trapping once again and my brother and I were both exited. We got out all of his old traps and set them out. We were planning our big run at it during Christmas vacation. My brother, dad and I, started looking for places to purchase more muskrat traps and some good victor #11/2 and #2's for mink.  Now I am reading about most of the trapping that goes on and I have figured out that most people in Minnesota don't trap in the dead of winter but we started our line on Christmas break.

I woke up that morning full of apprehension, and hope that my dream was only a fading memory. I didn't get anything that first day but we proceeded to take muskrats out of the large slough until we had 15, our goal. Mink had gotten into most of the houses (you can trap the houses as long as you plug them sufficiently. We had our eye on the next slough and energetically waited until we came back from our grandmas house to set it. While we were at our grandmas house my uncle pulled some great old Victor #11/2 and #2's out of a shed. We didn't have any trap wax or dye so we decided that the best rout to go was to season them in the muskrat houses.

Then the day came, I reached one of the muskrat houses that I had set and found that when I dug out the trap the chain was taunt. Being extra careful I pulled on the trap and at the same time looped my crowbar under the animal. When I pulled it out I found that there was a mink caught in the trap! It was caught by an old Herters  # 1single spring model that was made before they put actual springs on it. I had caught it by the toe and it had lunged into the hole, drowning itself. My dad said that I had been Very lucky to have caught it.

So far this season we have gotten 8 mink and 32 muskrats. We only set for mink now because we couldn't check all the muskrat traps before school. I am having a blast and have learned a lot. I can't wait till next year when I will expand my own line right when the season starts.