Post by white316 on Apr 10, 2011 23:47:09 GMT -5
Being raised on a small dairy farm,being poor was a word we knew well.
But at that time most people were in the same situation i guess.
Early memories of my grandfather's furs hanging on the wall is a
vision that goes through my mind quite often.
Weasels squirrels and the odd mink and a few marten made up
the assortment.
Being like 10 years old at the time,i had a lot of questions.
Grandpa was a man of few words,If i remember him saying 5 words in the time i knew him that would be a lot.
So i didn't get much help from him.
But his furs hanging on the wall motivated me,to be a trapper.
I quickly learned to catch weasels and to trap and snare squirrels
life was good.
There was mink tracks in the soft mud on the side of the stream
that run through the farm,but my best attempt to catch it proved
useless , i tried every set that i could think off and they were limited at that time.
But after about 2 months of trapping i caught a mink they were worth about $ 50 dollars then.
There was raccoons in the oats and the biggest trap i had was a
1 1/2 and they were wore out i quickly learned as the coons could
pull out of them with ease,i took the rabbit snare idea and made snare's with 4 ply of 18g but they were to hard to spring and the
ones that did spring wouldn't lock up and the coons could back out of them.
I called another trapper and he said to use cable snares he explained to me how they were made,so i went to the local hardware store and bought 30 feet of 1/16 7x7 thats all i could afford at the time,
I made my own locks and set my snares in well used coon trails
the next morning i had caught something,but the big alder i had the snare tied to was chewed off and my catch was gone.
I said how far can it go with 6 feet of alder tied to the snare
Iam sure it took an hour to find the big coon it had got one front
leg through the snare,lesson learned,so i went around and set all
the snare loops a little smaller.
When i started to skin this coon i said what did i get myself into
i never seen an animal with so much fat before,i cleaned skined it
as it was the only way i knew, about an hour and a half later i was finally finished it,as i done a few more i got a little faster but
it was still taking an hour to clean skin a raccoon,but even coon
were paying $ 35 at that time.
One morning i had a red fox bouncing around in a coon snare,i was starting to like these cable snares.
The fox was easy to skin,i was liking fox better than coons then.
There was a beaver colony over on the neighbor but i didn't have
any traps big enough to catch them.so they were safe for now,
A #3 dls at the hardware store at that time was $ 18[ i know they were making a fortune] but i didn't know the difference.
i took some odd jobs and made $ 20
I was only 13 or 14 then,i got my dad to take me for the trap
the first new trap i ever had,i must have set that trap 100 times
i could not put it down,i took a file and filed off the sharp edges on the jaws,got it ready to catch a beaver.
Chapter 2
But at that time most people were in the same situation i guess.
Early memories of my grandfather's furs hanging on the wall is a
vision that goes through my mind quite often.
Weasels squirrels and the odd mink and a few marten made up
the assortment.
Being like 10 years old at the time,i had a lot of questions.
Grandpa was a man of few words,If i remember him saying 5 words in the time i knew him that would be a lot.
So i didn't get much help from him.
But his furs hanging on the wall motivated me,to be a trapper.
I quickly learned to catch weasels and to trap and snare squirrels
life was good.
There was mink tracks in the soft mud on the side of the stream
that run through the farm,but my best attempt to catch it proved
useless , i tried every set that i could think off and they were limited at that time.
But after about 2 months of trapping i caught a mink they were worth about $ 50 dollars then.
There was raccoons in the oats and the biggest trap i had was a
1 1/2 and they were wore out i quickly learned as the coons could
pull out of them with ease,i took the rabbit snare idea and made snare's with 4 ply of 18g but they were to hard to spring and the
ones that did spring wouldn't lock up and the coons could back out of them.
I called another trapper and he said to use cable snares he explained to me how they were made,so i went to the local hardware store and bought 30 feet of 1/16 7x7 thats all i could afford at the time,
I made my own locks and set my snares in well used coon trails
the next morning i had caught something,but the big alder i had the snare tied to was chewed off and my catch was gone.
I said how far can it go with 6 feet of alder tied to the snare
Iam sure it took an hour to find the big coon it had got one front
leg through the snare,lesson learned,so i went around and set all
the snare loops a little smaller.
When i started to skin this coon i said what did i get myself into
i never seen an animal with so much fat before,i cleaned skined it
as it was the only way i knew, about an hour and a half later i was finally finished it,as i done a few more i got a little faster but
it was still taking an hour to clean skin a raccoon,but even coon
were paying $ 35 at that time.
One morning i had a red fox bouncing around in a coon snare,i was starting to like these cable snares.
The fox was easy to skin,i was liking fox better than coons then.
There was a beaver colony over on the neighbor but i didn't have
any traps big enough to catch them.so they were safe for now,
A #3 dls at the hardware store at that time was $ 18[ i know they were making a fortune] but i didn't know the difference.
i took some odd jobs and made $ 20
I was only 13 or 14 then,i got my dad to take me for the trap
the first new trap i ever had,i must have set that trap 100 times
i could not put it down,i took a file and filed off the sharp edges on the jaws,got it ready to catch a beaver.
Chapter 2
