Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2022 i The Trapper

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Culverts often create perfect locations and this one is good. Every coyote in this section is funneled across this culvert. Now, you might think that the best place for a set is right on top of the culvert, where the coyotes are necked down at the crossing. You would be right. However, this culvert was installed by burying it in tons and tons of creek gravel and stone rubble. Creek gravel includes stones dredged out of creek, between the size of a shoebox, to a grain of sand. It’s not easy to make a set in it. There is a secondary consideration. Human traffic is very low here, but an outstanding set right on that culvert crossing might attract the attention of the human traffic, too. There is just no…

ON THE TRAPLINE WITH TOM BEAUDETTE Visual attractors are not just for bobcats. Within reason, they work fine for coyotes, too. There are basically two schools of thought on the subject. The first school of coyote trappers thinks that putting anything out of the ordinary on a coyote line might spook the coyote and it might reject the set. The second school believes that by putting out a visual attractor, it might perk the coyote’s curiosity and draw it into the set. For general coyote trapping, and for specialty sets, I think one cannot go wrong with visual attractors. Personally, I have used just about everything on a coyote line — from old tires and sheep wool strung on a cactus, to what resembles a scarecrow that I call my…

Talk to just about any trapper and ask him or her what their favorite animal is to trap. Nine times out of 10 you will not hear the word skunk. Most trappers will target high-dollar animals, such as coyotes or bobcats. Others will go after raccoons to help the groundnesting birds. Some might go after the beavers and muskrats causing damage to the water systems. Rarely skunks though. For those of you who avoid skunks like the plague, you are missing out on a highdollar item. Skunk pelts alone might be worth $10 or so for the absolute best. But when you add in the value of skunk essence combined with the pelt, you are talking about a surprisingly good price. Skunks are stinky critters that I once was aggravated…

When I was cutting my teeth trapping through high school and college in my home area of north central Wisconsin, water trapping came pretty easy for me. Yes, there was a learning curve to 'rats, mink, beavers, otters and, although not a true water animal, even the raccoons I trapped on the riverbanks and swamp edges. It was still a comparatively low and short learning hill to climb. Canines and 'cats were another story. Now, the 'cats part was equally due to having pitifully few running around, as much as the challenge of breaking their codes. Still, I found that our domesticated pets were a key to understanding and anticipating what members of the cat and dog families do in the wild to survive, and how they satisfy their various…

Odor control and prevailing winds are of importance to a successful outing. Mostly for big-game hunters and predator hunters who are concerned with the wind direction and odors. Unfortunately, many trappers do not associate wind direction and odor control with running a successful trapline. Raccoon, beaver, muskrat and mink trappers do not have a lot of concern when it comes to wind and odor. These furbearers could care less if a human was present a couple of hours prior to their arrival. It is the canines that will think twice before approaching a set that is saturated with human smells. There are several precautions that can be taken by the trapper to reduce the amount of odor left behind at a set. These will never eliminate all of the odors,…

Famed New York Adirondack trapper E.J. Dailey extensively used the dirt-hole trap set, and is credited for promoting the use of this effective canine trap set in his articles and books. The concept for the dirt-hole set was conceived by observing the behavioral habits of foxes and coyotes. Canines regularly preform the act of food caching. If a canine cannot consume a meal at one time, the remainder of the meal will be buried in a hole that has been dug by the canine. The dirt-hole trap set perfectly mimics a location where a coyote or fox has buried an uneaten portion of food, and fully intends to return and consume the remainder of the meal. Coyotes and foxes are adept hunters, but are also scavengers, and the dirt-hole set…

Not all groundhogs deserve the recognition that Punxsutawney Phil gets. Instead of predicting each spring’s weather, most groundhogs are busy causing damage in our yards, gardens and even building foundations. To keep damage caused by groundhogs to a minimum, the first thing that must be done is to keep them away. This is easier said than done in some circumstances — but not impossible. Do not confuse groundhogs with moles, gophers or voles. A groundhog’s appearance and their mounds and tunnels will help identify them, and help you put a plan of action together to remove them. Since groundhogs hibernate, the best time to remove them is middle to late summer. Keeping your yard free of wood, leaf piles and garbage can go along way toward keeping these rodents away.…

Fur Harvesters Auction held a wild fur auction June 23 to 27, 2022, in North Bay, Canada. On their website, we can read: “In light of all that is taking place in the world we are fortunate to realize an overall result better than most expected.” Indeed, expectations were limited considering the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The reign of high-dollar coyotes has now ended. At this last sale, the very best coyotes, the Western heavy pelt with pale fur, white bellies sold for a $26.95 average, with the top price not even breaking the hundred-dollar mark ($97.00 USD). Sad you may say, but you could also argue that we were lucky to surf on this wave of high coyote prices for so long, and now prices dance around…

A series of events on the trapline had left me, well, a bit frustrated, needing a change — a new outlook, if you will. Not to say I wasn’t putting out iron, just something to kick-start my attitude. Then, while cleaning up the fur shed one spring morning I got to recalling those first traplines in the farm country surrounding my boyhood home. All of the good memories of short legs, rusty tools and big plans came flooding back. After chewing it over, the notion got better looking by the hour. So I decided to see what might be awaiting me right off the back porch. REBOOTING Going back to the beginning sure seemed a good way to reignite some of my ordinarily boundless enthusiasm. Consecutive seasons of long lines…

This is a true story. Try not to hold that against me. I have a permanent place on my trapline where a giant culvert spans a wide ditch. Every coyote in the place goes across there at one time or another. With that established, let me backpedal a couple of steps. My trusty trapline gun had been an H&R 922, nine-shot revolver. My dad bought it when I was 2 years old. I had pretty near worn out the old leather holster so I thought out of respect I would have a new holster made. I took my gun to the local leather shop, and asked if they could make a holster. They said they could. I left the gun with them. It may have been fortuitous that Miz stopped…