Innholdsfortegnelse for Summer 2025 i The Trapper

I’m a better trapper than E.J. Dailey, O.L. Butcher and Stanley Hawbaker. That might sound delusional, but it’s true. I am better than those old trappers. And so are you. It’s not that we’re smarter or more talented or more observant than those long-ago icons; we’re not. Not as inventive, either. Those guys, the pioneers of modern trapping, had to figure things out solo, through trial and error. Their equipment was primitive: woven pack baskets, long spring traps almost exclusively, undependable transportation. Assuming they had transportation at all. Their clothing was vastly inferior to ours. Flannel shirt, long johns and canvas coat can’t compete with a Car-hartt hoodie jacket. A fortunate old-timer might have owned a pair of Bean’s Maine Boots, footwear that froze your toes while the seam connecting…

KATELYN BREUNIG While this Wisconsinite was checking her traps with her son and his dad, Katelyn Breunig was met with a welcome surprise. From a steep bank, near where she had a trap completely submerged, she saw the head of an animal. Caught in her 330 was a 64-pound beaver! ETHAN SHOLLEY Ethan Sholley and his trapping buddy, Hershey, from Billings, Montana, celebrated the trapping season with a total of 15 fox and 7 coyotes. Sholley uses MB 550’s in a field next to his house and a mouse based bait. Sholley said that after pulling the traps in February, there has been a huge increase in pheasants and turkey in the area. ALLAN VOGEL Allan Vogel along with the guidance of his son, Justin tried and succeeded for his…

Pigeons are just about everywhere you look in the country. It is easy to identify these gray colored birds from the ring of iridescent pink and green feathers around their necks. Pigeons’ average life span is 3-5 years in the wild. In that time frame, they can multiply in a hurry and before you know it, you will have a bigger problem than you imagined. Throughout the centuries, pigeons have become very comfortable living around humans. Pigeons are attracted to farms because of the barns and grain bins that resemble the cliffs that are their natural habitat. Also, urban areas provide an easily available source of food, either from grain, feed, trash or from people who like to feed birds. Cities also have a big problem with pigeons as tall…

The long anticipated sale at Fur Harvesters Auction in North Bay, Ontario, Canada, finally happened on March 19-21, 2025, and it may well be the very best sale we have seen in a long time! In the face of huge economic uncertainty, nonstop tariff discussions, war raging between Russia and Ukraine, buyers showed up in North Bay and the auction competition resulted in prices advances on many species. Finally! Okay, not all species are back to acceptable levels yet, but advances in prices must be celebrated, especially in recent years. Marten, the staple of many northern traplines, was certainly one of the biggest winners in this sale. Best pelts, 1st section Heavy, meaning perfect fully prime pelts, average $81.99 and the overall average was $70.35 USD. This was a big…

Colorado Trappers & Predator Hunters Association www.coloradotrapper.com President, NTA Colorado Director, NRA Representative — Dan Gates, P.O. Box 128, Canon City, CO 81215, 719-275-4077 or 269-7972, Dan@ColoradoRidACritter.com Vice President — Adam Warren, P.O. Box 734, Dove Creek, CO 81324, 970-739-9404, adamwarren64@yahool.com Secretary-Treasurer — Karen Gates, P.O. Box 193, Canon City, CO 81215, 719-276-4260 or 719-275-4077, office@coltpha.com NW Regional Director — Kevin Herrman, P.O. Box 1862, Basalt, CO 81621, 970-379-5976, kherrman@advantagebuildersco.com SW Regional Director — Christy Bryan, 2375 Road 1.7, Dove Creek, CO 81324, 970-739-6437, skylinetaxidermy77@gmail.com SE Regional Director — Ethan Gates, P.O. Box 750, Canon City, CO 81215, 719-371-6401, ethangates21@gmail.com BOARD OF DIRECTORS Sept 1st 2022 – August 13th, 2023 NE Regional Director — Naomi Yates, 38921 Poudre Canyon Hwy, Bellvue, CO 80512, 970-420-4250, naomiyatesgtb@gmail.com Wildlife Commission Liaison — Dan…

That fire wasn’t really very big, not the kind of fire you’d need to call out two or three fire trucks to extinguish. But that’s what they did. Technically I suppose I was to blame. I did start a fire. But I did not start that fire, at least not on purpose. What started that fire was my pants. Now you wouldn’t think you could start a fire with a pair of pants. Well, ordinarily you can’t. I mean people wear pants every day and they don’t seem to start any fires. So, we can rule out spontaneous combustion. No, there’s a trick to starting a fire with a pair of pants: you have to set the pants on fire first. I’m sure there are several ways to do that,…

I was walking up a drainage at the base of the Ohio River Valley. The hillsides here were steep, and all the water funnels down into the spaces in between. Dry Run was part of an old pasture, but now it was state land part of the Shawnee State Forest wilderness area and open to the public for hunting and trapping. But I was not trapping the lower section, where the old farm pasture was, I had started into the hills where a little more privacy was assured. This is in the day of my walking traplines. I couldn’t afford gas for the truck, but walking was free. I had a simple rig. In my pack basket I had a few No. 1.5 foothold traps, mostly long springs and a…

Growing up, I had two dreams for a career. I was either going to play defense for the Green Bay Packers or be a professional longline trapper. Well, never breaking 5’11” and running the 40 in a time too high for stopwatches to register ended the pro football dreams. With that being said, trapping remained a viable option all the way through college. With that, my thirst for knowledge of furbearers and trapping became nearly unquenchable. The more knowledge I was able to drink, the higher the knowledge reservoir would rise and yet I’d want to know even more, as those revelations almost always led to more and more questions. Frankly, one of the beauties of most outdoor passions is that one can’t and will truly never know it all,…