True stories from the trap line.

[Blue]

This happened to me. I think it was about the 1987-88 trapping season. I was trapping beaver on the Yakima river when I found a perfect spot to set a trap. I made what I thought was the prefect set and tied the wire to a tree branch that was about eight inches through that the beavers had fallen. The next day when I came back I had trapped a beaver but what he did was he chewed the branch on both sides of the wire and swam off. A week later I was still trapping in the same area when I came to a set that I had made and low and behold the beaver that got away the week before still had the trap on it's foot and drug the trap across the other trap and it snapped on the chain of the trap the beaver had on it's foot. What's the odds. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[Jonathan_S]

I've got some lengthy ones involving specific animals but here's a few short ones.

I was trapping a series of beaver ponds several years back and had a swim-through set below a dam in a spot that didn't require hip waders to get to.  I got three big black-pelted beavers in three days and then somebody started checking it for me     a set of 13 size boot prints provided proof for my theory.

I considered pulling the trap and moving it out into a different pond but then I decided to trap the person.  I took about 45 minutes wallowing out a huge hole in the bottom of the dam by digging with my short shovel and shifting peeled sticks.  It was about 4' deep and 3' wide     then I disguised it with weeds and reeds.  Perfect deadfall.

It snowed about 2" that night and I came back at about 0700 before work.  To my elation, there were a set of bootprints just like before     I walked along the dam until I could see the scene... there was a huge area splattered by mud and black water and hand prints and boot prints when my unseen animal thief had scrambled out of the freezing muck and headed back without taking the 50 lb beaver in the trap    I then moved the trap and continued to catch beaver.


Another time involving a jack@$$ person:
I caught three beavers in my first spot and left them in the cattails while I walked down the dike to my mink sets.  About twenty minutes later I was a half mile down the dike, headed back with a bucket full of mink and muskrats.  I saw two duck hunters stop and look down at the spot where my beavers were    their dogs were down in there sniffing out my furs.  I wouldn't have minded all that if they hadn't shot up my catch before walking down another trail   

I considered payback options.  None of which included confronting two people with bad judgment and 12 gauges.  I finally landed on removing the castor and smearing it all over the inside of their truck door handles and dropping them through the crack of the window into the backseat   

[bob maier]

Snaring coyotes on a long fenceline on winter, had a coyote break a snare and get away. Later on that week i catch a coyote alittle further down the fence from the one that got away. im skinning on the line and i cant for any reason get the hide pulled over the head area, i mean i was pulling for all its worth. Checking inside id caught the escapee with the snare securely around his neck! Just wasnt that coyotes day. Next time the story of watching a coyote get caught in a snare.

[Blue]

 Jonathan_S that's a couple of good stories. I had someone steal all my traps one time. I flagged them so I could find them again, which is what you have to do sometimes. I was a young kid and saved my money to buy a dozen conibears and a dozen number 1 1/2 foot traps. I never did find out who done it. Strange things happen on the trap line.
 bob maier that is a good story about the coyote. Your right, It wasn't his day.

[Humptulips]

Well, I'm elk hunting with no success so how about a snaring story involving elk.
This happened quite a while ago maybe around 1980 give or take a few years.

I was trapping the Promise Land mostly water trapping but I would put in a coyote/cat set when the oppurtunity presented itself. I set a few snares on an old grade on the way into a swamp. One of them was on a pole drag, good sized pole not apt to go anywhere. Running the line it was gone, pole and all. looked all over but  no where to be found. Pretty obvious some elk had come through so I had a pretty good idea what happened.
Three years later while elk hunting I came up on two lone bulls and shot one 5x5. It had a snare mark on it's hind leg so I found out where my snare went.

Only other elk I ever snared was alive and well at the set and caught by a front foot. It was quite the rodeo but I lassoed it around the neck and pulled it up to a bushy cascara and tied it up. Note: an elk is hard to lead if it don't want to go. Reached through the cascara and cut the snare off it's foot then cut the lasso off it's neck. Afterwards it would not leave the catch circle, still thought it was caught. Finally took a run at it and scared it out side the catch circle. You could see a look of surprise for a moment  and then it was gone.

[Humptulips]

You'll be sorry you got me started.
One more snaring story tonight and a pictures as proof. This happened a few years ago when I was trapping in OR. I kind of invented a run pole set for bobcats that worked pretty good. Reason was I wanted to try conibears for cats but was afraid of catching a dog so came up with the run pole 4' or 5' off the ground to keep the dogs out.
After a while I started fooling around trying to adapt it to snares. Why? I don't know. I made it work but the strange catch was the one pictured. Snared that cat by it's tail. It was alive and active when I showed up at the set so I plugged it before taking the picture.



Here's a couple the way they should look.
Snared


And conibeared

[hardkorrhunter]

That's pretty cool Bruce basically a marten set fur cats.

[Blue]

Very cool stories from the trap line.

[bob maier]

Running a snare line w my partner back in the day. We are up high looking down on a fence line going to the bottom of a draw. We have every crawl covered by a snare. All of a sudden we see a coyote on our side of the fence running for all get out towards the fence. Partner pulls his rifle and I say lets wait till he gets to the fence and see what happens. Sure enough he hits a hole covered by one of our snares. He hits the end and gets jerked completely off his feet. It's a picture I will never forget. Once in a lifetime!

[bob maier]

Ever get bite by a dead muskrat? I did. Checking rat traps w del Kramer,see a dead rat floating w just a small spot of fur on his back above water. Reach down w two fingers to pick him up and that dead rat swings around and bite my darn finger. Those suckers have very sharp teeth, scar is pretty much gone but not the memories.

[Humptulips]

Ever get bite by a dead muskrat? I did. Checking rat traps w del Kramer,see a dead rat floating w just a small spot of fur on his back above water. Reach down w two fingers to pick him up and that dead rat swings around and bite my darn finger. Those suckers have very sharp teeth, scar is pretty much gone but not the memories.

No, but I had a dead bobcat put me in the hospital not once but three times.

Cat Scratch Fever, Oh you laugh but seriously not a good thing to catch.

[bob maier]

You need to elaborate on that story Bruce. Your elk in a snare story reminded me of the mule deer doe I caught in a foothold trap. Held above the hoof and not going anywhere. Thinking about tackling her and rethought that idea. So I talked calmly to her and moved in slow, reach down and open the trap and back away. She is just frozen in shock is all I can figure. Had to wave my hands to get her to move.

[Hannibal]

Was fur trapping and caught a kit beaver

Opened the cage to release the Beaver and it walks out and stops....I grabbed a shovel and started slapping the ground to get it to move

He turned around and chased me....

[Blue]

 Humptulips... Are you allergic to poison ivy or poison oak? I think that's what you are talking about. My brother and I were trapping bobcats in California and he came down with a case of poison Ivy and couldn't get rid of it. Come to find out he was getting it from the cats. It didn't effect me so I ended up the designated skinner for the rest of the season. 

[bob maier]

I don't remember the facts but Bruce got really ill not poison ivy. Something a lot worse! Dave quit picking on the poor little beaver!

[Humptulips]

Cat  Scratch Fever is a viral infection carried by cats. I had a dead bobcat in a trap that had peed on its feet when it died. When I was taking it out of the trap one of its claws scratched my index finger.
About a week went by with no effect. The scratch had completely healed so you know it was pretty small. Then my finger swelled up tight. Then my hand and kept working it's way up my arm. Then I had pleuracy which is an infection of the lining of your lungs. became very painful to breath. This is when I went to the hospital.
After an exam and a few tests the DR. asked me if I had been scratched by a cat. Yes and what can you do for it I asked. He said not a damn thing except treat the symptons. Antibiotics don't work on viral infections. He told me it comes in three phases so you will get better and then sick again, better and then sick again.
He was right. The second phase was a very high fever, bad nausea and dehydration.
Third phase was headache. I'm talking the headache from hell. Treated that with some pills that would choke a horse.
Hand stayed swelled tight the entire time.
It took about 6 weeks to run its course but I'm immune now that I've had it.
Kind of think I lost money on that cat.

[Humptulips]

Nobody else? I guess I'll have to tell another one.

This has to go down as the most unusual catch I ever made. I dare say hard for anyone to beat.
This happened about 20 years ago. I was trapping a place along the river, good beaver and otter spot that I trapped every year. It was about a mile walk in on an old logging road that was washed out. I had several sets at the river but I liked to get in a land set along the way so I had something to look at while walking in. There was a pretty big clearing along the road where there had been a big landing. It was all grass except for an alder growing in the middle. This alder grew like some alders do when growing alone. Limbs clear to the ground and the trunk forked and forked again 'till it looked like a giant bush.
It was this place I decided to make a coyote set. Not sure if I remember the particulars of why I had what I had but the ground was as hard as flint and impossible to drive a stake in. I believe I made some kind of flat set or mound set and managed to dig out enough to bed a #3 LS. I had no drag but I did have in my basket a few snares so I hooked a couple together and attached to the alder tree. Ended up with 12' or 15' from tree to trap.
I come down the trail to check traps and here is a coyote hanging in the tree.  The coyote when caught climbed the tree. Now that right there is strange but what was stranger was the result.
The coyote  climbed pretty high up and jumped out, snare cable over a limb. It worked great for the coyote because when things came tight he pulled right out of the trap. Back foot catch I might add. That though is where the coyotes luck ran out. As he fell towards the ground he went right into a crotch and he wedged right up against his hips. There he was hanging in the crotch with his front feet barely able to touch the ground. He only managed to give the ground a good sweeping. Trap was hanging in the tree just above.

[Turner89]

That's a good one there, Humptulips. Great stories, hope you guys have some more.

[Turner89]

Here's one.    Me, and my friend had a little muskrat trap line on kellog lake back in high school. We would row around the lake checking Our traps, taking turns pretending one of us was Jim Bridger, or Jeremiah johnson, and the other, a news paper reporter from Seattle.
 One day we were having pretty good luck ( by our standards). We had 2 rats in our first 2 traps, and on our way to the third. We could see that there was something in our trap, that hadn't jumped in the lake to drown. First thought it was another rat, but when we got there, we found a a small red devil. We had a mink, that wasn't going down without a fight. We had no gun, or club. Just the oars. That mink put up a major fight, but in the end the newspaper reporter (Darren that time) beat him down.
  After checking out the mink, and feeling pretty good about our success, we moved on to the next trap. At first look we thought we had another rat. The trap was gone. How we didn't see it is beyond me, but there was a small beaver in our trap alive that hadn't moved, and was sitting there blending with the brush. Freaked us out at first . So now, it's my turn to take on the beaver with the oar. This was a little longer battle, which ended finally, but not before I had broke our oar. It took us quite awhile to get back to our pickup pulling our way along the shore.
  I would do anything to be able to do that all over again. Wouldn't change a thing

[wolftrapper]

Okay, my brother and I were beaver snaring, found a HUGE house in a dammed up creek.  Thirty-some inches of ice.  We cut two holes, and each made a set, with three snares per set.  The water was very murky, and we checked those sets three or four times, without making a catch, even though there was signs of action.  Then one day, we pulled one set up, and had three beaver hanging....pulled up the other, and had three more!!  Never before, or since!  That was back in the late sixties, in Alaska, and as I remember it, we estimated that beaver lodge @ over twenty feet across the base.  We caught 60 beaver that winter, right after which I enter the U.S. Navy.  Four years later, I was back on the trapline.

[Machias]

Week from Hell that I nearly didn't survive.  When I was 18 and my first year in the Air Force I was stationed at Loring AFB in northern Maine.  The day before I had caught my first ever mink and was excited to check my set again.  it was a pocket set just above a small beaver dam.  Got there and had a HUGE skunk.  A moose had walked through and knocked part of the beaver dam down and my set was high and dry.  I was able to flip the skunk into the pool and drown him.  I lived in base housing so I skinned my skunks out in the woods.  I hung him from a tree and cut across from heel to heel and nicked a scent sac.  They were full as can be and squirted right into my eyes.  It burned something awful.  I spun around and ran towards the stream to wash my eyes out and promptly ran into a tree and nearly knocked myself out.  Broke my nose.  So I crawl over to the water and get my face under water and force my eyes open enough to wash them out a little bit.  I drive to the ER on Loring and I'm standing outside tapping on the window and the Med Tech is looking at me and motioning me in.  I'm motioning him to come to the door, he walks over and opens the door and is like what's up,     Holy crap and took a step back.  They had me in the room flushing my eyes out and these big metal fan blowing and the windows open.    Very next day I'm setting some muskrat traps and cutting a stake and like a moron turn the blade towards myself and nearly cut my left index finger off.  All the way to the bone, took 16 stitches.  Well the next day I was having a bit of trouble driving so I had a friend drive me to check sets.  I had two fox sets in a potato field.  Only thing is you had to cross some RR tracks, but there wasn't a road over them.  You just eased up to them and kind of bounced over them slowly.  Got to the sets and had my first ever double on red fox.  My buddy was so excited he hit the tracks doing about 10 mph.  The truck jump up so high and came down so hard it caught the frame of the truck and stopped us dead.  I wasn't wearing a seatbelt and launched my face through the windshield and knocked myself out!!! 

[Da stump]

Years ago when leg holds where legal i was trapping above Greenwater and caught a cougar. I could tell that i had something because the area was tore up a bit but had to step around a big stump to really see it.  I stepped around the stump holding my 22 with cc caps in it expecting a bobcat.  Instead a 98 lb cougar is crouched caught by 3 toes in a northwoods #3 coil, the chain fully pulled back away from me. It let out a low growl that had the hair on the back of my neck standing up.  I slowly backed out of the area and talked in a calm voice, at least i tried to keep it calm, lol.  Went back down to Greenwater and phoned the State patrol.  They contacted the game dept and Bruce Richards came out with a tranq gun. when we left town it was a convoy of about 5 vehicles.  When we got to the trap site there where a group of houndsman there debating what coarse of action they where going to take.  I really was thankful they played all above board because it could of been bad when all the police and game dept showed up.  Bruce Tranquilized the cougar and we got it out of the trap to discover that it had a collar on it that was half choking it. The batteries had long since been exhausted.  They where able to loosen the collar, give it a antibiotic shot and release it, the trap had done o damage.
Looking back on it i had made a mistake when i made the set.  Had grabbed a black bag out of the trapping freezer thinking it was a beaver carcass, instead it was scraps from a deer i had taken that year.  The deer scraps, hide legs etc drew it in since it was starving.  I was not cited but learned a lesson and glad that the cougar was given a new lease on life.

[Humptulips]

Cougars, what a pain in the rear!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When you catch one you can count on at least a haf day shot dealing with it.
Best experience I had with one I was in OR and caught a female about 110 pounds. I did not have a catch pole with me to release it so I called ODF&W for some help. All there bios were busy so they put me in touch with Enforcement. In OR that is the State Police. A reall nice Trooper called me and we agreed to meet in the morning and go out to the cougar. I explained I didn't have anything to release it with and he said no problem.
So we get out to the cat, him following me. I ask him what he brought to turn it loose with. "He says you have a pistol, right?" I said yes. It was prett obvious as I had it in a hip holster. He said " Why don't you shoot it first and then we'll release it" So that's what we did.
I asked him about the chances of keeping it which I knew was against the law but nothing ventured nothing gained. He surprised by saying, "I don't see why not." I had to take it down to the bio in town and she was going to write me a permit to keep it. Permit was all written but while she was taking samples a phone call came from Corvallis and that was the end of me leaving with the cougar.
They said they were going to use it for training?
I always figured it got trained into a rug in someones den.