Lost a cat once while trying to get a photo. I now keep my pistol under the seat (CCW) and am ready to fire when the door opens.

When I was still pretty green I walked up on my first coyote catch ever! Man I was excited to see it was a black one. I felt like the best trapper in the world and wanted to share that with everyone I knew. Soooo, I reach for my camera to get a good shot of him..... I should have took a good shot at him with the .22. Two bounces and GONE! Pulled the jaws right out of the trap. (I learned about modifying right after that) Even worse than seeing your first black yote hightail it away at 200MPH, is realizing you didnt even get the picture you were after in the first place!

that would be the worst. It's a lesson most don't have to learn twice.

I pulled my truck up to a coyote double, the traps were only 20-feet apart, on opposite shoulders of the farm trail. I switched the key off, grabbed my gloves and looked up to see only one coyote there. I scanned around and there was #2, blazing 200-yards across a wide-open hay field and all I could do was wave goodbye. He never stopped to wave back. Me and the other one just looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders. LOL

-NC

Have had a few red fox over the years do it, actually have a picture of one running away across the field. This year took the cake though. For 20 plus years now I've trapped with my brother, each making a set at each location. This year he caught a nice red and our policy has always been, you catch it, you dispatch it. I take a pic of him with his catch and he goes about the deed and places the fox in the bed of truck. Same process we've each done hundreds of times without fail. Check a few more traps on that farm and then roll to the next which is about 10 minutes away. I'm driving when we roll up to the next location, step out of the truck and go to grab my gear and here stands his fox staring at me. We scramble for guns and anything we can find but the now alive fox is near most of it in the bed of the truck. The fox then leaps up out of the truck bed and runs off, we give chase but never do catch up to him, last we saw him he was trotting away across the field headed for cover. And, at the location we had stopped at held a double on reds, the highest of highs and the lowest of lows all in one spot. Much like in turkey hunting, you always remember the ones that got away more so than the ones you got.