I trapped On my buddies line and also his wife's line.
He was only limited for the amount of Lynx he could take. And like others said he needed to take so many beaver.

7 weeks In the bush what a blast.

I think Boco has been hitting that recreational weed already if he thinks Google Earth everywhere is 5-6 years of of date. I use GE almost daily for work and there's no where in the CONUS that doesn't have imagery within the past 2 years. Now maybe in the boonies of his part of Ontario but I even doubt that. Give me some lat, longs Boco, and I'll tell you the last image availability...

Trap lines here get handed down the generations of families. No registered lines anymore but most people still respect others families trapping areas. For some people that don’t have an established line there is open land close to town or as remote as you want. I’ve heard of rivalries at the borders of trapping areas resulting in warning (?) shots and I’ve also heard of 3 families meeting at the border every night during ratting with canoes to roast tails and do some skinning. I’m lucky that my trapline covers land from both my McLeod and Greenland sides of the family tree. No quotas here but when the populations are high we trap a bit harder and we won’t overtrap because the following years would be harder to pick up fur.

Google Earth shows a truck in my driveway I haven't owned in six years. Lol

"Traplines vary considerable depending production, assets and equipment involved, from a few thousand to $100,000 or more. I would expect a decent line to go for around $25,000 to $40,000. Google BC traplines for sale for an idea of whats being asked currently"

I am not making an intentional negative comment as this is a good, informative thread. So please do not take it as such.
It seems that with those prices one would have to be a rather wealthy "sportsman" type trapper. I can see say an outfitter or business man being able to afford that but not an average trapper.
That kind of money would be a serious outlay in cash and one would have to be pretty sure of a couple of things.
One, that there was enough potential and time to make that area profitable.
Two, that you would be able to financially and physical ability to make it all happen.
Different style of trapping. The average guy would be out of business.

Every year though doesn't the weather have a big influence on populations? Can your quotas change during the year because of natural events?

And at the other end of the spectrum,my line didn’t cost a penny , but it came with zero improvements and I stayed in a tent the first season until I had a camp built , many many lines have been reallocated threw the point system in the district I trap south of Boco due to the fact the lines were not getting trapped and managed , my line is 8 hours from home though not just out the back door , I trap all private land here in the south , I’ve said before Ontario is a very diverse and ranges from high dollar flat ag ground where I live to the boeral forest of the north so it’s a different management system in different areas as well , a fella could never hurt the raccoon populations here in the south , but over trapping marten or lynx in the north is a possibility as well as what happens when the beavers are not managed , I’ve learned a lot of interesting stuff in the past 6 seasons trapping northern Ontario and as I head into season 7 I hope to continue.

I have Google Earth Pro at work. It has a "Historical" feature. When I use that, I can see the supposed dates of the imagery used. Within the CONUS (conterminous U.S.), when I use GE Pro, there isn't a place that doesn't have imagery within 2 years. For my house, it is from March of 2018. The people that run Google are extremely liberal progressives and want to save (and make money from) the world but perhaps they really don't give a hoot about having newer imagery over Canada. Go ask them why they only have 6-year old imagery over your house. Maybe the Canadian gov doesn't give them enough cash under the table to get newer imagery, I don't know. If anyone thinks that Google got as big and powerful as it did without the help of certain agencies within the U.S. gov, you're fooling yourselves...

Here are the co ordinates PCFED let me know the actual date of the imagery.
lat-49.7169 n
long-81.5165 w
elev 755ft.

Ok, I'm going into the office either later today or tomorrow so will check that out on my version there. I just downloaded GE on this newer computer here at home and its a "new" version of GE. Not impressed so far.

Boco, this isn't near where you live, right? You're much further north than just under 50 N, correct? From the NW Angle in MN to Puget Sound in WA, the U.S.-Canada border is at 49 N.

Yes that is my trapline.Just south of James Bay.The climate and terrain is sub arctic because of the Bay.

Nice use of decimal degrees!

Ok, Boco, I learned something from you today. I guess I never realized how far north the nw MN to w WA border was with Canada. Or how far south James Bay was. I took your same latitude and bumped up the longitude to 100 W and you end up about 90 klicks north of the Turtle Mts. in ND, so less than 60 miles north of the U.S./Canada border. Very interesting!

2 months or 6 years, the point was google is not that useful for locating live beaver lodges. The photos would have to be from september/october to find live lodges. IMO

Yes RTL trapping is a different style of trapping. You have exclusive rights to a specific area of crown land. No direct area competition providing you the ability to control and manage the harvest over a large area.

Yet, what you consider the average trapper still has the right to trap as much private land they can obtain written permission for.

If there are a lot of trappers who don't trap their existing lines because they can't make decent money, how you going to make decent money if you have to buy one?

I see Mac's point and agree. I also see the way ya'll run your lines and that's good too.

With todays prices, it is kinda a mute point tho. When prices are high, and a fella down here can run and catch hundreds and even thousands of critters, it looks like it would be hard to do up there.

Lots of Canadian trappers catch "hundreds and even thousands" of critters.

Lots of them?

Like i said above, looks like their way would be hard. I'm not talking Muskrats either (big pay critters when there is such a thing).

IMO those that cannot make decent money, or rather what I consider a decent return on investment, either made a poor choice in their investment or are poor business managers, or just plain lazy individuals.

I think this means, "Can't make decent money"