What is your opinion about what is the best state in the southeastern US to trap?

What do you mean by 'best'? Species? Terrain? Fur quality?

Sorry, I meant species and fur. Also Florida is snares or cage traps and I would like to give footholds and conibears a shot. I have only used cage traps for coon so far.

Florida fur has no market. Best species to trap is hogs cause you can eat them.

There’s no fur value in the SE. Best bet is to find landowners/managers willing to pay to have critters removed. We can generally sell carcass coons and possums in certain parts of town to make a little extra money. Most do it just for management purposes.

Thank you, I was actually thinking about practicing processing these so I don’t ruin good ones if I get the chance.

Not sure where you are located in FL. But centrally there are no meat buyers anymore, they all died out. My experience with land owners with large acreage don’t want trappers in fear of poaching deer and turkey. If they do let you trap they are not willing to pay for the service. Some public places will let you trap but with only using snares you run the risk of catching hog dogs.

Plenty of critters in Alabama and Mississippi and few trappers. Do a little research, maybe run a line with someone on here for a week or so to see how we get down in the red mud and rain.

And show him how that red clay gets hard as a brick when it dries out!! That cost me a coyote last year!! Had a camera set up and he was all over the set and I couldn’t figure out how he didn’t trip the trap. I ended up having use my hammer to get that trap up!

That would be cool to trap with someone. Hopefully I can get enough free time to do that someday. I just purchased 3 books yesterday. That should help a lot.

You’d probably do better money wise, in a coyote Live Market state. Or 1 with bounty paid for Nutria.
Joining neighboring state associations and contacting their officers could open doors.

I’m new but the only paying option I’ve seen so far is coyote/bobcat/egg eater removal on properties focused on deer or turkey management. Another option might be beaver removal.

Coon and possum meat sales are illegal in Ga.

There are large landowners willing to pay for a good trapper's services. Newbie trappers will have a hard time finding these jobs as many are acquired due to a trapper's reputation.

There is a market for southern fur...it just aint enough now to financially sustain a large scale trapping venture.

Florida has a permitting system in place that allows use of footholds and bodygrips.

Both Mississippi and Georgia have a live market for coyotes and fox. Talking to some fox pen owners might get you, a market for that states live market. 50 dollars for a georgia coyote will be WAY more than the fur of a georgia coyote!