I remember when I was a kid he looked so big in his pictures.

Also when I was a kid I bought all of my lures off of him, Walter Arnold and Oscar Cronk. Maybe a few Hawbaker's. I always had big dreams of large catches with each bottle

I went to my first Pennsylvania convention with my uncle in 1960, or 1961. I am pretty sure O. L. was there, but at that time I had no clue who he was. Little did I know i was among a few legends in the trapping world at that convention. E. J. Dailey, J. Curtis Grigg, O. L. Butcher, Ed Danko and C. O. Lippert were there and I think S. Stanley Hawbaker was there too.

used his lures as a teenage trapper, Al Perry (RIP) in New Mexico knew him pretty well and had numerous stories that i heard over the years, Al used a lure that he said he got from "OKEY", it was 50% beaver castor and 50% red fox urine (mix well), it worked on everything in New Mexico, he would ad a dash of skunk for cats. I just returned from two days at NATCA museum and Tom Parr has quite abit of Butcher material, photos which I will try to share later, he has two 4 by 8 pieces of plywood covered with traps that were owned by Butcher, many lure bottles most full, numerous pictures and letters, one real interesting item is a copy of Hawbakers Trapping and Trailing, that is criticked by Butcher with many hand written notes, some not so nice. There is also correspondence between Dailey, Butcher and Thorpe, I have a few of those in my collection also. In light of that Butcher was one of the best that New York had, John Houben also has a few stories on Butcher and knows of his relatives in West Virginia. One interesting item is that there were two different stories written trapping magazines over the years, one by Thorpe and one by Butcher; they were effectively the same story about mink trapping and catching a mink with a sardine can under a rock and coon in another set, both said they were the one that caught the mink and the partner caught the coon: another item is both trappers used the exact same open end cubbys for fox cat and fisher, Thorpe shows some of these cubby sets in his cat and fisher videos: Butchers is featured in his trappers guide; There is no evidence they ever trapped together, but there were some common denominators. Tom Parr has some interesting data on Butchers contributions to VIctor/Woodstream in the design of the number two coil, back in the late 1930s, There is also a picture of a man that loks alot like Butcher in FQ Bunches coyote and fox methods.

Found couple them bottles lure I got stashed in basement.. Not as many I thought I had there , but think is some still in garage? Here is 3 prettier bottles, not all of what I have.
Fox #2 and Coyote #3



Mac

Thanks to all of you for sharing your stories and pictures. He always fascinated me when I was a kid

Here is a example of the #2 Blake & Lamb (water set) double underspring

You can see the offset pan, and the upturned pan corners

The traps springs re still incredibly strong

Hard to imagine that these traps would a fox, coyote, otter, etc..

I caught my first two yotes in B&L nbr 2 traps and first otter. Had short chains staked. I had a heck of time setting when i was in 8th grade, strong springs.

Mike does your trap have a galvanized pan? These traps, when set for a water set, were set with the trap positioned so the animal stepped between the jaws and not over them. The offset pan was to get the pan (and the sod on top of it) closer to the step off point on shore.
As a kid in the 50's and 60's caught a lot of fox in these traps. With a short distance between the pan and the jaws almost all fox were toe or pad catches. Don't remember catching any that were above the pads.
One time (about age 6) I was using them for skunk traps, stapled the chain to a tree and then caught both thumbs in it. Sat there until almost dark when one of the guys working on our mink ranch drove by and saw me. I caught H for not feeding the calves on time!

Not sure, it does show some silver still.

Hard to imagine a child setting this trap, even if they stood on the springs!

My Dad had made me a board with clamps on each end for a trap setter. You are right even as a "chubby" kid I did not weigh enough to set them.

Eric I believe this trap was called the "Milk Pattern" #2 for water sets, they made another #2 "Pete Rickard Special"? that was for water sets, had large pan with cuts in pan corners that pointed up to hold the sod. (Have one but not sure where it is LOL)

Eric do you have any documentation on the Milk pattern trap?

Mike, I have no documentation on the trap.