about 40 years ago I bought a book called The Trappers Handbook, by Rick Jamison. anybody else remember that one ??

No, I don’t remember that one. My first trapping book fifty-plus years ago was titled Pennsylvania Trapping and Predator Control Methods by Paul L.Tailor.

I still have my original copy plus one I bought decades later to keep at Camp. It’s interesting to look how things were done and how things have changed since the early 70s.

My first trapping book that I read was at the age of 8. Trap-Lines North, by Stephen Meader. Checked it out at the public library. Read it 40 plus times since. Purchased first edition, which was printed in England, and a later copy which was printed I believe for the 75th anniversary of the book and proceeds went to the Nakina, Ontario library. Visited the trapline area twice and enjoyed both visits.

Chris

Lugnut, that book is a classic. One of my first books.

My first trapping book, 53 years ago, was Hawbaker’s.

Ps. I still have it.

This is the copy I keep at camp. I built my first set of stretchers off of the specs in this book. Also, tried most of the sets described in it at one time or another in my youth. I still enjoy thumbing through it occasionally and remembering how excited I was when I first tried some of this stuff.

Mine was Trapper's Partner by E.J. Dailey

My dad gave me a copy of the Schoolboy Trapper by Pat Sedlak. Probably around 1968. Still have it.

Mine was Hawbakers Trapping North American Furbearers.

Tell us what has changed

I think mine was Master Trapping Methods by Bob Hoffman. Still have it. Also not a trapping book per se, but about a trapper and hunter, They
Called Him Wildcat, about V. E. Lynch. Lynch wrote a book called Scientific Trapping Methods I've often thought about getting, anybody ever read it and have any thoughts on it?

There is a chapter dedicated to calling/hunting great horned owls which includes methods such as using crows to locate them then stalking and picking them off with a scoped rifle. Also on "driving" them similar to a deer drive. Great horned owls are protected today by both state and federal laws.

The preference for stretcher board sizes seems to have turned towards narrower boards. The red fox boards specs in the book call for a bottom width of 9" on a 48" long stretcher. NAFA specs 7" at 66" long for a large fox board and FHA specs 5.25" at 60" long. Coon board specs in the book are 2" wider than NAFA specs and 3" wider than FHA specs for the same length (48"). Maybe NAFA and FHA specs were always narrow like that, I don't know.

The sets described using exposed bait are illegal in PA today. The bulk set in particular was one i used to use quite a bit. You set three or four traps on drags around a pile of bait like a dead deer, deer guts or chicken butchering remains.

Those are a few of the changes.

I think this was many trappers intro book...Have a 1974 hardcopy.

Charles Dobbins, Lands sets and trapping techniques. my brother gave it to me.

They werent my books, as my dad had several. I think the ones i looked at the most were the oscar cronk muskrat and coon books. One was yellow and one was orange

I think it was in this book that said after you completed dying your traps to use the smoke of the fire on the remainder of your equipment to mask human scent on the equipment.

Trappers Partner by E.J.Dailey.Pictures were too grainy to make heads or tails out of,but to a 14 year old in the mid '70's the info it contained were gold.I read it over and over and over.

That is correct. He said to cover your fire with green vegetation and smoke your pack basket by placing it on top and putting all your equipment on or around it to get as much smoke as possible. The author also recommended rubbing a few drops of fox urine into the fingers and palms of your canvas gloves to hide human odor.

He also recommended against waxing traps except to protect them from rust over the summer months.