My senior year I was determined to trap hard opening week of trapping and talked to the principal about it. He wasn't sure and asked that I stop by again Friday after school and he would have an answer for me then. I got all my school work done and that Friday dropped by his office as requested. His answer was no as he said that if he let me take the time off then he would have allow others to do the same. Didn't make science to me but his word was final. Shockingly Monday morning found me going to school smelling like skunk and was asked to leave. Happy to ablige off I went to run my life. Friday the school called and asked I I had planned on ever coming back. Understandably my parents where quite upset with me,, that is until I showed them my fur check for $2500. That was more than what my parents made in a month. Nothing more was said about missing school afterwards.

Keepem coming fellas. Thoroughly enjoy the stories

One of the things I learned from Charlie Dobbins was to keep a note book Record what you caught what type of set ,lure , ,trap was use at each set . An as you had time put you info in an organized manner I started trapping in the 60,s and did not start my notebook until about 1980 .I do have some general info from prior years but started with more detail in the 1980,s I can look back and tell you what I caught ,where etc I also have some notes about supplies I purchased and prices I received for my finished pelts It is just a 3 ring binder with basis notes .Nothing fancy and not real detailed or time consuming to keep track of But now 50 plus years later a gold mine to me as far as remembering my journey as a trapper .Charlie Dobbins often said let the animal show you what it is doing . Keeping a notebook is a big help to becoming a knowledgeable trapper .

I was just figuring it out in the late 1970's and early 1980s. The competition was so incredible that you had to be the first with the most and the best. We all think back and remember high prices, but I also remember the spotlighters, the thieves and the people who would make a set on either side of yours on the creek bank to cut you off. The fights and the anger and the hurt feelings were a part of it as well. It was tough to rise above it all. I learned to give coons a place to hide, or down them, on my road lines because if you didn't, some spotlighter would pull up to the bridge and see the eyes. People hiring young guys to go out and put in sets just to get a jump on everyone else. I remember a guy who hired four high-school wrestlers in two boats to set muskrat lodges on a public slough. The first few hours of the season they put out 400 traps. One guy in our town shot another trapper who he thought was trapping too close.

I quit a good job to trap full time and it was well worth it, but the stress was off the charts. Seemed like everyone trapped and so many people ran hounds at night. After the coons denned up I would go into haymows and dig them out, I would also tear apart the walls of abandoned farmhouses to get to the coons. One time I cut a slice out of a hollow den tree to get at the coon and pulled out five of them. Another time I used an extension ladder to get up a cottonwood and barb-wired 8 coon out of that hollow. Those 8 coon paid my rent for two months. I had three kids, and trapping mink and coon raised them, put food on the table and clothes on their back.

I mostly sold coon in the round as a got them, but one year I paid a guy $2.00 each to skin them and put them up. I told him to be ready because I was going to bring him a lot of coon but he still got way behind; I brought him over 100 in the first two days and then about 30 a day for 3-4 more days; he never did catch up, I had to take some of them whole to a buyer before they spoiled. I put heavy load springs on my pickup to carry the weight of all those coon.

I would get up at 1:30 am and be at the first set by 2. I would try to have as much of the vulnerable areas checked before daylight to reduce theft. Then I would check the sets that were back off the road for the rest of the day. When I got home I would load the coon into a trailer and my wife would take them to the furbuyer the next morning. I would be in bed at dark and back up at 1:30. I simply could not do that today at my age! Then as the water froze up after the first week to 10 days of season in northern Iowa, I would move south and trap other areas or hit a river with a johnboat. I trapped all over the state but never did much trapping in other states.

Anyway that's some of my memories good and bad of the years from 1979 to 1987.