While unpacking some items in my shop, I was reminded of a long ago day trip 1989.

My wife and I had moved to Clark county Washington. For the opening of trapping season I had driven 45 mi into the Gifford Pinchot national Forest. I had set four snares on a log crossing on Rock creek. Then three other snares and 4 ft holes on drags about a half a mile away from the creek.

The owner of the construction company we worked for came out of the job site. Tell us he was buying us lunch and we're going out to check my traps that had set the day before.
The boss had done a little trapping when he was younger. And today was a reward for us completely passing framing inspection without corrections.
We walked back to the Creek crossing, with three of the 4 snares down. I had two bobcats and a coyote on a log crossing.
A short drive down to Forest service road and a little hike in to check the remaining traps and snares I had another bobcat and three coyotes.
So three bobcats and four coyotes in 11 sets. Seven snares four traps.

My boss proclaimed me the "greatest trapper ever."

I'm guessing most of us have had a unique situations that thoroughly impressed someone else or others.


Let's hear some of those stories.

I have kind of another unique story.
It was Christmas break and a buddy and I were duck hunting.
We were in the middle of a 3000 acre lake. And I had made an off-handed comment that I can catch a beaver anywhere .
Next day I took a steel T post, three snares and a handful of alder branches.
I was about 3/4 of a mile from any shoreline.
I set the snares.

The following day we came back and I had a beaver.
My buddy was so impressed He wanted to learn how to trap. He has run a beaver removal business ever since.

I got a call from a guy who explained he had beaver problems. When I met him on location I asked how he got my number? He explained that he got it from “so and so”, and he says you are the best he has ever seen. Wow!
The following day when I stopped by “so and so’s” place I asked him how many trappers he knew? He replied, “Counting you, two.”

I was trapping nuisance beaver on the railroad north of Otter rapids in the James bay lowlands in late October when the beaver were still cutting feed.
I set 34 beaver traps the day before,and when I checked them the next day I had 32 beaver and 1 muskrat.Almost all were blind sets.
Never had anything close to that before or since.

I didn’t know that it was legal to snare in Washington.

1989

I once set up a nuisance beaver job on a small creek. I put in 5 sets, 4 footholds and 1 snare. The next day I pull in the field and the farmer says "Dang you got 4 beaver down there on the creek! You sure are good" of course I had to act like I did that ll the time.

I did wipe out the colony in that one night though

I did animal control for mostly timber companies for years. I got map and directions to a new spot for a new company one year. I found that I was on a new road with fresh logging here and there. When I arrived at the problem area it was quite a sight. There were 4 culverts plugged up and water was running everywhere. I set 9 conibears and felt pretty confident I would do well. A few days later I was back and had 8 big beaver. As I was removing my boots for the drive home a pickup pulled up. It was the forester for the company, he was pleased. A few days later I got a call from my boss, he said he had just talked to the forester that I just mentioned. He said he was really impressed, I told my boss that I had impressed myself quite a bit!

The first time I ever set traps in Siltcoos lake on the Oregon coast it became obvious to me that it had not been molested in years. Beaver scent mounds were often two feet tall! I caught 22 beaver out of 23 traps. All conibears. I was trapping out of a 12 ft Jon boat and barely had 4" of freeboard. Luckily the lake was flat that day and I got home without mishap. On many winter days the lake had whitecaps!

Out of curiosity I weighed all those beaver and they averaged out at 45 lbs each.

I have hung 1 snare in a STRATEGIC spot more than once and caught a wolf, does that count…lol

I've had near 200 traps out b4 and caught only 1 possum.......does that count?

I had nearly 100 traps out and didn't even catch a possum so you got me beat, lol.

Yea but Jtrapper if you would have staked your traps you might have caught something. I was looking the other day for a writing instrument and low and behold there was your pen !

haha, i think ol maw had about a million of those stupid pen's made, probably be some of them floating around long after im gone, lol.

Had a nuisance job for beaver at Attica prison. For liability reasons they had to have a guard accompany me wherever I went. Told him to wear muck boots or hip boots if he wanted to stay close. First day was a walk in to scout the problem area, one guard with me. Was a small colony and it looked like a half dozen 330's would do the trick. Next day same guard follows me as I set, nice guy, I learned alot about prison politics as we chatted while I set.
First check day, same guard, we run the sets and 4 sets connect. The guard couldn't believe it. Next day, second check, three more guards showed up to "tag along"...lol. Took 2 more and they carried them out for me.

Side note...we got back to where I park next to the maintenance building, a few NY city prisoners were painting steel rails. One of the guards picked up a beaver and walked over to them and says "you guys ever see a water woodchuck?"

Back in 2010, I set 34 rat floats, two traps to a float. I had 62 rats the next day, less than a 24 hr check. I thought I was superman, then the reality of finishing them all so I could do it all over again the next day with an additional 40 traps out set in.

Years ago, my brother and I were checking traps after school. I had just started driving he was only 14. I parked the truck and we ran down this creek to check otter traps and I had a snare on a log crossing over the creek. I had a gray fox in the snare. The snare was destroyed, very kinked up, and we didn’t bring one along to replace it. I opened the loop about 3”, and laid it flat on the log crossing, with the twisted support wire to hold it in place. (Just for the heck of it really). The next day we had a red fox by the foot in that same snare. We couldn’t believe it!

Replaced the snare that time though, that was a great log crossing.

John

well this might count, yesterday while I was working a gun and knife show, giving out free samples of beaver slim-jam's , a guys and his son start talking about his neighbor having a real good trappers come in and trap the beaver, he goes on to tell me that this guy set 4 sets and got 3 beaver, on the first night, he say maybe I know of him, his name is trapper ROY , lol

Roy,
THAT is funny friend!
Thanks for the chuckle.

Blessings,
Mark

Catching a target animal with just one set is certainly a good indication that you know what you are dong.

Well it would not be far to say that catching a possum does not count . But it only makes sense to inform everyone that the possum is the fastest animal on earth .How else can you explain that nearly all of the perfect can canine sets you made the day before are all clogged with psosum