Was hammering foxes in Chester County, Amish farm surrounded by development, with some fox/horse people in the area.
Caught 3 doubles in a week, then had both traps ripped off. Amish told me they saw a strange truck drive in his lane in the evening. I asked him to get a tag number. I reset traps, with earth anchors, since the foxes kept coming.
A couple days later, the Amish farmer walked down the lane after seeing the thief truck return. On the way out the lane, the thief sped out the lane and hit the farmer with the side view mirror. He was knocked to the ground w a nasty shoulder bruise. He never got a tag number but it was an older guy, with gray/white hair. He gave up on the traps that were earth-anchored.

Darn guy swiped a good pair of Monty round jaws! I don’t like these guys having my name and address on my traps. I now use a registered trapper ID number.

I had a Bridger 1.65 stolen years ago. The thief left me a Gerber multi tool at the set worth much more than the trap.

Was trapping a swamp for rats under the ice that was close to the road, so I waded the inlet creek into the swamp so I would not leave tracks. I got to the edge of the ice and crawled up to check 1st trap. Stake did not look right, and trap was missing. Next set same thing. Rounded the corner and saw someone on the ice further up. I yelled and he took off running, dropping rats and traps as he ran. He had a good start on me, but I ran like h@#$ and saw him get into a car along the road and took off. I went back and collected dropped traps/rats and took a tally. Lost 3 160's plus couple rats. Called the ECON officer and told him the story and description of the guy and car. I asked him if it was legal to shoot trap thieves, he did not fine humor in that.

Back in the late 70s or early 80s, i was rat and minkin in a small crick. I carried mostly conibears because i could get a bunch in a backpack and i used a long light pine stick to stake them as they were easier to find even if the water rose. I start early one day and right away i could see they were gone, all of em. Not knowing what to do i walked all the way up to the bridge on the road and noticed on the same crick across the road, a bunch of light pine stakes all down through there. In the days before cell phones had to do things different i guess, went down and sure enough they still had my trap tags on them. I rounded them all up and went home, never did find out who exactly the culprit was but i was just happy to get my stuff back.
I could fill a pickup with all the ones i've had stolen over the years though.

About two years ago a neighbor of mine down the street (and fellow trapper) told me that something had been bothering him for a while.
I went to high school with this fellow,and at that time a lot of kids trapped in the bush around town,My line was west along the gas cut line,and then south along a creek. Him and another fellow trapped west along the rr.Now this is around 50 years ago.
Anyway this fellow and his friend lifted two number 2 ls traps I had set on a trail for fox.I had not even rememberd it until he mentioned it,then I remembered how mad I was at the time.
It had been bothering him for all that time I guess and he insisted on giving me 50 bucks to ease his conscience.lol.

Caught some trespassers and took pics of drivers license, VIN, tag, and made them call my phone so I’d have their number if anything went missing. I was bow hunting but had a pistol on my side that they apparently didn’t see when they told me they were leaving and would whip my tail if I didn’t let them. 2 of them and 1 of me. I set the bow down and pulled the pistol and laid it on the hood of my truck and asked one at a time or two on one? Guess they figured I knew something they didn’t so they started cooperating with my demands.

Two days later a camera went missing. I called each of them and told them they had three days for my camera to show back up or I’d be at their house to collect my moneys worth. One of the boys told me if I showed up his Dad would kick my tail. Now these were close to 30yr olds, lol. I told him to tell his Dad to eat his Wheaties cause they had three days and I’d whip his Dads tail and his. They both said it wasn’t them, and to be honest, I believed them. I told them they may not have done it, but they knew who did.

Day 2 my camera was on the tree with an orange ribbon around the tree to show me where it was since whoever took it forgot the tree it was on. The SD card was there but wiped clean. Ain’t had an issue with anything else stolen on the plantation since that day. We have had some kids walking through from one road to another. But once they were caught and exposed that quit as well.

Some good stories on stopping firewood theft, if you Google it

Nowadays he would be on the losing end of that deal.

I saw a door cam video from Portland when a person walked up to their car with someone underneath cutting off the catalytic converter. The thief’s car was parked there and idling. The guy hopped in his car and drove off with it before the thief could wriggle out from under the car.

Walked up on one of my fox sets. Trap was laying on top of the ground. Blood and big chunks of fox fur all over the place. Empty 12ga shotgun shell on the ground about 10 yards away and boot tracks leaving along the edge of the field the same way they came in. Figured they were hunting rabbits or squirrels and saw the fox and shot not knowing it was in a trap until they got to it. With the amount of fur on the ground that fox wouldn't even make it as a wallhanger.

A few years ago me and my trapping buddy were running our coon trap together and come up to his trap with a skinned out coon carcass in his trap. We both stood there trying to process what the heck we were seeing. Now this is on public property so we come to the conclusion that some coon hunters during the night found it with their dogs. Well on the plus side at least they didn't steal my buddy's trap but we did report it to the game warden and pulled all our traps from that area.

I had a crazy thing happen once, had coyote traps out on blm land, a local rancher was down in the area with his dog and it got caught. He took my trap, I found out who took it. I sent him a message through a 3rd person to return my trap or i would have him charged with theft. The next check i made here was a steel fence post drove in the ground with my 3N snapped on the top of it, the chain was wrapped around the post with a 20 pound rock drag still on it and the whole thing welded to the post in a dozen places