Id have to say it developed over time. Growing up, a neighbor trapped rabbits and blackbirds with a live trap. I wasn’t very old…probably 5 or 6. This neighbor was great! He treated me like his own son. I’d go to his place every chance I got. I can remember eating lunch at his place (ballpark frank on a toasted bun) and watching the trap outside under the bird feeder just waiting for the next blackbird to get caught. He kept his pellet gun next to the door for dispatch. I saw him do it lots of times. One day after school, he had a bird in the trap and I thought it was a good idea to grab that pellet gun and take care of it. WOW his wife got mad at him!!

Anyway, not long and I got a live trap just like his for Christmas. My mom would pay me 25 cents for every rabbit I caught. I even took that trap with me to overnight sleepovers at my grandparents.

A couple years later, I got a paper route. A guy on my route gave me a stack of trapping magazines. I read them endlessly. One of my friend’s dad took us to a trapping convention. Why I don’t know because neither my friend or his dad trapped. I ended up buying a couple traps…pure junkers by the way…I didn’t know any better back then. I was only 10 years old at the time. And that is how my obsession all got started.

Way back when you could trap before you could legally hunt….and licenses were hand written on a three part carbon copy form.

Thank you for bringing back those memories!! Good times for sure!!

I needed beer money in the summers. County paid bounty, Learned to trap, one critter and trap at a time.

My Grandfather
Dad trapped but got a corporate job,,,so we only had time on the weekends to hunt..

Grandfather started me out doing gophers,,,(after the beans were walked),,,,25 cents per front foot
Had a Z 50 to go to the Neighbors...

I learned a lot about beaver trapping watching Dobbins and Hal/BillBill videos a long time ago

Lt Grey taught me the business side of ADC and a lot more..

Cage trapping was a drive for me,,,,,,everyone quit trapping because of are laws,,,,,,,
I experimented and was one of the best ,,, encouraged others in the State that "they" can not stop Us....and it worked

My stepdad

Dad, and he's not a trapper.

Dad's a hunter, a walk them up kill them at spitting distance hunter. He taught me to read sign, read the land and got me curious about the world around me.

That and we had livestock and a garden and he made me his official rat killer, lol.

I have quite of few men that are to blame. Yes I thank them all, even the ones that influence me today.

A neighbor taught my brother and I, John Ellis. Followed my brother everywhere he went. Then skinned for John nickle a rat. Went away for a while but back at it. Boy I missed it.

Self taught but I owe a lot to Mark June for his videos and book. They gave me a good start.

Mark June is a great guy.

You can see he had googles on all day
We used to call that raccoon eyes in the skiing days.....

Add Ace and Yancy to my list....

Ace was just a good person in phone conversations...
Yancy pushed me to be a better cager

My older brother started trapping sometime in the early seventies, must have been, because I set my first traps at 8 years old. Between seeing his catches and reading Fur fish game, I really got hooked. Was kinda limited to how far I could walk before school in those days. I caught my first foxes when a red fox was about $70, big money in 1978 or 79. I always had money in the bank then from trapping. I have a picture of me with about 8 jumbo coon when they were $45 each, all from one set. The prices dropped about the time I could run lines with a car and had the time to trap more of course, but the fever never left. Trapping got me into hide tanning and made a living for many years later on selling braintan buckskin.
As far as other influences, all the old guys articles, Carmen, Thorpe, Milligan, etc.... I still read all the trapping stuff I can get my hands on. Took instructions from Johnny Thorpe. There's always something new to learn, something to improve on, but the most important is always studying the animals themselves.

The memories in these post are worth a million dollars, but are actually invaluable, it would be like selling your soul to have these memories erased….that’s one reason to share from us old gray haired guys to the next generation. They will have the same “good” memories of you as you do here speaking of your teachers/mentors of what they will call the Golden Years of Trapping in their minds.
Thank everyone for posting … keep them memories coming. Remember y’all are the greatest, in some kid’s mind!!!!

Life will never be the same without him.