Perhaps it’s been done before but I thought it might be fun to go down memory lane to the old traps that you may have started out with or have fond memories of as a new trapper. Or traps that despite being far behind what’s available today, still bring you enjoyment to use.

I have several but will start with one which will always be dear to me. The Blake and Lamb 2 1/2 long spring. Far better traps exist today and did back then as well. Still to a teenage trapper any trap was a good trap and bolstered the inventory. I had a couple dozen #2 low lever Victor coil springs and used them for fox but more than once had coyotes turn them into mangled piles of steel that vaguely resembled a trap. I was lamenting this to my mentor and he offered me a half dozen 2 1/2s at a really reasonable price. He said they would hold a coyote and I could use them in the spring when beaver season opened. I fired up the logwood and got them dyed. A few days later they were in the ground with the greatest of expectations for a coyote catch. I was impressed with how strong they were. As a smallish 14 year old kid they seemed way stronger than any other trap I had used up until then.

And within a couple weeks fate smiled on me and my first coyote awaited me, securely held with a deep pad catch in one of those 2 1/2s. I was one happy trapper. And the 2 1/2 B&L was to have a place in my heart. And still does these 50 years later. And as the season progressed I didn’t catch anymore coyotes but several coon and a skunk or two with those 2 1/2s.

A few months later I was able to put them to work on beaver. I caught my first beaver in a 330 under the ice but when the ice went out a short week later I tried my luck with a couple castor mounds and the fresh castor from my first beaver. And caught another 2 beaver in those B&Ls. I used electric fence wire for a drowner and burlap feed sacks with almost more weight than I could lift. Drowning locks were pieces of angle iron I cut with a hack saw and drilled holes in to create a drowner slide. The beaver weren’t pulling those bags up.

I still like and use 2 1/2s. I took a bobcat in one this past season. When I trapped in eastern Washington, I liked them for any time I had to pack into a beaver area. Are there better traps? Certainly. But there are a great many traps that strum a nostalgic string and bring back floods of memories.

I’d love to hear your stories of traps that are near and dear to you and I’ll spin up a few more tales of other traps that bring back fond memories.

My first traps that I started with were #1 long spring Victor and Blake and lamb long spring #1 long springs. I did catch a bunch of fur with them as a kid and a teenager. Most water trapping., but I have caught grey and red fox with them when set on a log. Mink, coon and muskrats paid my gas money and extra for my date nights on Saturday night!. i would go to the local fur buyer and sell my fur and get a check.. Then cash it. Man I was rich.. My girl friends did not know how lucky they were dating a trapper!. The fur buyer wanted to buy green fur. My mother gave me the ok to store my fur in the outdoor freezer. I would put the fur in bread bags and thaw them out on a Friday. Then go the fur buyer Saturday after noon. Some times my girlfriend would have to wait and watch when I would stop at a bridge and get out and see if I had some more money!.

Big Sam just gifted me a B&L #44 DLS that I hope to make some memories with. I love the traps but being an unexpected gift just makes that trap special to me.

Marty,
Think I had the opposite experience with B&L 2 1/2s.
When I was a kid, I had a #2 Newhouse I called my lucky trap and a #3 victor someone had welded teeth in, that was my lucky otter trap. Easy to recognize I probably used them in the best spots, but I caught a lot of stuff in them and was confident they would always catch something. Funny, I remember being superstitious that if I was too confident, I would catch something I wouldn't, so I tried to visualize an empty trap when walking up to a set.

Im glad that you like the trap 160, I hope you get good use of it.
One of my favorite old traps is the W.A Gibbs single grip, at least that's what I recall it being named. When I was a little guy, a fellow by the name of Pete Hall gave me a bucket of traps to get started on. Amongst the various jumps and single longs were two #1 single coilsprings, the W.A Gibbs. Pete said that it was a fine mink trap, and I immediately new in my heart that no finer mink steel could possibly exist. To this day, when I put in a mink pocket, it doesn't quite feel right unless it's one of those cute little coils at the pocket. I suppose I own a dozen or so now, and they are pretty good for mink and rats, they do leave a little to be desired when a coon or otter shows up though.

I remember getting a dozen Oneida Victor 1 1/2 long springs for Christmas when I was a kid. My brother also got a dozen. We used those traps for everything but mostly caught muskrats, possums, skunks and weasels in that order.

For a brief period I used # 2 Victor square jaws for land-trapping but they were not very good traps.

Then I discovered Northwoods 1.75's and the rest is history. I still run them on my fox line.

Right now, I’m having an affair with big DLS. My coil springs and 330s are collecting dust while the few DLS I have are catching all the ADC beaver….lol.

The 1 1/2 coil was a game changer for me, started out with long springs and jumps and in water sets they did fine for rats coon and mink. After I started setting for coon on dry land these traps didn’t work so well, lots of sprung 1 1/2 jump traps. I had one #2 jump and caught a big coon in a cattle culvert that I had wired to a rivet after I removed the coon the trap fell apart, he pulled so hard he bent the jaws. After getting a bunch of used B&L 1 1/2 coils it was a whole new ball game, caught everything from mink to wolf in those traps. Had victor, b&l and duke and sorry to say but liked the dukes the best.

Gotta be the 1.5 longspring for me.

Victor 1.5 longsprings for nutria. Was getting $3 for carcass nutria which would buy me another trap at the local hardware store. Pretty soon I had 8 or more!

The #1 long spring. The trap that launched many a trapper’s careers.

My trapping adventure began in 1969 at the age of 10. Out of jealousy I suppose. My brother’s birthday is in January. He is a year and a half younger than me. He asked for and received three #1 long springs for his birthday. We had a mild winter that year and the pond behind the house on our dairy farm was open in places. It held a couple of small muskrat huts. Brad managed to catch two muskrats in short order. He sold them green to a local buyer for the princely sum of $3 each. Being fairly good at math I realized my brother was onto something here.

Our small dairy didn’t afford Dad the ability to shower us with large allowances so $6 in 1969 was a pile of money to a 9 and 10 year old. I didn’t make a fuss about it but did ask Dad if I could get three traps since Brad was going to be able to make money trapping and I, not having traps or enough allowance to buy them, would not. I offered to pay him back out of future fur sales. My birthday is in August so Dad said he’d buy me the traps but that I should not expect a birthday present in August. I was fine with that as long as I could start trapping and raking in the money.

So with a half dozen muskrat traps between us and the enthusiasm and energy of youth, Brad and I joined forces to battle the mighty muskrats. There was a ditch in our lower field that ran through our land and across the neighbor’s fields. We also had a larger pond back on one chunk of ground next to the railroad. When the season ended we had taken 18 muskrats. We thought we were rich. With the sale of a few of the first rats we bought a few rat stretchers and another half dozen #1 long springs.

So began our trapping adventures. We trapped together a few years. I kept at it all through high school and on into my adult life. Brad was a jock and ended up drifting away from the trapping.

I’m 14 (the good looking one with all the hair) and Brad is 13 in this picture. Some of our fall catch including the first coyote I wrote of in my first post.

#1 victor longspring my Dad had a few Somewhere in the early 60's I acquired Hardings "Trappers Companion" even though it was summer I set 2 of them in a trail leading under an old outbuilding next morning there was a skunk in one I wont go into dispatch but I gotterdone flushed with success I noticed the other chain going under the shed Never realizing in my wildest dreams I'd caught my first double i pulled out an irate skunk
I learned many things like how to live without being able to breathe or see and standing naked in the front yard with ice cold water and scrub brush while my Mom watched with her hands folded and pointing for another application of suds
I remember this even as i contemplate the price of skunk hides today

Only been trapping 7 years but my first trap was a Victor #2 double long. Caught my first and my second mink with it in blind sets. Still have it and run it. I also have about 8 dozen #1 long springs of B&L, Victor short spring and Triumph. Catch a lot of rats in them and like using them, even though there are much better options nowadays.

I still use Victor #3 and #4 longsprings for my beaver and cat trapping just the traps I like to use for those critters. I run #3 longs for yotes in the right ground conditions but most soil conditions here doesn’t make them practical often.

I still have and use a bunch of B&L and Northwoods traps. Very well made and did what they were supposed to do.

Like this one Leftlane?