lol


It is June and all.

Let’s Go Buy Traps Quickly Remember Snares?

Lol

Are those number accurate?
Each association should get leather vests made with top & bottom rockers and once they’re considered a a full trapper by the elders of the club, they earned the patch. A little .15% and RT (Real Trapper) in stead on MC on the bottom somewhere.
We need more prospects desperately. Some try out but quit the club after a year.

Not really. Population is about 346 million, total trappers is about 175,000 according to the most recent study.

So it’s about .05%

I don't know how many of them trap, but Pa. Sells in the neighborhood of 40,000 plain furtaker license and a bunch more when bought with a senior or junior combo license.

Guessing 80,000 furtaker license altogether in Pa.

80K ? PTA membership #s? yikes

Its been an interesting read for six pages fellas as for me still a trapper even though I dont and cant trap like I used to so it may make me a non trapper but matter it was great when I could run hard.

That just means you get to support the future of trapping by promoting trapping and encouraging new and inexperienced trappers to be the best they can be within their abilities. So they promote the fine art of trapping for themselves, their friends and family and future generations.

I've been both of those guys. Can you lose your "real trapper" title by having a poor season.

Angela, care to expound?
I personally believe you cannot lose your title as “real trapper” by having a poor season. As, you have proven your “real trapper” mettle.

LOL It's true that once something is on the internet it's there forever, isn't it? To answer your question, no, you don't. This is a rather old post that got dragged back up, and that reply of mine was in regard to a very specific current event that was happening at that point of time on here. It was not regarding a bad season, but rather two trappers of entirely different calibers, imo.

lol.

Thankfully I took a blood oath and didn’t want to speak for you. Glad you responded to this ancient thread from all the way back from June!


Hope all is well

All is great! Hope for you as well.

And yes, thankfully... as whether there was any blood-letting involved or not, no one should ever presume to speak for me, as if they think they understand the inner-workings of my mind, they've probably missed a few therapy sessions, lol.

Read through 9 pages, and no mention of a beard. I believe its been stated at one time you had to have a beard... so have I grew one out for no reason?

I haven't even bought a trapping license for 3-4 years, am I a real trapper?

A little background: I trapped as a career in the 1980's and my wife was not fully on board with "What I do for a living" I remember one specific conversation where she was questioning my career choice and I stated that being a trapper is not what I do, it is who I am. Being a commercial fur trapper was a big part of my identity. I trapped hard, and travelled a lot to trap. Many of the snaring strategies that are still in use today were those I developed in the 1980s.

In the 1990's the fur markets were not as good so I added other things to supplement my trapping income. I wrote several trapping books and about 100 magazine articles, did instructions, licensed my name to the trapping lure company (Barringer Brand Lures) and did some videos. By 2000 I was so engaged in tournament fishing that trapping was put on the back burner but I still trapped a little each year. Moved from Iowa to Minnesota and learned to trap a completely different landscape and different animals such as fisher. Just dabbled in trapping a little each fall for quite a few years. Did another video (Snaring in the Snow) in I think 2016. I have hardly trapped at all for the last decade, just making a few sets near home each year, until about 4 years ago I haven't set anything but a mouse trap recently.

It's never been all about the money but it has always been partly about the money, no trapper can deny that. Maybe it's because I am from a different era than a lot of you, but I remember things being so different than they are now, and I have lost the desire to personally go out and do it, even though I have not lost my passion for trapping if that makes any sense.

Does this make me a non trapper? I'm at peace with it and I don't care if others are not.

Bernie, I think you described them difference between a serious trapper and a not so serious trapper. To make money today you gotta take trapping serious like a business. There is a monetary reason for not trapping heavily during low price years. Keeping markets flooded could actually make you less money in the long run.

Agreed.



Mac

You always had to make a business of trapping in order to make money, but you could make a lot more money back then. You can catch a ton more fur these days. These guys catching a 1000 or more coon a year are amazing, but back in the 1980's you would have been competing against 100 other trappers in that same trapline, every farm kid, dozens of hound hunters, and any thief that had the ambition could steal $1000 worth of fur every single night, enough to buy a brand new pickup every week. In 1987, there were 480,000 raccoon caught in Iowa. Wonder what it is today.

You could never make a living wage trapping today by the sales of fur alone. There's no business that can survive losing money.

Everything you stated is so true Bernie I remember getting hit for nearly twenty sets in one night back then,traps and catches gone.Three or for coon a night were better money than working,ahhhhhhh those were days to remember