Night calling gained in popularity exponentially around me. Amish spend a lot of money on expensive night shooting gear. I suppose more fox will be shot; both in and out of traps. I know some that will hunt hard Sunday night into Mondays. They will hire a driver and cover some ground. Last nice boom 2011-2013 was fun, I ran hard and made some loot.

Lot of completion here last year, I expect more this fall.

You may want to mention to them that using night shooting equipment is kind of "worldly" ain't it?

I was just a hobby trapper. I can assure you that I never turned a profit, but I had lots of fun and got some exercise. My dog enjoyed it too. I'd hate to try to support a household with my trapping skills. My hat is off to those of you who can.

And I would sell you everything and be happy if you make a great profit. And I would be glad something was being done with them I trap to keep the predators in check and healthy. Its not been worth my time to learn how to get fast at puting up fur with my work schedule, family and farm demands on my time. Used to skin them all but the freezer full of furs never got sold and thrown out . Eventually I stopped taking the time to skin tham at all. .

Fur put up is part of trapping and some day I hope to get good at it and tanning and sewing as well but I dont know when that will ever be.

Same here.
There was an auction I’d like to have been at this weekend in Sprague, just north of the MN border. A trailer load of gear. Would’ve been nice to toss in a big bud on the whole trailer. Some junk, but lots of belisles in the pic.
I’ll be picking up a bunch of stuff off another oldtimer near St Malo (1/2hr north of the MN border).

I remember some of those 80s and 90s market swings when prices got high and there were multiple stakes and wire drowners under every bridge. But seriously that was a LONG time ago and I cannot recall the last time I saw such an uptick in folks trapping. Back then too you could still bring carcass fur to a buyer and were a lot of hunters vs trappers showing up.
Most trappers around here hung it up decades ago and I couldn’t say if they even kept any equipment to “restart” if they did want to fire back up. Equipment is pricey today if starting back up from scratch.
This past winter was first I had taken off from trapping in many decades and it had nothing to do with prices or market. We were in process of moving homes and I absolutely had no time to go check and process catches.
I’ll start back up when I get the new place set up.
Nothing to do with prices for me. My buyer had a market this past year for certain species but had to caught with certain methods and no bullet damage whatsoever which eliminated the thermals and spotlighters or the pickup army coyote hunters. Trapping was only method he wanted to see and only undamaged and finished pelts. I didn’t know many folks that were willing to put up their own fur if just getting back into it for prices only.
That wouldn’t have brought many back out of the woodwork I’m guessing if they didn’t have some traps annd finished equipment and Other resources available.
Just my two cents.
Jim

spot on Gritguy.. Those still involved might produce a bit more fur, but it will take a 2-3 years to draw in a large "new" crowd. And I hope it happens, we need the new blood in the organizations particularly. The good part of a fur boom would be that increase in trappers and hopefully memberships.