Trap thief..Grrrr.

Had two colony traps stolen today. When I filed the report the warden said another trapper in the same area had traps stolen too. It's been a while since my traps have been stolen but it's a pain in the butt anyway.

Thieves suck!

I’ve been though the same thing, the worst part was they reset the traps on my line.

Sorry for your loss! Usually more prevalent in the fur boom years but still stings all the same no matter when!

Chris

Sorry for your bad luck. You would think with the low fur prices the rotten outlaws would be targeting some other population instead of trappers.

No consequences for thievery

Ruins my day every time!!!!

Sorry to hear, i hope some day to catch a trap thief red handed. But than again I'm scared of what i might do. I figure in a 5% loss ayear some years are worse than others. Worst part is most of the stealing goes on on private lands. I'm sure by people that should not be there to start with.

It depends on who you thieve from! I personally know two people that shot a trap thief, and although he wont admit it, a guy that was shot by one of them for stealing. Both incidents were with birdshot.

I had that happen to me too. The thiever wasn't too smart of a guy.

I feel for you had my garage broken info and tools stolen years ago. Off subject rarely do i lose my temper but when I pop wife refers to me as Hulk I go off the deep end. My elec bill was a 100 bucks higher than my mothein law who live a 1/2 mile from us. Her house is all elect other than LP central heat. We're all lp other than elect clothes dryer. Had a feeling our meter was off called elec coop and got the run around it was a hot month bill was higher. Even had them pull up our indivdual bills kept telling me it was a hot month blah blah. Brad lit my fuse told him to put a different meter on my pole or i was going to take my endloader and peel the (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) off the pole and deposit in his office. Well they changed out my meter and low and behold im with in a few buck of my mom in law. Off topic but felt like i was being stolen from
J

Sadly its is often someone you know it happened that way with me a couple times

One I caught right in the act of pulling up a beaver set, that set was on a spot where it dropped straight down and was several feet deep right off the bank and the he beaver were climbing up to get to a bunch of aspen so I stuck a u shaped rod below the waterline and hung a drowner with 2 pound coffee can full of cement and a no 4 jump on it

The SOB must have been having trouble pulling it up what with the can and a nice beaver on it cause he was bent over trying to pull everything up when I came up behind him

It was just to enfearating a scene so I walked up behind him grabbed him by the back of his pants and gave a heave and he ended up in the creek trying to swim with hip boots on

I then pulled up that set and picked up my other traps that were sitting right there, along with several rats and a mink and walked to the car and drove away

Police showed up at my house not t long after I got home

Apparently he had called them telling them I tried to kill him

Came to nothing in the end I told them I didn’t know a thing about it, told them I knew the guy but had nothing to do with him and stayed away from him cause he was bad news and known as a thief

And I stuck to my story till now

Agreed thieves sucks many stories of stolen traps and furs... Sorry for your loss

Traps are worth more than fur !

Haven't had one stolen . but I have one destroyed and then one set off. Both were left behind.

I feel your pain. Lost a TS85 this week. First stolen trap I've had since I can remember. Some days you have to work twice as hard just to get back to even!

I found a 1.5 duke in the creek years ago in Ohio that had flooded onto my property from rising waters. Anchor and all stuck on debris in the river. Still had a tag on it. When i dropped the trap off to the guy that was trapping two properties down from me he looked at me like i had 4 heads. He couldn't believe i returned his trap. And a 1 1/2 duke to boot he said lol. It wasn't mine and if i lost it i would want it back to at least let me know it didn't get stolen. I mark all of my traps weirdly with a cheap engraver just in case i ever happen to find someone with them. Not a lot of folks run wolf creek traps so i also got that going for me.

For you guys that have had your own traps reset on your line i just simply giggle at that. Lol

MsgRet, great opportunity, in just like all scavengers, it will be back, so you can experience the thrill of trapping the two legger primates. As the critter has a fondness for colony traps, make up some crappy wire things as bait, put them in an exposed location, and why not add an orange flag, like you would for cats. Set up your trail cams and get ready for the Kodak moment. If you can talk to the other trapper, I would team up with methods to expand territory, as the critter will return..
Turn it over to your CO as you do not need the trouble.. You have the upper hand in the person whether a bunny hugger gone militant or a low life who is mad at the world, is focused, lazy and unemployed as it is during the week.

For your good traps, anchor them with a cable stake, so they can sprain their back pulling on them.

Good thing it wasn't a rookie warden checking your set.

One time I went out on Thanksgiving morning to walk along a ditch where I have permission to hunt and trap and maybe see if I could jump shoot a duck. As I got to the end of the property where I have permission to be, I found a raccoon in a 220 set more or less right along the property line.

Well... the coon had an arm and shoulder in the trap along with his neck and it hadn't expired. I hate to see an animal suffer so I decided to dispatch the animal in a quick and humane way that would end its suffering without causing any harm to the pelt. I had it in mind that I would play a little trick on my fellow trapper and hang the coon up in a nearby tree where it would be easily found but might make the guy wonder how the coon got up there. Just as I was thinking about this, I saw a truck driving up the field edge. I held up the coon and trap and told the guy he caught one. Of course, at first he assumed the worst. He was plenty hot and might have tried to start something had I not had the double-barrel 12 with me. I explained what happened but I'm not sure he really bought it. Well, he went on to check the rest of his sets up on the next property where I didn't have permission to be anyway. I guess he found all the rest of his line all in order and realized I wasn't fooling around with his traps and really was just trying to avoid any unnecessary suffering of an animal he caught. He ended up stopping on his way out and giving me a lift back to the road. Still, I have some doubt about what he would do with my sets or catch if he came across them.

Not much of a chance of that I was 15 at the time and so was he and even bent over I recognized him at one time we were friends sad to say