First animal

What was the first animal you ever caught? Mine was a boar coon in 1985 in a victor 1 1/2 dj . I can still remember everything about it . I remember walking in the barn and there it was under the feed room . I didn’t have a clue what I was doing or how to skin it but i did manage to get it done in the basement of the house . If I remember correctly I got like $8.00 for it but I think the fur buyer felt sorry for me or paid me to shut up cause he was tired of hearing the story over and over-but I didn’t care one bit , I was hooked after that . Let’s hear some Of your first catches.

A grey fox in our back pasture. Been hooked ever since. Still wish we had a good population of those little beauties. Eric

Possum, and it might as well have been a Wolverine. I was hooked instantly. A guy showed me how to half way bed a long spring and cover the pan with a dead leaf . LOL. I thought it was pure sorcery when we caught something.

Muskrat in a slide around a pond here on the homeplace, grandad showed me how to catch them. I guess i caught em out as they have never been in that pond again. This was over 30 years ago. A close second would be a cottontail in a rabbit box

Skunk. That same morning I learned they spray when ya shoot em but I was hooked. I just stood and stared when I walked up on my first bobcat lol

I didn't start trapping till 4 years ago (2016), when I was about 33. My boy was about 9 at the time. We set some traps the first day that we could. Checked them in the morning and sure enough, we had a bobcat. They didn't come in for another 7 weeks. That was fun letting it go. We also had a grinner and 4 coons. That was one heck of a day. Been giving it heck ever since.

Oh, almost forgot. Caught a second bobcat that same year about a week before the season opened. My boy wasn't with me for that one tho.

Muskrat
110 duke.

Mink I think

A coon at a farm just outside (at the time) Omaha. Maybe 1974.

Gray Fox

Male mink in a conibear 1982 first trap, first night. Sold in the round to a local buyer for $35. Still remember it like it was yesterday. Highest price I have ever gotten for a mink.

A sow coon in a 160 BMI magnum at the FTA Trappers college back in 1996. I can still clearly see the trail and that coon dead right where she got hit by the trap. My then girlfriend and now my wife Shannon had caught a huge boar coon that same day. She was in a different group and when we all got back to the main camp to compare notes for the day I took a ton of ribbing for having the smaller coon. I didn't care I was just super happy to have caught something.

Coon, box trap. Under a den tree.

I was 7 and had just discovered my uncle's old steel traps hanging in a shed at my grandparents house and had to go set them RIGHT THEN even though it was August, lol. I went down behind the house to the woods and in a corn field there found where coon had been pulling down the corn stalks to eat. It was a clearing a few rows back in about 10'x`10'. I dragged a big dead tree branch into the center of the clearing and wired all 4 traps to that one drag. Then I set them all. They were set right on top of the ground and lightly covered with leaves and torn up corn leaves. Then I took a few ears of corn and peeled them and set them on the ground strategically placed around my traps.

The next day I woke up and ran straight down there. Well, it wasn't a coon that was waiting for me. It was a skunk! I had never considered that possibility and had no idea what to do so off I ran all the way home again to get my grandfather. I still don't know how we didn't get sprayed, but somehow he pinned down the tail with a forked stick and turned it loose. He told me I needed to pull my traps for now because it was summer and the fur wasn't worth anything. That fall I caught my first coon, and muskrat, and plenty of possums. It would be several more years though before I learned enough to catch my first fox.

13 lined ground squirrels - no idea my age, just old enough to set the #1s hanging in the barn. Then some skunks. Then a fox, which felt like the "big-time" as a kid!

A big boar coon in a #2 victor double long spring. 1974. I was 11 yrs old. Trapped every year but 6 of those 46 years.

Many catches ferom 4 till 18.... but first licensed trapping catch. Big boar Coon! In a cubby using sardines and a victor 220

Probably a muskrat. I remember every first critter of each species and the exact spot I caught them

Mike Clement and Lyle Gibson got me all riled up at the trappers education showing us how to rig drowners so I went straight home and cobbled a 1.5 onto a cable. I squished copper collars I cut with a hack saw on each and and used a stout collar from the end of lead pipe with a hole in one side to make the one way slider but by the time I got to a little spring fed pool I was so excited I set it backwards (the slide facing up).

I could hardly sleep that night thinking of the big boar coon I was gonna catch. Next morning long b4 light I took a light and checked- I thought I had caught a baby possum but instead of getting out in the water he had rolled in the mud. I rigged him backwards

I slid down the bank only to realize it was a skunk so caked in soft mud his tail looked slick. He raised it up and gave me one (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) of a shot. I had to throw those carharts on a fence post and leave them air out for nearly 3 months but I was hooked.

I am guessing it was maybe 1985 just a few miles off the Kickapoo reservation in Kansas. I was young and dumb but full of (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) and vinegar so I rounded up a bunch of 110s and got 3 bucks a head for buckets and buckets of rats those first few years.

neighbors dog

Nutria -- I was 10 or 11 at the time. I get about 100 a year now not counting the ones that i tried to make pets (not very good ones) out of.

Spotted skunk, 1968.

Flicker tailed gopher

I think it was a beaver in a 330. Read journals of Lewis and Clark and decided to fry for a beaver at a friends farm. Got hooked fro then on.

Barn rat. On purpose That was just a little short of 60 years ago.
Don't recollect how many I caught. but did have a couple 'wring off'.


Charlie

Not counting gophers, a muskrat in a #1 victor longspring. About 1974.

Bobcat, I think it was 19 January, 2020 and I got to the trap at about 8:15 that morning.

I always wanted to do some trapping so I bought a half dozen #2 Bridger's, a small jar of cat-man-do and a pint of bobcat urine. I started scouting and found some bobcat scat and a trail along a creek bottom on public land not too far from my house. I took a half day off the following Friday, made the drive and hiked back into that creek bottom. I made three sets, two dirt holes and a walkthrough on and around that trail that afternoon. I had nothing in the walkthrough set when I checked Saturday but both of the dirt holes were snapped. I remade one and not knowing any better, decided to move the second one to the base of an old burned out stump closer to the creek. On Sunday, the walkthrough and the first dirt hole were empty but when I got within about 25 yds of the third set I caught a flash of movement on the other side of that burned out stump. Not knowing what was in the trap I circled around the stump about 10 yds in case there was a little extra slack in the chain. Once I figured out it was a bobcat all I could do was stand there and stare at it. I think I was more excited about that cat than I was when I got my first deer. I should get her back from the taxidermist this fall.

Needless to say, since then I've joined the NTA, added a few traps, a couple more animals and gotten permission to trap some private land this season. I am already getting anxious for the next trapping season to start.

Coon for me I won’t mention the trap set up based on being an ignorant kid not knowing the rules but it’s a catch I’ll never forget!

coon that was in 1980

red squirrel or chipmunk.grampa put me in charge at a early age.first rat n coon at 8

coon 1969, 8 years young, didn't know what I was doing ,no one in family trap an no one that did trap would tell you anything it was small but I was happy , made a stretcher ,out of coat hanger's an dry it ,brought it to fur buyer ,he thru it in garbage, but I didn't give up , thanks to fur fish an game , I got better

Red fox

Cage trapped a coon.

First thing i ever caught was myself ,then i talked my brother in to sticking his finger in there, then we went and caught a possum that night.

A rabbit in a box trap my grandfather made for me.

A river rat, I did think it was a muskrat. Lol
I caught a coon later that winter. 1973

Muskrat back in 1964.

Don't know if many use this method but I still do it every year on most of my creek bank water set . I use coils now but 32 years ago all I had was a hand full of #1 long springs an (1) 110 .

I wrap the pan in aluminium foil and place the trap where the pan is covered by about an inch of water. No lure or bait needed (not that i had any) , any coon cruising the bank would see the shinny foil and I'm assuming thought it was a dead fish or it just liked shinny stuff but it has always worked great. I've caught most of my coons over the years doing this.

So obviously my first animal was a coon. First year I trapped I had 5 long springs and (1) 110 and in about a month and a half I ended up with making real nice money for a 12 year old back then

A gal named Becky just outside of West Yellowstone in 1977, but that's another story.

Honestly, a coyote in a snare next to a rice field in Colusa, CA in 1982.

Pete

An otter in a Duke 330 on a trail in a bend of a river, where the otters would cut across the land in the bend. Hooked ever since.

Possum in a #1 longspring Victor.

Mouse!

A friend and I bought a 2 trap mouse pack.

There was a creek bottom near our homes and we set there.

Peanut butter as bait. Works everytime.

It was a muskrat in a colony trap in 2010.

Pocket gopher 1957 age 9 .25 cent bounty from the township and an extra nickel from the farmer!

Bryce

[quote=Huntall76]Don't know if many use this method but I still do it every year on most of my creek bank water set . I use coils now but 32 years ago all I had was a hand full of #1 long springs an (1) 110 .

I wrap the pan in aluminium foil and place the trap where the pan is covered by about an inch of water. No lure or bait needed (not that i had any) , any coon cruising the bank would see the shinny foil and I'm assuming thought it was a dead fish or it just liked shinny stuff but it has always worked great. I've caught most of my coons over the years doing this.


I did the same thing on a many of small creeks I always had the best luck with it when I found a spring feeding into the creek . If I recall I remember seeing it in a magazine somewhere when I was a kid .

Muskrat in 1963. They were thick back then. Even a 8 year old boy with a couple #1 long springs and knee high boots could catch them. Sure miss that.