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Finding old trap stories?

Posted By: OhioBoy

Finding old trap stories? - 01/13/21 05:08 PM

Lets hear some finding trap stories. Find a deal on one at a flea market? Auction? Find one out in the wilderness? Lewis and Clarke cached traps going out West right. Was anything like that ever found? That would be cool. I think I saw on here about someone in Alaska finding Frank Glasser traps once in awhile. That would be neat. Whats a cool old trap in your collection story?

My dad is passed on. When I was young we used to trap the creek for rats back behind where my he grew up / where my grandma lived / where my sister lives now. Anyway we trapped there and my memories of trapping when I was little was there. So long story short setting up a deer stand a few years ago I was clearing brush out of the corner of that woods and found and old trap of dads. It had been there for 30 years or so. It was whole when I found it but soon fell into pieces.handling it. Anyway that gave me a smile that day.

Another one thats less sentimental is I just moved to a new house a year ago. Last fall I was wading up a creek I had never been in by there. There was an old tractor crossing bridge back in the middle of the field. Going under it I looked over and thought that looks like a stake. Sure enough someone had set the edges under the bridge years and years ago. Like the triggers were rusted off of the 110 old. I dug the traps out of the mud and they still had their brass tag. I had to scratch it off to be able to read it and all be darned if I didn't know the guy. An old timer from town. I returned his traps he lost probably 25 years ago. He didn't even remember ever trapping that creek.

Anyway, those are the first two stories that came to mind. Lets hear yours...
Posted By: TurkeyWrangler

Re: Finding old trap stories? - 01/13/21 05:14 PM

Found a 4 1/2 NH at a flea market for four dollars. My dad once got a 15 newhouse at a yard sale for 125.00.
Posted By: danny clifton

Re: Finding old trap stories? - 01/13/21 05:24 PM

I was trapping in Wyoming about 20 years ago. Found a little victor 21 1/2 back up in some rocks. I was following a cat track looking for that spot to set. I'm guessing somebody years ago was trapping spotted skunks or weasels with it. That same year I went into a pawn shop in Laramie. Guy had a 4 1/2 newhouse with a 40 dollar price tag on it. I figured something was wrong with it for that price but it looked like it would still work and the springs were strong. So I bought it. It is 100% percent original. I guess somebody didn't know what it was. Since then I have bought several old traps. Bought a 3n victor at a farm auction once. Was in box with 6-8 other traps. Gave 3 bucks for the box. The 3n has U.S. cast into the jaws and stamped property of the united states on the bottom. Have found other stuff too. If you keep your eyes open once in a while you get lucky. Mostly what happens in pawn shops and auctions though is over pricing.
Posted By: Buck (Zandra)

Re: Finding old trap stories? - 01/13/21 06:07 PM

At a yard sale once and the guy had lots of Blake and Lamb muskrat traps,looking at the price I thought he made a mistake as he was giving them away.As I was paying for them he said I should have been there earlier he sold a bunch of "wolf traps",that had "Property of state of Michigan"stamped.on the bottom frame.He said one guy bought them all.If he charged for them like he did the 'rat traps the thought about made.me cry.
Posted By: beaverpeeler

Re: Finding old trap stories? - 01/13/21 06:26 PM

[Linked Image]
I've shown this pic before. This is a Hudson Bay era beaver trapped forged at Ft. Vancouver circa 1832. It was found as part of a set of 6 (the normal compliment of traps assigned to company trappers) cached at Siuslaw Falls near Drain, Oregon. A trapper discovered part of one trap sticking out of an eroded clay bank after the severe flooding in 1964, and dug them all out. His daughter did a scholarly study of the traps that found that they were Fort Vancouver forged. He gave some of the traps away to friends and the trap in the picture eventually reached its way to Bob Gilman who was our association president at the time and shared my interest in the era.

It weighs 5 lbs and has 6' of chain. Everything original and still strong enough that Bob set it one time and fired it. He thought it would still have held a beaver.
Posted By: camlock

Re: Finding old trap stories? - 01/13/21 06:40 PM

I was trapping the Cumberland river years ago. Floating in a flat bottom boat checking traps, It had rained and the water was a kittle bit deep. I could still see my traps. I seen one and it had been fired. I reached down and picked it up and it was an old 1-1/2 Newhouse with cast iron jaws. The pan was still intact but the chain had rusted off. The trap was still strong though. Another time I setting traps on a creek.. I was walking the shore and came to a big gravel bar, There was a #2 victor that had washed up on the gravel bar. It was so rusty it just fell apart when I picked it up, Another time I was riding my motorcycle around an old barn. I was spinning and tearing up the dirt, I kept riding in same trail I had made. I looked down and t thought I had seen what looked like a trap in the ground. I stopped and dug out 2 1-1/2 long spring traps that had been chained together and on one stake. I had a friend who found a # 2 that was sticking out of a tree trunk. The trunk was about 8" in diameter. He had went back and cut a log out with the trap in it.
Posted By: Moosetrot

Re: Finding old trap stories? - 01/13/21 06:54 PM

Many years ago we were camping on Ballard/White Birch Lakes in northern Wisconsin. Both lakes were very clear. At the time I did some snorkeling and had my gear along.
On our last day I took a little swim in one of the lakes and was snorkeling around, several yards off shore with a buddy walking along the shore. At one point I saw a glob of rust on the bottom and went for it. When I came up I realized it was a longspring trap that was totally encrusted thickly with rust. Being a packrat I threw it to my buddy and told him to hang onto it. Worked my way back to the campsite, still snorkeling but did not find anything else. By the time we were at the campsite we needed to pack up and go. I asked my buddy for the old trap and he said he had thrown it up into the brush "somewhere" along the shore.

I still wonder what kind and how old of trap it was, and what stories it could tell.

Moosetrot
Posted By: YamaCat

Re: Finding old trap stories? - 01/13/21 07:00 PM

I found 3 government issue #3 Newhouse traps all tethered together , under the same tree. They had been there quite a while.
Posted By: Gary Benson

Re: Finding old trap stories? - 01/13/21 07:49 PM

My oldest Son and I were trapping beaver on the Green River north of Pinedale Wyoming. I found a rusty old offset jawed on top of a beaver house that the beaver had dredged up off the bottom and put it up there. Never could figure why anyone would trap beaver with offset jaws. The trap was worthless.
Posted By: aknome

Re: Finding old trap stories? - 01/13/21 08:07 PM

Shot a decent mule deer buck once in some rough country. Down but not dead. As I got close, it struggled to get up. I heard a metallic tinkle.
After dispatching the buck, I looked in the grass. #4 double long spring.
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Finding old trap stories? - 01/13/21 08:37 PM

I went in a little thrift shop a couple years ago and the guy had four #1 Chas. Briddell? Jump traps with the chew guard like new. Sold them to me for $3 a piece.
Listed them on the bay , brought $170, $165 ,150, and $125 a piece. Apparently I was in the right place at the right time.
Posted By: VictorD

Re: Finding old trap stories? - 01/13/21 09:16 PM

I grew up in Teaneck NJ . Around 1981 My brother and I were trapping raccoons across town in Englewood NJ. There was a vacant house we used to cut through to get to the creek. One day we decided to cut through and old garden on the property. When I stepped into the fenced garden I heard a click. I looked down and there was a #23 Sargent sitting there, not staked or wired to anything. I went to each corner of the fence and found 3 other Sargent 23's and a B& L double under spring, they were all set, but just sitting there. I always wondered why and how they got there. I heard the area is now all condos
Posted By: cablejohn

Re: Finding old trap stories? - 01/13/21 11:09 PM

An older friend of mine always told stories about the man that taught him to trap. My brother bought a piece of property and I was walking it when I crossed a small creek I found a number two coil spring with the man's tag on it. Gave it to my friend who was thrilled!
Posted By: Gulo

Re: Finding old trap stories? - 01/13/21 11:33 PM

i'm guessing 1973 or thereabouts. I was mule deer hunting, probably in October or November in west-central Idaho. Mid-day. I sidled up to a big Doug fir and sat down to glass a big opening and chew some jerked deer meat and suck down a candy-bar. Must'a sat there a good fifteen minutes before I noticed a metal piece barely sticking out of the duff beneath that tree. Picked up a small branch and dig a little digging, and found it was the end of a monstrous longspring. Over the next 60 seconds I got the thing excavated, but the heavy chain was embedded into the bark of that big fir. No way I could retrieve it, as the tree and the bark had grown over the chain. I remember that the pan said "S. Newhouse" but I remember nothing else, other than the trap was about 30" long. I left it sitting there on the ground. The next weekend I hiked all the way back in there with an axe, hatchet, and hand saw. The trap was gone, with about 8" chopped out of the side of that tree. I was sick. How long had that trap been there? What are the chances of somebody else finding it in the middle of nowhere after it had laid there umpteen years?

Jack
Posted By: newtoga

Re: Finding old trap stories? - 01/13/21 11:57 PM

2011 I was in a flea market in found a #0 all steel in excellent condition. Paid $6.50 sold it for $200
Back in the late 60’s a lady living on the street behind us hollered at me when I was cutting thru her back yard on my way home for dinner, “ hey young man” I was probably 12-13. I thought I was in trouble for cutting thru her yard. She said you look like you need something to keep you out of mischief, go out in that old chicken house and get those old traps hanging on the wall. There were about 20 b&l #1 longs , a little dusty but in great shape. She started my trapping career. My dad made go help around the yard for a couple of summers until she moved away.
Never forgot her Mrs. Merry.
Those are my stories.
Posted By: Gary Benson

Re: Finding old trap stories? - 01/14/21 12:44 AM

That's a great story Newtoga!
Posted By: 330-Trapper

Re: Finding old trap stories? - 01/14/21 03:50 AM

Originally Posted by TurkeyWrangler
Found a 4 1/2 NH at a flea market for four dollars. My dad once got a 15 newhouse at a yard sale for 125.00.

Wow
Posted By: OhioBoy

Re: Finding old trap stories? - 01/14/21 12:49 PM

All great stories. Keep them coming.
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