Trap Line Pictures from the 60s and 70s

I kick myself that I did not take pictures of my trap line and catches when I first started out as a kid back in the 60s/70s. Anyone have some they would like to share/ post?

I would, but I wasn't even born until 1985.

We didn't have money for camera I guess or not a necessity back at our home, in the 50's-60's.

My first fox - 1962 - Nebo, VA



Dad holding a couple of mink with me around 1950

My rat catching brother on the right, me on the left catching the trapping bug. Early 70s

Paul, your pics are in a class all by themselves. Awesome, thanks

Sorry, but this is the earliest I can do.

My two brothers and I so proud of our muskrat! I'm on the far right.

I have very few pictures from the 70 and 80's

[quote=Paul Dobbins]My first fox - 1962 - Nebo, VA

Paul,

Is that the Nebo outside of Saltville, VA ? That’s the only Nebo I know of, if so its very close to me.

This is one of me from the early 70's with 6 beaver from 6 traps in one night .

Yes it is.

Have albums of pictures from back then. Wouldn't have any Idea how to post them though.

Not sure how old this picture is but son is now 36 and a lawyer. I try not to hold that against him.

Did you all live in Nebo or just came and trapped? I have also heard you or others talking about your dad trapping the mountains around Marion & Sugar Grove as well. Is this correct?

Great pictures Thanks

We lived there for two years when dad worked for VA Dept of Health trapping foxes for rabies control. From there we moved to Culpeper.

Here's the house - it's still there.

Late 70's





I didn't hit my stride until I got my first truck in 1981.

Had to look to find some these are from the late 70's. I have some in the late 60's have to look harder.

Fox on a drag caught up in an open pasture. I guess that is where crop circles come from.

Awesome pics guys. Bob I like the cat in the loft. An your long chained fox

Here are some mid 80s Maryland foxes.

Awesome Pics Boss....Do any of your kids trap today? Assuming those are your children in the pics.

The guy on the far left holding the two skunks, is Jim Harrison. Quite the legend. Here's a little info on Jim:

"At the other end of the social spectrum was James P. Harrison, better known in Utah’s West Desert as Trapper Jim. Trapper Jim was no showman, but in his own way he was plenty photogenic. And authentic as authentic can be.

Jim lived in a musty dugout cabin at Fish Springs (shown in the background), which today is a national wildfowl refuge. But before it became a refuge for wildlife it was a refuge for outlaws, moonshiners, rustlers, outcasts and reprobates. Trapper Jim fit right in!

Up until the big winter of ’49, Jim ran cattle at Fish Springs, supplementing his income as a trapper of what he called “mushrats.” After selling his spread to the government, Jim stayed on as resident predator, doing what he could to maintain the delicate ecological balance between the rats and ducks—all the while railing against just about everything that was transpiring in the outside world. Once, he even offered up a complaint about Timber Jack Joe.

“They tell me this guy is stinkier than I am,” he huffed, pointing to the cover of a Sunday supplement that was tacked to the wall of his cabin next to a rusty coyote trap and a moldering beaver tail. “Some guy in Wyoming who calls himself a trapper.”

It so happened I had written the article and taken the picture. I assured my host that he had nothing to worry about, for when it came to personal hygiene, Trapper Jim had set the bar so low that no one could possibly crawl underneath it.

Unlike Timber Jack Joe, Trapper Jim didn’t wear animal skins. His wardrobe consisted of cotton long johns, denim jeans, and a wool shirt. He had just two sets of each. In the fall he’d change from one set to the other, rinse out his dirty clothes in a nearby irrigation ditch and leave them to dry on the alkaline ground. During colder months, he’d wear a tobacco juice-stained snowmobile suit, into the seat of which he’d stuffed several fistfuls of duck feathers for extra insulation.

“If you’ve lived out here for as long as I have,” he declared, “you learn you’d better keep your (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) warm in the winter.”

Like Timber Jack Joe, Trapper Jim would have been more at home in an earlier era. Nothing about the Twentieth Century appealed to him and every new invention that came along baffled and frustrated him. Meantime, fur coats had fallen out of fashion, which in Jim’s case was bad news, because when it came to the “science” of catching fur-bearing wild things he was the absolute master.

Another thing the two men had in common: neither had to live the rustic lives they lived. Jim could have simply moved from his earthen dugout into the fine brick house he owned on the refuge—or into his sister’s mansion in Federal Heights. He could have lived comfortably on what he’d banked after selling his ranch to the government, augmented by monthly disability checks that came as a result of injuries he’d suffered fighting in the trenches of France during World War One. But, no, Jim didn’t want to live anywhere but in the desert, nor do anything in life except just exactly what he wanted to do."

Me and my old man circa 1967.

i was born in 68.

Great pictures and stories. Thanks

1959

This would be mid 80s. This is the coyote that primed my pipe.