Trapping Today

When Walter Arnold talks of early snow putting a wrench in his trapping season, I can’t help but feel his pain. Here in northern Maine we can easily get dumped on with a big snow in November that remains with us until the following spring. Recently I found myself running my marten and fisher line on snowmobile in mid November. No matter where you trap, weather conditions will … [Read more...]

The way trappers think about scent has changed drastically in modern times. In Walter Arnold’s day, scent control was gaining popularity as a necessity for successful trappers. This mentality continued on through the fur boom of the 1970’s and ‘80’s, when every trapper and their mother wrote a fox trapping book, and scent control was continually stressed. From head to toe, all … [Read more...]

I’m nostalgic when it comes to the outdoors. An old trapper’s cabin, log driving dam, or even a pile of rusted metal in the middle of the woods really catches my attention. With so little information about who left them there, a creative imagination can run wild. Just think about the stories that could be told. Think of the folks living in the woods back in those days, the … [Read more...]

Do bobcats kill deer? The topic was a contentious one among trappers across the U.S. in the 1930’s and ‘40’s, and continued to be debated on the pages of Fur-Fish-Game and other publications for many years. Western trappers argued that bobcats did not kill deer, while Eastern trappers fiercely defended their claims of witnessing evidence of ‘cats killing dear repeatedly. In … [Read more...]