Preseason preparation has always been of utmost importance to the success of a trapper. There are just so many things involved in setting up and maintaining a trap line that if you don’t get working on them ahead of time, you’re sure to lose valuable time during the season. That time is especially valuable during those first two or three weeks in the season, when the majority of the fur is taken on many lines. In this article, Arnold discusses the importance of preparation, the different things he likes to get done early, and tosses out his opinion on trapping for money vs. sport.
Preparedness
First published in Hunter-Trader-Trapper August 1934
Walter Arnold
The majority of northern trappers who spend the greater part of the fall and winter months on the trap line will agree with me when I say that around half of the fur catch is taken the first three weeks of trapping. To be sure, there are exceptions, but in most cases the elements and other existing conditions make it necessary for the trapper to concentrate upon a supreme drive and gather in every possible pelt during the first two or three weeks of the season.
If the trapping laws are anywhere near favorable to the trapper, the first two or three weeks of open season will find practically all furbearers moving about in search of food and winter quarters. A little later, many of these animals will be in their dens or living under the ice, not so easy to get at.
The Easy Ones
At the commencement of the season, the entire output of the past breeding season are all likely prospects, whereas three weeks later, energetic trappers have thinned down their numbers to a great extent. The young and foolish animals fall an easy prey to well made sets. Incidentally, the pelt of a foolish mink or fox is worth just as much as that of a wise one. The survivors have learned by this time that all is not as it should be, and scattering members of this depleted rank are not stepping into every set they come upon. Also at this time, adverse weather conditions are gradually closing in on the trapper, causing him a world of trouble in his efforts to keep his sets in perfect order, and this of course is the time when all sets should be at their best if many of the now-educated animals are to be taken.
I do not consider a trapper is bragging if he claims he can take half of the fur on his lines during the first three weeks. I do not mean by this that I believe all trappers do this or can do it, but what I mean to infer is that it is not an unreasonable claim for an expert trapper to make. I believe it can be and is done a great many times. When a trapper takes, let’s say, one third of the furbearers on his lines the first three weeks, that means that the remainder must furnish pelts for the balance of the season, and from these survivors must be left the breeding stock for the coming season.
Preparation is Key
It is on those trap lines where conditions are such that the first two or three weeks are the big money making weeks, where it is very important the trapper be fully prepared to start stringing his steel the opening day of the season. There is altogether too much competition these days to allow the other fellow the advantage of several days’ start in cleaning up the ‘easy ones’ while you are getting ready. To be fully equipped, prepared and ready to hit a long trap line the opening day, spells labor. There are a thousand and one odd jobs to be done if one is to handle a long line and do it properly. A few are as follows.
Camp Work
Even though the trap line camps are already built, they surely will require more or less repair work. Usually the roof will need a little attention every fall. A leaky roof is nearly as annoying as no roof at all. The chinking should be gone over and re-driven where needed. Fresh boughs need to be picked and the beds freshened and softened up. The camp needs to be thoroughly cleaned and aired out at the commencement of every season. There will be found at this time in most any trapper’s cabin a colorful collection of dirty old cans, boxes and bottles, each having a spoonful of this or a few grains of that in it, either molded or soured. Lord only knows what the stuff might be, and the devil himself wouldn’t eat it. Better throw such stuff onto the dump and make room for fresh and useful articles.
Supplies
Food, and plenty of it, should be toted in. A trapper will have but little room in his pack to spare for grub toting once he starts running his lines. He will have plenty of load, including spare traps, lunch, bait, scents, trowel, axe, rope, wire, nails, staples, gloves, extra ammunition and other necessary articles. A good supply of wood should be cut up and packed under some sort of cover to ensure dry wood on cold or wet days when it will be needed most. There is nothing more disagreeable than to arrive at camp after dark, wet and cold, and find that you must get out and cut up a night’s supply of wood. A good lamp and a supply of kerosene is more than worth the effort and trouble required to carry it into camp. It is far more satisfactory and not half as expensive as candles. That way, if one wishes to skin out a furbearer or do a bit of mending, cooking or other work, he has the aid of a good light to work by.
The Line
After everything about the camp has been put into readiness, the trap line will require plenty of attention. If it be the first season over these lines, one cannot allot too much time prospecting the country and laying out the trap lines where they can be worked to the best advantage. A long line trapper can not always connect up every little fur pocket with his line, as time will not allow him to do so. Consequently, it is many times a case of passing up some fairly promising territory in preference to something that looks more attractive and likely to net more money. One may spend a great many days looking over new country and each day learn something new and worthwhile about the locality. Even though one has trapped a territory for several years, there is always something new to be learned about it, and it will always pay to do a little prospecting early in the fall before the trapping season opens up.
Traps
After the location of the lines has been established, then comes the job of getting the traps scattered along over the trail and deposited near the various places where the sets will be made. If one has worked the lines in previous years, more than likely he will have most of his traps strewed along his line, hid under rocks, old roots, stumps, etc. Traps hidden away in this manner will be in much better condition the following season than they will be if hung up in trees exposed to the rain and snow, which is the method used by some trappers. I have had plenty of experiences both ways, and this is no guesswork on my part. If you desire rusty traps, hang them up in trees during the summer. Not only will the traps hidden away be in better condition the next season, they will also be out of sight, and Johnny Sneakum is not nearly as likely to find and steal them.
Sets and Trails
Many sets may be prepared before the open season, everything completed excepting the placing of the traps. There may be considerable work to be done on the trails if one plans to maintain them. There will be bushes growing up and old stubs and trees blowing down to block the trails and pester the trapper. I have found it much easier in the end to cut a trail through a thick alder swamp than to plow through it every trip for several years. Such work is always done more efficiently before the season opens up than after, when one will have miles of line to attend to. Crossing places at rivers, streams and large brooks may have to be made. In most cases, a fair sized tree felled across the brook or stream from bank to bank will provide an excellent crossing place, but occasionally a real foot bridge may be required
Timing and Seasons
Plenty of serious thinking combined with some hard work before the opening date should make it possible for one to slap out a hundred or two hundred well made sets and put the whole trap line into complete operation right at the start of the season. Stick within the law and do not rush the season, but once the lid is off, go for it. Don’t let the other fellow get the jump on you. If he starts setting out traps before the season opens, call in the warden. Do not hesitate to blow on a man that is doing you dirt and stealing dollars from your pocket. Stick within the law and make the other fellow do the same thing. Do not be afraid of his threats. The more he threatens, the bigger bluff he is.
We have all heard the cry, “Don’t hurry about getting your traps out, wait until the fur is absolutely prime.” To that I will say this: I am just as willing as the next fellow to set ahead of the trapping season two or three weeks if all the other trappers around me are willing and want to abide by the decision, but no one can kid me into believing that I should wait two weeks while some of the rest of the fellows are cleaning up the easy ones. My motto has always been “stick within the law”, but otherwise than that, give them the works. However, I will admit that there are times that our lawmakers mix their laws up so no trapper can trap through a whole season, no matter how honest he is, without breaking some of the laws. I do not know if all states are like Maine, but I do know that we have some jumbled up messes dished out to us up here once in a while. There is always a general trapping law that one can easily understand, but it is usually some of the provisions that get us mixed up.
Prospecting
When prospecting for fur signs, the inexperienced trapper is likely to overestimate the number of furbearers on his line. One litter of mink hunting around a couple of fair sized ponds and tributaries will leave tracks enough to cause the amateur to believe there are legions about. A couple of foxes traveling back and forth over an old tote road will leave droppings here and there in numbers that will lead the young trapper to believe a dozen foxes are using the road. Even the little weasel on the first light snow will cross and re-cross a road twenty-five times in half a mile. It is all too easy to overestimate the amount of game in a certain locality.
At times when I listen to someone rambling on about all the fur there is in some little fur pocket, I recall the story that goes something like this. For some reason a man desired a large number of frog skins. In an outdoor magazine he placed an advertisement which read “Will pay 50 cents each for 20,000 frog skins.” In a few days he received a telegram reading: “Will ship you 10,000 frog skins in ten days.” The days rolled along and he received a letter from the party. Inside were two much handled and soiled frog skins, with the contents of the letter as follows: “Dear Sir, I am very sorry to disappoint you but they fooled me with their confounded hollering.” Many times the inexperienced trapper will waste time and traps in a fruitless effort to catch 50 muskrats from a pond that never contained more than twenty-five, or catch ten mink on a mile of stream that is not good for more than two.
Why Prepare?
We often hear the expression, “I trap just for the sport of it.” Well, that is okay if one has plenty of cash, but as to my motive for trapping, I will say I am probably like most other trappers. I have a home to maintain, taxes and insurance to take care of and all the necessities of life to buy. I trap for two reasons. The work fascinates me, and I need the cash. If the pelts I took had no commercial value I am quite sure I would not be following the trap line. It is the cash that counts, that is why I believe in preparing for the coming season and getting everything in shape will enable one to hit the line with a smash at the break of dawn on the opening day of the season. “Preparedness” is my slogan.