Title says it all what’s your favorite furbearers and what started you down that path.
As a boy I was crazy about fur and trapping and hound hunting. Daddy was a coon hound man and most Christmas was bout with coon money. He had trapped some fox and rats and coon but really wasn’t ever a big time trapper.
I had several hounds and coon started me off and I always liked late November prime coon that goes back to when there was a limit on what you could shoot out.
Then I became acquainted with what I consider the king of fur. Mr mink I had heard about how both my paps grew up mink trapping and one even hunted them with a dog. I remember the first mink tracks I ever saw. The first mink I ever saw in day light working a bank. When the world is dark a mink will lighten up my day. I would rather have 1 mink to 10 coon or 100 coyotes.
I remember setting traps not really understanding what I was doing and not catching mink for years. Then one February day at a hole washed into an old rat den that was just barely in the water line I set a number 1 victor longspring trap and tied it to a root just on a whim.
the next day the trap was gone and the wire disappeared into the icey water. Peering over the gunwhales of the small boat in the crystal clear water I couldn’t see nothing. Tugging on the wire a small black root popped up from the bottom seemingly stuck to my trap?
I could fathom what the deal was,even as I brought it clear of the surface I didn’t know. Until I got my hands on it. It’s a mink! It’s a mink I kept saying and daddy said I had it in both hands shaking it and hollering it’s a mink it was a small dark brown female mink and if I wasn’t before i was absolutely hooked then.
Bobcats are special otter are special. I really like red and grey fox. Big catches of coon and beaver are very satisfying.But nothing does it for me like 1 single mink will. If your ever around me when I catch one you’ll wonder about my sanity I have yet to shake the feeling of that first mink 20 years ago.
I can still smell her musk hanging in that brisk air.
Colt
I love mink trapping. The tight little places they hug and go through. I haven’t trapped for mink hard in a while. I have caught 50 in a season. I caught a dozen a couple years ago on a short line. Right now the things that thrill me still are cats and otter, two animals I never thought we’d have or be able to trap when I was a kid. If we had them I’d be after fisher and marten. Two dream animals I got to handle three years ago. I may just be getting old and making excuses but big catches aren’t important to me. I never was a “pro”. I just mean running a dozen traps is as fun as a hundred anymore. I actually enjoy a walk in line each year. Hard packing in and out, not huge catches but just the getting back to simpler times.
Well I had actually got back there a few years ago where I would run a few traps all winter catch a few mink and a cat or two and be happy and I really do like that kinda trapping low key no rush or pressure. To be honest I realize I’m not getting younger and miss the big lines of my ill spent youth so I better get some in while istill feel like it. I was waiting on the market to come back before I did but realized I may be an old man before that happens so better get it in while I can.but…a few mink traps and simpler days are where I’m ultimately headed Lord willing.
I’ve never caught 50 mink in a season and with gas and access changing every year I doubt I will. But I’m still a mink trapper at heart.
Colt
My favorite, by far, is the coon. I remember being a kid and seeing the pictures of my dad with piles of coon, and hearing the stories of my papaw running them with hounds and seeing the high dollar hounds he had, he had 1,000$ coonhounds when good one were selling for a couple hundred. I found a bunch of traps of my dad’s from the 80’s and my first animal I caught was a coon. I’d have been about 12 or so. The next year, My cousin Jeremy, that y’all know, came back with a coon hound pup and brought it to the house and offered to sell it to me for 25$. We bought it and from the time she was 4 months old until she died I was in the woods with that dog 7 nights a week, I was and always have been fixated with the coon ever since the first one I caught. With that dog, we piled them up, I got lucky and got my once in a lifetime hound with my first one, that dog was treeing a coon when she hit the ground and wasn’t done until she was under one. I had a few good years with her and we killed over a hundred a season regularly, not counting the ones we treed and didn’t kill, I used to shoot one out of every 3 or 4 we treed. It was hunting with her that helped me understand the coons habits. After she died, I started hitting them hard with the traps. I’ve caught mink, and possum, skunks, coyote, otter, muskrats, a couple beaver, and even a weasel once, and while I’ve not yet caught a bobcat, for the majority of my life, and still so far, the coon is my favorite. It doesn’t matter how many I’ve caught or treed, every one I touch, I hold and admire like a man would a grizzly bear.
If I could catch foxes,red or grey,I would catch them all year.
As for favorite furbearers, I like em all! If however, I could go back in time, to when we had a bunch of them, and was forced to pick only one, I guess it would be a gray fox!
Reds are great, but there was always something about a gray that just put a smile on my face! I wish we still had a good population of them. Those little guys were spunky, crafty at getting a bait out of a dirt hole set , and seemed like they could walk all over a trap without setting it off! And as often as not, they would leave a turd right on top of the pan! It was a love /hate relation that I had with them! LOL!
The first one I ever caught, was in a cage trap, and I can still see and smell him to this day!
I like them all too. Love to catch rats. Remember in middle school getting up before school to walk a line. Probably walked a mile in the dark round trip. I’m still an early morning trap checker. Coyotes are plentiful and a challenge and I enjoy them. Cats are probably the most exciting to catch.
I was a full time possum trapper at 11. My papaw thought I ought to try rats since they were three times the price of possums. I’d never seen a muskrat. We set about six traps in the creek and I got two the first night. Oh the thrill of seeing that first rat swimming around. Second one was drowned. There’s not a rat within a half mile from there now.
Muskrats is what got me started but now there aren’t any so my fav has to be beaver. They are a lot of work but I sure do like to catch them.
My Mom bought me and my brother 2 a peace
Victor 1 1/2 long Springs when we was very young I think I was 8 my brother 10
Had no idea what we were doing
We caught rabbits 1st caught quite a few then a skunk
My brother shot it with a 410 fairly close range
Oh God the stink it stayed in the trap for a while
When we came in the house we smelt as bad as the skunk
My brother lost interest but not me
Next year in an old brush pile I found a fairly good size hole I put that trap at the entrance and put a few leaves on it tied off with binder twine to a root
Didn’t know any better
About a week went by checking everyday I walked down to that
Trap and I couldn’t believe my eyes
A Grey Fox
I’ve been hooked ever since still have one of those traps as a memory still has a peace of binder twine on the ring
I enjoy catching every thing but find it a challenge to catch coyotes
My favorite by far is the coyote but that isn’t what started it for me, that would be the coon. I was already enthused with anything hunting or in the woods so trapping just became the next logical step I guess. My older brother was a hunter but he run away from home and joined the military and left a couple old Victor traps hanging in the barn. Well, I took ownership and caught a couple possum but when I caught my first coon, I was ON after that! Had the bug ever since. It’s weird, trapping and putting up fur is so much work, and so time consuming people ask, “how do you have time for that” because I got lots of irons in the fire believe me! I always reply, “people make time for the things they love”. If someone says “I just didn’t have time to go” or “I wanted to, but didn’t have the time” that really means they loved something else more so that took the time that they could have used elsewhere.