Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Trapping Trapline gun

This is the trapline gun that preceded the Ruger Single Six. It is a Winchester 1902 that I found at the same gunshop I got the holster for the Ruger. That was somewhere around 26-27 years ago. It had a broken and poorly glued together stock and I bought it for $25. I used it a few weeks like that but an inadvertent bump one day and the glue line broke.

I had a slab of maple just thick enough and long enough to make a replacement stock. I stuck the stock back together as best I could and traced the outline. A few hours with a jigsaw, horseshoe rasp, round rasp and sandpaper and I had a utilitarian, workable stock.

It rode behind the seat of my truck for years, even after the Ruger came along. I used it mostly for dispatching trapped coyotes. Most of my coyote lines back then were run on big ranches and farms where I could drive by nearly every set. I used CB shorts and CB Longs to shoot the coyotes. I always avoided using Long rifles in the 1902 as it was stamped for Short and Longs but not LR's. The CB shorts or CB Longs never failed to finish off the coyotes. Along the way I found that skunks shot through the lungs with the CB rounds usually did not spray. They would flinch a little at the shot and within a minute they just fall over. Worked way better than head or body shots with LR hollow points.

When I met my wife I worked seasonally for the Forest Service and trapped coyotes, beaver, bobcat, mink, raccoon and muskrats throughout the winter. The coyotes and beaver were the mainstay where I made most of my income and the rest were welcome additions and a nice diversion from the coyotes and beaver. We didn't have much for an annual income back then but all our bills got paid. We ate deer, elk and wild birds almost exclusively. There are times I miss that life a lot.