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I thought I'd share a little story about something I'd never seen before on the trapline.

Awhile back I was checking my Beaver traps along a small stream that led into a flooded flat. The ground was frozen, and the night before we got a dusting of snow, less than an inch. As I walked the stream bank checking the 330 slide sets, there close to the water on the edge of the bank I noticed a small Beaver tail on the ground. Not noticing at first that there was a beaver attached to that tail, because the fur and rest of the animal were unexposed under the snow, I attempted to pick up the tail. Well, it became obvious that there was indeed a young beaver, nlt just the tail just laying there on the stream bank.
That young beaver was pinned to the ground by a tree that was about 3-4 inches in diameter that he had cut. The top of the tree was hung up in the tops of the other surrounding trees and could not lean to fall, but instead, slipped off the stump and drove its pointy end like a stake straight down toward the ground, the little beaver was between that pointed end and the ground and took the stake right in the center of his back.

Not something ya see everyday.!


Anybody else seen some strange things in the woods and on the line..?


"I'd rather have an Army of Asses led by a Lion, than an Army of Lions led by an Ass." (George Washington)
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had a mushrat and a mink both neck caught in the same 110

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Thinking that 'rat was almost mink dinner...till they hit the wire. Pretty wild.!


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My cousin and I were setting on opening morning of mink/muskrat, and watched a 'rat swim right into a 110 that we'd set just minutes before. Pretty cool to watch! After that, we decided to backtrack the entire line on the way back to our pickup point, and had two more.

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Absolutely pretty cool to watch.! What a great morning for you and cousin.

It reminded me of a time went out to check my bunnie snares and kicked a cottontail out and down the trail right into my snare.SCORE!


"I'd rather have an Army of Asses led by a Lion, than an Army of Lions led by an Ass." (George Washington)
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A guy I went to high school with caught a turkey vulture in a raccoon set. Another guy helped him release it, I was so glad that he didnt call me and ask me for help with that one.

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Last year I found out what happens when the coyotes find a grey fox in your leg hold. A mess of a scene with a grey fox leg caught in my mb550 but no fox just a front leg. Bloody mess everywhere and a unreal blood trail where they carried it off. I had a jip yote caught in the next trap 30 yards away and the other fox in a set a couple hundred yards away. Later in the season and several foxes later I had a nice grey caught and the next two sets on the line both yielded coyotes. When I skinned that fox i found he had survived a fight likely with those coyotes as he had been bitten hard all over.

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Originally Posted by WL205
Last year I found out what happens when the coyotes find a grey fox in your leg hold. A mess of a scene with a grey fox leg caught in my mb550 but no fox just a front leg. Bloody mess everywhere and a unreal blood trail where they carried it off. I had a jip yote caught in the next trap 30 yards away and the other fox in a set a couple hundred yards away. Later in the season and several foxes later I had a nice grey caught and the next two sets on the line both yielded coyotes. When I skinned that fox i found he had survived a fight likely with those coyotes as he had been bitten hard all over.



It's quite the fierce reality out there, unless a person is a part of it and witness it they might be quite surprised by the predator/ prey twist.

I've seen mink and muskrat fight to the death, it's rough to watch but everybody has to eat.


Congrats on those Greys.!


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It seems that everything that a coyote can take down looks like something to eat.

Driving down a gravel back road during the middle of the day I watched a coyote come around the corner of a house, snatch the cat out of the yard and leave out around the other end of the house never missing a beat.


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set a 330 in a channel for beaver. Standing there looking at my handiwork and a muskrat came around the bend, never saw me, swam right into the 330 and was caught. I watched the whole thing happen. never thought I could catch a muskrat in a 330 but i surely did.


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I caught a Pike in a 330....

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Once saw "the beast with two backs" while checking a line along a swamp.

Snow was half way up the shins with temps hovering a bit above zero at the time. Even for a 17 year old I thought their choice of location to be pretty "interesting".

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A great blue heron picked the wrong spot to land. A a mink leaped out of the bushes, grabbed the heron by the throat, and held on long enough to kill it.


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I had a Cat set in a hiddey hole under some deformed Pine bows that a Sow Whet Owl (they're about the size of a beer can) decided to winter in one year.
He/she didn't seem to mind my comings and goings and would be there almost every day when I checked traps.

I did some reading on them and found that they are people tollerent and will hang around if you build boxes similar to Wood Duck boxes for them.
I built a few and hung em up near that spot but squirrels moved into the boxes and I never saw the little guy again.

These pix are from about 5-6 feet away.

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I was trapping in N. La. years ago and my trail took me between two sloughs/beaver ponds.. At one place the dry land was only about 8-10 ft. wide. If I didn't use this trail, I would have to walk an extra 3/4 mile to get to some of my traps. It had been cold for several days and then it turned off exceptionally warm for 2 days, got into the high 70's or low 80's. Then a front blew in and it was back into the 30's overnight. As I was walking down my trail the next morning, looking around but not paying attention to where I was stepping, I stepped on a cottonmouth. It was one of those moments where you caught a glimpse of something not right, just as your foot touched down. Somehow I knew instantly I had stepped on a cottonmouth and I remember a cold chill all over my body. I jumped, probably squealed like a little girl, but because of the cold, the snake was too sluggish to strike. I found me a stick and put a whoooping on him.


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A mountain goat with busted up back legs, he still had some life left though and seems to have made it out of the drainage he was hanging in.

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Saw this young guy on the beach. Pretty unusual.

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Caught a muskrat while checking traps , retreived it , thought it was dead , turn around and it's after me -hopping like it wanted to bite me .
I kicked/stomped/mashed it real fast like - I needed that $5-6 dollars back then .


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Was checking my coon traps along a creek one morning, I caught a squirrel in a #2 Victor coil spring. It was more like a Conibear on that poor squirrel, caught him just behind the shoulders, obviously DOA. I guess he wanted some sardines.


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Caught a Grey fox by the shoulder one time in a #1.5 Victor coil spring. He had to be wearing that trap like a rifle sling when it went off, leg all the way through the jaws! Had a big fox squirrel get caught in a new #3 Victor coil spring at a flat set. That thing tore the pan, post, & dog clear off the trap. I didn't buy any more of those traps. I got a good coyote story I'll post up later, if you guys want to hear it.

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Originally Posted by scott_arthur
Caught a Grey fox by the shoulder one time in a #1.5 Victor coil spring. He had to be wearing that trap like a rifle sling when it went off, leg all the way through the jaws! Had a big fox squirrel get caught in a new #3 Victor coil spring at a flat set. That thing tore the pan, post, & dog clear off the trap. I didn't buy any more of those traps. I got a good coyote story I'll post up later, if you guys want to hear it.



YES . Well, personally seaking, I would like to hear.


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Originally Posted by Hawk_Driver
Was checking my coon traps along a creek one morning, I caught a squirrel in a #2 Victor coil spring. It was more like a Conibear on that poor squirrel, caught him just behind the shoulders, obviously DOA. I guess he wanted some sardines.



Long ago, before my time, my grandfather used to wire the heart of a cabbage to the pan of his #2 Blake & Lamb Double Spring Jump Traps, and set for Snowshoe Hares.


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I've seen some crazy chit over the years but this probably takes the cake:

Fall of 2010 I get permission to trap this little 1-2 acre field on the corner of a larger property. It's right on the road and there are houses across the road, and a little house beside the field on the other side of the property. A little close to human traffic than I like to trap, but I have trapped places with more traffic. I was a little nervous when I went out to set the first time....a couple of fox sets by some round bales on the inside corner of the field.

I'm out there just a few minutes when all of a sudden a sedan comes driving across the field from the little house. I'm think "what the heck" and it pulls right up and there's a little old lady behind the wheel and she rolls down the window and says "there's a red polecat chasing me." At this point I think she is flatout crazy and I'm at a loss for words. But then sure as chit I look over and here comes a red tinted skunk running across the field toward us right in her tracks.

So, not wanting to just pull out a gun and scare her, I politely ask if she would like me to shoot it. She's says yes. I take my .22 revolver out. By this time the skunk is within 30-40' and has stopped and is just looking at me. I walk a bit closer and shoot it behind the elbow and its dead. She thanks me and drives back to the house, then off on the road. Turns out she is the sister of the lady living there and the skunk came after her as she was getting in her car.

So I washed the skunk and the red came out....had a den in red clay. I've trapped many dozens of skunks and that's the only red one I ever saw. I pelted it and it was covered in bite marks. I am supposing it had distemper or worse, I've never seen one act like that. Definitely a strange incident.

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Skinning that one was a dumb move, far as I'm concerned. It could have been the 'or worse'.....

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Originally Posted by huntsman22
Skinning that one was a dumb move, far as I'm concerned. It could have been the 'or worse'.....


My thoughts as well,shot a coon a couple years ago that was acting very strange,I didnt even want to touch it,bagged him up and into the trash he went.

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Don't recall the "why" but for some reason back when I was trapping in high school, I used a single stake for two traps at one particular set along an old fence line. Imagine my surprise the next morning when each trap held a fox. Buggers must have been walking in formation or something.

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I caught a hen Mallard in a 110 Muskrat trap. It was still alive and I had to catch it and turn it loose next to a busy intersection while everybody slowed down to look.

I also caught 35 feral house cats in a single bucket trap with a 220 connibear intended for coons. Also caught 5 raccoons, one mink, 3 skunks and a beaver on the same trap. Same piece of fish wired in the back of the bucket also. The next year I set that same bucket in the same place and caught another 20 house cats, but just coons and skunks this time around.

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Originally Posted by huntsman22
Skinning that one was a dumb move, far as I'm concerned. It could have been the 'or worse'.....


It may have been sick, and if it was, it was probably distemper not rabies. Skunks can act funny even when they're not sick. I had on gloves so I was not worried about catching something. I have skinned out thousands of furbearers so there is a good chance at some point one of them carried rabies. Knowing how to handle them safely is the important thing.

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Caught a snapping turtle in a 330 under the ice, never new they moved around in the winter, Central MN

Found what must have been an old cabin sight with a pile of "Prince Albert tins" knee high 6 ft across. N. MN

A number 14 trap hanging in a tree so long the chain had grown into the bark. NW WI

What looked like fox hole or blind built into the side of a hill with stones, very old and a long way from anywhere, There were the remnants of a logging camp a quarter mile away, from the turn of the century 1900. NE MN

A piece of plywood over what looked like a grave, the shovel was under the plywood, it was just a few yards from a little spring that just sparkled with pyrite as the water bubbled up through the bottom, we always stopped there for a drink, it too was a long way from any road. To let you know how long ago it was we left a note and a DIME and asked the the digger to call us and tell us about the hole. We checked it every fall for years until everything rotted away the dime and the note were always there. NE MN

We used to use #4 Jump trap in snow trail sets for mink after the ice was too thick to use them in the water for beaver, we'd set them where the mink were jumping over a stick or off a long, made a pretty good killer trap.


After the first shot the rest are just noise.

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Originally Posted by Hawk_Driver
Was checking my coon traps along a creek one morning, I caught a squirrel in a #2 Victor coil spring. It was more like a Conibear on that poor squirrel, caught him just behind the shoulders, obviously DOA. I guess he wanted some sardines.


Fox Squirrel in a MB550.

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Something else you don't see every day.

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In college, early '70s, I ran some fairly long lines in CA. In Solano Co. I caught a badger in a fence crossing set as I was leaving one area and it had been on a long chain and drag. It dug a huge hole. It was easily four feet deep, the same width, and over six feet long. After pulling the set i got out a shovel and filled the hole.

A couple weeks later I happened to drive by the site and got pulled over by a Deputy Sheriff. He started asking me weird questions about how often I drove that road and when was the last time, and so on. I told him I had driven it every day for about a month...

So he asked what I buried in the big hole up the road... seems a lady that lived down the road reported me burying a body and the deputy was the one that had to empty the hole looking for the body...


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