Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Trapping Interesting things you've seen on the trapline

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Ken

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.

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.

Fox Squirrel in a MB550.



Something else you don't see every day.

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...