Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Trapping EJ Dailey's Chair

EJ was one of my father's heroes and when we lived in Plattsburgh, NY in '71 we ran across his place in Ogdensburg. He invited me to stay with him for a week and learn about fur handling and to help with his trap line.

He had been writing for FFG for many decades at that point and was reduced to a crusty old chain-smoking geezer. I liked the guy. He made a lot of sense when it came to trapping. For instance, I had a huge desire to trap a mink. He pointed out that I would catch plenty of mink just as soon as I trapped where there were lots of mink. Nothing tough about it. He was exactly right.

For the week I trapped with him I worked my butt off in the afternoons skinning and stretching fur, but rode around in EJ's old truck checking traps from daylight to noon or so. We caught foxes, coon, skunks, 'rats and mink. Seems beaver and otter were not legal there then and we did not catch any.

When my father came to pick me up EJ had just received a new office chair. His old oak, swivel, office chair was tossed outside. My father asked for and received the old chair "Yeah, take that old piece of crap!"

EJ said he wrote everything he ever wrote from that chair from his start (in the '20s I believe) to that day. My father restored the old chair and wrote from it himself from then until his death in '98. When EJ died my father wrote his obit in FFG... and considered it a high point.

Yesterday my mother gave me EJ's chair. Have not picked it up yet, but hope to see the quality of my writing improving soon!
art

You are a very ;lucky man! I'm sure you consider it an honor to receive something that is really a keepsake> Hopefully you will be able to pass the chair down to your son.
I'm betting your writing will improve sustaintally!!

Did you ever get over to O. L. Butcher's place?

Never did... But remember much of his fox trapping stories and such...

Where is that chair?
You need a place to store it/someone to pick it up?
That's one neat piece of history there mr sitka deer.
and you be one blessed fella for getting to spend that week rootin in the Champlain Valley w/EJ.

On a side...I met Liz Greene at a social yesterday.
Her hubby Don was a noted bobcat hunter in VT,and wrote a small book on the subject.I believe she's going to mail me a copy of the book.Will follow up on that.

The chair is here in town at my mother's house... No need to store it anywhere, but thanks for the offer!

Don Greene rings a small bell, but it may just be my imagination.

I was able to obtain 2 pictures of Don.First is 250 lb Black Bear #19,70 yrs old,1991....

Next was taken in the 60's.Don is 2nd from left.Bennington VT...

The good old days!

Sitka,

May your writing equal that of EJ's!

EJ, OL, Walt Arnold, VE Lynch and Bill Nelson were my heros growing up in the late 60's and early 70's. I still have quite a few of their books, some no doubt stained with logwood crystals.

Ed T

With you on the logwood... Remember them well...

Art,

That's a very cool piece of history that you have there! Cool memories too.

We used to read FF& G all the time. I trapped a bit, and one of my younger brothers ran a line for years. While we have not trapped for decades, I still read FF&G now and then.

Chris

As kids in the early 60's we worshipped a few untamed old-timers (probably in their 30's) who at that time lived by trapping, sturgeon fishing, dock-building, etc. When one of those guys asked if we wanted to ride over to "EJ"'s place to get supplies or because a fur buyer was going to be there we jumped at the chance. It was great to hang around all those hard-living, soft-spoken men who seemed to gather there. EJ would be bouncing all over the place like a banty rooster, talking to people, getting out goods for customers, always had time for us kids. As we got older, with drivers' licenses and girlfriends, we'd often drive over after school. Most girlfriends waited out in the car after their first trip (and their first whiff of the inside of EJ's building. We didn't have a lot of cash for or exposure to magazines in those days, unless they were at the barber shop. I'll never forget the time a Fur Fish and Game came our way and whoever was reading it suddenly looked up and said, "Look at this, EJ must be the one writing this question and answer column in this magazine." We finally figured out what he was doing when we'd come in and find him pecking away at the old typewriter. He would have been sitting in the chair you got. Gotta love the prose. I still can't pot a grouse, squirrel, coon or whatever with a .22 pistol without the words "..where he fell easy prey to my belt gun..." running through my mind.

That would be a phrase straight from EJ... In '71 he had to be quite a lot older than his 40s though... He died around '74 and I would guess he was close to 70. He seemed very old to me, but perspective is most everything and I was 16.

Somehow seems they were better days, doesn't it?
art

Every now and then a guy gets lucky and accidentally stumbles across a thread like this.

"Where he fell easy prey to my belt gun" makes me want my Bearcat back and to load my packbasket and run a muskrat line again. One hasn't really lived until he has snapped a #1 Victor longspring on cold fingers. (Hey, I was 12)

great thread i lived for years in bennington vt. trying to remember name of dealer who bought fur sold lure and i think did some writing he lived in ny state maybe in cambridge, petersberg ? have crs anyone know who i'am thinking of ? thanks Ed in idaho

What years?

1959 to 1981

You're not thinking of Paul Grimshaw up around Champlain?