When my late Brother was just getting started in the guide business he was a wrangler for Jack Beckman in Salmon Idaho. He didn’t stay in Salmon long before he moved to Wyoming to take a gas drill job the money was too good to pass up. One of the guys who ran mud pumps on the rigs was a long time trapper and my Brother started picking his brain. He tried to run a few trap lines when he was younger after spending some time with a trapper from Edmonton but was unsuccessful to say the least. But this old timer let my Brother tag along and from what he told me one season was a chance to learn more about game habits than he ever thought possible. That one season with a trapper was, according to him, the smartest move he ever made for no money. I spent some time with him deer hunting and his so called gut feelings were almost uncanny.
Rick
Id have to say, A good trapper is more in tune with animals and with nature over other sportsmen. He learns about all species that are available to him to trap. He is in the field every day. Learning what the critters do throughout the seasons and will adapt and change with them. Year after year and pursues them even when the return to the trapper is next to nothing. A trapper has more encounters with animals than say a big game hunter. Just my thoughts and observations.
By design a trapper needs a whole different efficiency level than a hunter.
A trap or snare does not stretch out to any sort of range like a gun, bow, spear etc. A trapper to be successful has to get the target animals head or paw into/onto a few square inches of area. By necessity the trapper had better be extremely animal savvy, and clever.
Osky
When you become successful as a trapper I believe you are aware of alot of things in the woods that you would have walked by before. Your eyes see and look at many things in the woods completly different.
I have been retired for four years now. Have built three blinds on our 30 acres. Spend a lot of time in them.
Have seen a lot of stuff I was not before. My deer killing has improved over the years because of it.
Yes that is what I’m talking about. Saavy almost a second sense with trappers.
Rick