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GETTING EXPERIENCE TRAPPING | |
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When I received December Fur News I saw where Fur News wanted trappers to tell about their trapping. First I will tell about ourselves. I am thirteen years old, in the sixth grade, and my brother is ten years old, in the third grade. Last year my father sent for some traps for us, three No. 4 and three No. 3 Victor traps, and we got some bait. We have no gun of any kind, but father got a double-barrel shotgun; but I'm not going to tell about last year.
When the trapping season came near we asked father if he would send for some more traps. Nothing doing. So we sent for some more, consisting of six No. 2's and two No. 1 ½’s. We set our traps over by our sister's place, half a mile from our place. The place where the animals live is in rocks. We took the traps and put them three in a ring and rabbits, or whatever we had, for bait. I put in the middle. I put three in one place and the other three in another place the same way. Then we took the other two No. 1 1/2 traps and set for rabbit, because we never had any bait. The next day two men and one boy shot six jack rabbits for us. We took four home and left two in the pasture, so we could get them to set our other traps. We fed two to the dogs and cats and the other two we put on our traps. The next morning when we went to get the rabbits they were partly eaten up, so we went and got our No. 1 1/2 traps and set them around the rabbit and before we got home there was a crow in. We went and got him out and that night we caught a civet cat, so we told our daddy and he shot it, but would not skin it because he said that it was not worth skinning, so we threw it away. Then after the rabbits began to get bad we took the traps and set them for rabbit. The next morning we went to the traps and there were two rats. In the next we had an opossum. We thought that he was hunting for rabbit and he got caught. He was a great big one, too, and in a few days we went and took the top and end of a box out and put the trap 'n the door. We caught a hawk and opossum and a dog in our other two sets.
Sunday, December 12, we went to set the rest of our six traps. We took three and put them in a circle and set for coyote. We set the traps beside the coyote trail. The other three we put in a circle and set for skunk. The next morning we went down and there was a great big fat male skunk and he was a long stripe. We had a club about eight feet long and we killed him and father skinned him. He never got any of his scent on us, but our folks said we smelled too bad to go to school, so we had to change clothes, but we went to school and the teacher never said anything.
One morning I went to the other traps and there was a civet cat. I killed him, took him home and father said that he would not skin it till the next day at noon, so after dinner my brother and I went out and got the civet, went in the shed and went to work. We got along O. K. until we came to a little round green ball. We were skinning around that thing and all at once 1 cut right into the ball and the scent did fly all over us, so whoever reads this be careful for that little green ball, not to cut into it. We finished it, stretched it and it is ready for market. Remember though, this was the first time at such a job. Well, we are glad that we did it. That is the only way to learn. Now we have two opossums, one civet cat and one skunk for market.
Johnny Frast
Fur, News. Fur News, January 1916.
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