FUR SEEMS TO BE BACK

[Bogmaster]

 Seeing prices that were obtained on the last auctions,brings back prices trappers haven't seen in over 30 years.
 The only problem with good fur prices---the number of those that get back into it--for the money only.
 Tom

[bblwi]

Yes it does. I got $44.81 on 72 WI coons and $12.75 on 164 mostly fall rats. Grading on rats seemed tougher than the last two years and grading on coons seemed less rigid, although I waited 10 days to start which got me nicer coons but many less due to competion. I got $29 on 4 very average mink and $5.70 average on 7 grinners with two top lot grinners at $9.25!
I will need an armed guard to run the line next fall. LOL
 
Bryce

[Macthediver]

The NAFA sale was good to me also and I had fur sell at prices I've not seen since the 1980s.  I've never been a big time rat trapper or coyote trapper for that matter. Spent most my time on fox before they disappeard and now mainly target coon. Rat numbers were way down here so the boy and I had only 5 where we would usually be closer to 100. Those 5 rats though ave $14.20 which is the most I recall ever getting for any rat. Did have some at $12.00 once many years ago. Our coon numbers were also off this year like many other people in the area. Again I would usually catch between 60 & 100 on a 9 day run. This year the boy and I  had only 46 together but ave $39.40.. closest I've come to that since the 80s was a $24.00 something ave. The one that surprised me this season was coyote. This year we mixed trapped coyotes along the coon line because my son wanted to catch some. This was the first time he took vacation to actually trap with me like a partner. I haven't really set a trap line for coyotes since 05. Anyway we got out some coyote sets along the coon line and manged to add 9 coyotes and a surprise one redfox to the mix. Those 9 coyotes averaged is $53.00 which if I'd have any idea they would do I'd have tried harder. I have people beg me to catch coyotes. Most years you can't make gas money with these mutts. That surprise red fox netted us $58.00 and I was reluctant when I kept it. Last ones I caught I got $18.00 for, I'd have let this one go if it would have been a female instead of male.
So maybe there is hope for fur and it will be nice to make some money from the work.
Like you though Tom I worry about the dirt bags that will come out in the woods again. Only good part is I may be able to sell some of them come for the money boys my odd gear. I want to get ride of things in the garage I don't use or need. I can almost hear the price of used and new traps rising.
 
Mac

[Empty Quiver]

Getting back into it for the money only?


Don't get me wrong, but isn't that the / a good reason to trap? I know it kept me in gas money as a student in the late 70's and early 80's. As a side benefit I do believe the rabbits and pheasants among others will benefit from a few years of increased fur take.


I understand the slobs out there do diminish the sport. Without a financial benefit it's pretty hard to recruit new and younger trappers though. I enjoyed trapping but it certainly wasn't a life style for me or most of those I knew. Having done it ( a couple dozen traps on a couple farms, nothing too serious) I am more likely to defend those who do.

[rzwieg]

I started trapping because I read about mountain men and north country trappers living in the wilderness and thought that it would be cool. It was also cool to see animals up close and not running away. Then I read Fur Fish Game and a few old books. I was ten.
The first year was a disaster but year two produced me $105...CHA-CHING!
 
After the crash I didn't trap for four years. I missed it so in '92 the traps came out. You'd break even at least. Now the economy is flat and fur is up.
 
I love trapping and getting outside but I'll be damned if I'll chase 50 cent rats and 3 dollar coons.

[Bogmaster]

 Thats where some of us differ.I could not live a year without trapping.My trapping supply business keeps me constantly thinking about trapping--but I need to actually do it too.
 I have trapped rats at 35c,put up beaver at a $4.90 average,2 and 3 dollar coon---to keep at it,you have to love it and live for it.
 Tom

[southwestmotrapper]

I agree with bogmaster. Not all, but some of the guys that are " just in it for the money" will go to extremes for a buck. Ill be making a hundred 20 inch cable stakes for my dp's next year. A theif may take a coon but they will have to work a little to get the trap too. Most of the other trapping I will do will be out of site for the most part. It would be nice if the prices stay strong. All my fur will be at the late sale. I still have a few beaver to put up, and maybe a few to catch still.

[rzwieg]

I understand the urge...and feel it every time the wind blows through drooping cattails and the oaks and maples begin to turn.

But would you longline for 50 cents a rat?



 

[Bogmaster]

 While rats haven't been 50 cents since the 60s ,I did sell several put up rats in 1990 for 97 cents,  990 put up rats fot 2.35 6 or 7 years ago.
  So if I had the rat populations--I probably would. ..
 I do love those rats and beaver.
 Tom

[rzwieg]

While rats haven't been 50 cents since the 60s ,I did sell several put up rats in 1990 for 97 cents,  990 put up rats fot 2.35 6 or 7 years ago.
  So if I had the rat populations--I probably would. ..
 I do love those rats and beaver.
 Tom

Not quite true. The first week of Dec. 87 Groenewald offered me .50 cents for 8 rats albeit on the carcass and $3 for a large coon peeled...sigh. A month before I got a buck a rat and 5 bucks for my coons.
 
I was a student at the time and fur money was a huge help with paying college tuition and associated bills.

[Macthediver]

I've met a few guys who were all just about the dollars and that is ok for them. I can't say though that money makes those people, any happier than any of the rest of us folks. After the fur market crash which was right around the time my favorite the fox population also crashed. I was busy with two small kids and moving into a new house and new job. I got a little lost because my trapping partner had also left the area for a new job. Just a lot going on and life gets that way sometimes. But when fall came I got the trapping itch so bad I couldn't stand it. So I did something I hadn't done before just to cure it. I took my canoe and did a simple little four days on the river rat and beaver trapline line. I never considered myself a rat or beaver trapper I was a land lover with ducks my only passion on the river. But I paddled my canoe around for a couple hours for a couple days and got the itch out of system. Those simple days on the water were very calming. I think the few rats I caught were sold for $1.00 and change. I don't really remember. I did use the down priced fur to do something I always wanted to do though. I sent fur to a tanner, then to a furrier and had a big pair of chopper mittens made. I figure if the price was low what better time to use my fur for my self. I also have had some of the various critters mounted while fur prices were low. Which I never probably would have done had the price of fur been up.
 I think most anyone who's done things for a dollar has gotten in and out different earning situation.
 I've never made my living from trapping or my various outdoor pursuits. I have made some good side money at times and paid a bill or two here and there.
I believe like others that venture here to GB trapping has become a part of my life. Much like my scuba diving it is something I feel the urge and often the need to do. I just last summer finally saw the ocean and I only walked in it. Everyone I know that dives talks of the ocean and its wonders and yet I've never dove in one. I have however dove rivers all around the area here in the midwest allot of the time for the dollars. I don't think not having dove in the ocean or diving for the dollars for that matter. Has made me any less a diver. That job though has ended for me as the company boss closed shop and retire. I will continue to dive though if not only for the pure adventure I find in the river. Much as I did in my youth before I found that special dive job.
 I think guys like Tom and myself and others that gravitate to this site. Maybe we are just as they say "Old school." Our good old days are just that and the young folk’s good old days are right now. They just don't know it yet.
If I wasn't home right now on what I call the injured list. I'd never have taken the time to sit and type the above novel. I'd be out shoving my boat across the ice in pursuit of early spring walleye's. It troubles me to sit here basically doing what I call nothing. I'd rather be on the river pushing the boat on the ice. A task some call me crazy for doing and that has never earned me a penny. Yet when there appears a hole in the ice big enough to float the boat. I'm out there trying to figure out how to get to it.
 Money is great mostly because it can give a person the freedom to play. My mind needs to go play in order to feel the need to make the money.
 I have to be figuratively tied to this chair to not feel all I've typed above is mere time wasted.
Mac

[RdFx]

Ditto on many things Mac said above.   Im afraid that the creeks and lakes , swamps will be filled with steel come this fall......there arent the rats and coon  there now  ( in my area) , so any fur around will be taken up quick.   Remember my first mink, first coon, first fox.... for some reason dont remember first rat but remember the creek  where i first started trapping rats.   Oh yea remember first skunk too, caught under a  fruit tree, carried home  on a long pole alive in air..... set down in back yard and bugger sprayed all over the place.   I was only10 at the time.... didnt have  22.  Went over and borrowed neighbors 22 rifle and one shell.  Came home   MISSED the skunk, can you believe it!   Went back and borrow another shell.  Got em this time.  Boy my mother wasnt too happy but she supported my trapping.... and she was a widow without any outside help.   Trapping is in my blood.

[Asa Lenon]

It would be hard for me to forget the fur boom of the 1979 era, trappers lined up at my lure building to buy muskrat lures especially because of the $10.00 prices being paid and dozens of them trapping a tiny lake a half mile from me and just about everyone about to get in fist fights in line accusing one another of 'rat theft, trap theft and sabotaging sets.
I also remember the may years we had bounty here, $20.00 on coyotes during an era when people were working for 50 cents to $1.50 per hour on their regular jobs bringing out everyone including theives, set sabotagers and slob trappers in general, etc. One time 22 trappers were counted stringing steel over a 13 mile stretch of sand forest firelane road. So I know what one means about the negatives of exceptionally high fur prices.

[RdFx]

Asa,  i remember those days, it was like almost hiding your traps and catch from yourself or prying eyes.   I remember one bridge that i  stopped to  set traps .   From the bridge on the road i counted a total of 31 traps that (I COULD SEE).  Needless to say i went on and didnt set bridge till later in season....

  Asa i cant remember your dad writing about  any wolves that gave him a headache trying to catch.   Do you remember any?   

[sharps4590]

During the last boom I remember fist fights on state rural highways over road killed coon.  Saw it.  I am glad fur is back and while I never trapped for the money, getting the time is my biggest problem.

[Empty Quiver]

I must have been sheltered in my innocent youth as I never encountered any of the above nonsense. I stand corrected.

[rzwieg]

The first year I trapped I lost fifteen out of eighteen #1s. Year four I stashed a dozen traps in a hollow tree on our farm and two days later they were gone.
 
The next year some trespassing sob followed my line and cleaned out my traps, twice. One of the neighbors (a deputy sheriff) caught him doing this on his line...
 
Another time shiners shot some coons out of a tree on my grandmothers front yard!
 
I still take higher fur prices though.

[Asa Lenon]

RdFx asked..."Asa i cant remember your dad writing about  any wolves that gave him a headache trying to catch.   Do you remember any?"
 
Dad always said that wolves were not nearly as wary as coyotes so noted few set avoidances, walk-bys, etc. He said the only thing that madethem a bit more difficult to trap was their range. While one could expect when seeing tracks or fresh scat a fox would return within a day, a coyote in 3 days but a wold would would generally take from 10 days to 30 days to make a return circuit.   Keeping a set working all of that time without catches of skunks, porcupines, fox, coyote etc was trying as many times when the wolf returned the trap was sprung by another animal.
On a different subject I recently met had a nice conversation with a nice 76 year old gentleman that is the nephew of the noted old Michigan State wolf trapper and den hunter John Ehn. 

[rzwieg]

Hmm.. I've wondered about that too.
 
Thank you sir!

[Macthediver]

Asa
So what your saying is unless you set up on wolves that are in the area for a couple days of their loop. You might have a pretty good wait till they loop back again. A person would almost have to have a large area and know the travel route to get a head or in the area the wolves are. I will certainly make a note of that info so if I happen to draw a tag I can bring it to play.
Mac

[RdFx]

Asa that is neat  you met the nephew of John Ehn.   Did he remember much of John and his trapping escapades?   I sure wish i could have been there to talk to the gentleman.  John sure traveled the country after leaving Michigan.   

[Asa Lenon]

I can't say Lee that Willard Ehn added much about his uncles trapping and den hunting that I didn't already know. Of course my Dad knew John Ehn very well from being a State Trapper and later on even after John had moved to Texas and California him and his Brother Oscar would return to trap bounty here so our paths often crossed along woods roads where my Dad would stop and chat with the a while or the two would stop by the house for a visit. Willard did provide me with a geneaology and a lengthy list of coyote and coon lure formulas of Johns. The geneaology showed me why John was an outstanding woodsman as he was 1/2 Finish and 1/2 native Chippewa, both nationalities in this region are noted for their hunting and trapping abilities. One thing John did on a regular basis I've been told was something I never have known of anyone else doing and that was hunting down wolf dens and crawling right into the dens with a .38 revolver and dragging them out.

[RdFx]

Interesting  about  Johns  geneaology.  Makes sense  though as  know some Finlanders up in the Hayward area that are good trappers ect.    The denning John did i read about in a story by him years back.  Wish i knew  where i read it so i could reread it.   I believe John did the denning thing with bears also.
   Talking about the time table of wolves  returning  on a circuit, the wolves in my area that cross close to house  are on a two to three week time table.  I can just about got out  and cut tracks on the two or three week schedule....

[Savage_99]

I hope fur is back.

My wife has not been wearing her fur coats.   Not at all this last winter.  I can't remember if she wore them the year before.

Of course it's the talk where the wearing of fur is put down.

The season is about over here for the warm coats but I may encourage her to wear them next fall.

Here is a beautiful raccoon coat with a M75 W. Sporting in front of it.

[x472]

You all have my interest up here. I may consider renewing my fur buyers license this year. Might be able to make a few extra dollars to fill up the gas tank.