Howdy Ya'll,
My name is Jack Hamilton, 52 years old, and down here in Texas.
Bobcat 66 ! Darryl ! Hey man remember me?
I sent you some 1986 vintage bobcat urine and some knives I made, for some Victor 3n's. Good to hear from ya.
And ADK Guide! It was you who told me about the place to get me some traps that would hold a lion.
Still got-em book marked.
Still have that homebrew for ya. {Hey, it is getting pretty good!
What do I enjoy most about Trapping?
Well I thought you would never ask!
Working on the old traps in the spring and summertime, and fall. gives me the oppourtunity to anticipate the coming winter, and when it finally gets here I appreciate it all the more.
First off ... I love the old traps, and its kinda weird.
I remember old Al the fur buyer, saying how a man when he is getting old and selling off all his possesions in anticipatiion of death.
His old traps are invaribaly the last thing to go.
He'd sell his wife first.
I remember old FLOYD McBETH,
Asa, knew him as he made lure out of rattlesnakes and sold it everywhere back then. Old Floyd sold me all his traps back in 89 for $140.00 and he took his wife out to dinner that night.
He gave me a copy of the old Magazine, HUNTER-TRAPPER-TRADER' Dated 1924, the year my father was born.
It was cool.
I remember old Floyd well, and liked him like I had known him for 40 years.
He was that kind of guy.
He sold me all his traps but three.
Three single longspring 1's.
Traps that as Floyd said, were not good for much as he had had them since he was a kid.
I have no idea when that was but the point is that the traps themselves are full of memorys.
Floyd told his wife right there that :
"Now when I die,
I want these three traps in my hands.
Take some string and tie them to my fingers, real good.
And I don't any flowers over them either.
Alright Floyd,
His wife would say smiling.
Floyd took them with him.
Is that cool or what?
I had Floyd's traps hanging on my porch and I had been damn near killed myself, and was in the hospital 5 months.
I could sense something weird about them traps.
It was not like Floyd was in them, but more like they were a mirror to the other side, where he was.
I only met him once, but they hung there on my porch and I could sense something.... Floyd had owned those traps all his life.
I had other traps that just hung there.
My traps were different.
My old #3 ls/os coyote traps which I used when my hounds were alive.
The trapline during the daylight hours, and the hounds, Joe and Suemae,
Bonnie belle and Sport, all night.
Back when I was in my life and everything was good,
These traps were different.
What do I like about trapping?
I like what Floyd liked.
Th memorys.
The trail and the trapline.
No traffic, no people, no rules and laws and cops in everybodys face. Freedom and fun is another way to put it.
One does not hunt to kill, but one kills in order to have hunted.
The trapline is our lives and what we live for.
Thats as good as it can be said.... Freedom and fun
J. Knife
