Off The Clock with B Scott

Trapping 101 | Ep081 | Off The Clock with B Scott

• Off The Clock with B Scott • Season 2 • Episode 81

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Two veteran members of the Arkansas Trappers Association share how ethical, modern trapping boosts turkey numbers, protects land, and still turns a profit within a global fur market. We walk through sets, scents, legal rules, fieldcraft, and the culture shift welcoming new trappers.

• conservation and education as first principles
• why nest predators crush turkey hatches
• reading wind, terrain and animal travel
• bait vs lure and layered scent strategy
• pan tension for coyotes, cats and mink
• waterline tactics for beaver, otter and mink
• humane BMP-tested traps and research use
• fur economics, auctions and speculation
• skunk tail demand and bobcat belly grading
• freeze-proofing sets with peat or waxed dirt
• drags, disposables and dog-proof traps
• hogs and nutria as invasive pressure
• workshops, mentors and district pages
• women as the fastest-growing trapper group
• surprising tricks: burnt logs, white rocks, catnip

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Guests And Mission: Education First

SPEAKER_04

It's five o'clock in your Alpha Cogle Beast Scott. Today we have our guests Charlie Bast and Tabitha Bast. They are not related, but they are both a part of the Arkansas Trappers Association. Now, what they're going to talk about today is trapping. The different kinds of trappers. You got your nuisance trappers, you got your fur trappers, what they do, what they're going after. The goals the same, but a little bit different. We're going to go with different kinds of traps, how to trap bobcats, coyotes, beavers, minks, all of it. We're going to cover it all. Chocolate's done a little bit of trapping, not very successful, but he's tried it. So hopefully these guys can teach Chocolate how to get the job done, and we're going to learn a few things about trapping. So before we get into it though, make sure you leave a like, subscribe, hit the bell for notifications, and let's jump in. Well, let's get right into this. So what is the Arkansas Trappers Association? Like what exactly is it?

SPEAKER_01

Okay, the Arkansas Trappers Association is uh it it came together in 1975. Uh it's been around a whole lot. It has. It's been around for a long time.

SPEAKER_00

We just celebrated our 50th anniversary.

SPEAKER_01

It's awesome. And our biggest thing that we push is conservation and education. Education being the biggest one.

SPEAKER_04

Right.

SPEAKER_01

And the reason for that is if if people don't know, then they have a perception of what somebody else has told them. So if somebody tells you something's bad, evil, or cruel, and you don't know that it's not, then you don't know what's going on. Exactly. And the other is to educate people on making proper sets, uh, ethics, safety and trapping, uh, animal welfare and trapping. Um and that's what we do. We have programs we put on every year. Uh we have one-day workshops. Uh we've got a three-day workshop coming up that's really a bargain for a family of five, sixty bucks, and we put you up for two nights, feed you all your meals, and you get all this trapping information. That's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00

That's how I got started. Really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So how long how long have you been doing it?

SPEAKER_00

Um, I think this is my fourth year.

SPEAKER_04

Fourth year? You're relatively new to the game.

SPEAKER_00

And I went from brand new out of the box to killing it. Like, I mean just passionate about it. Yep. I was born on the last day of deer season in '78, and I started hunting. My dad had me on the stand the next year, and I've been an avid deer hunter my whole life. And four years ago when I met Trappin', I was like, I can't wait for deer season to be over with.

SPEAKER_04

So how long have you been trapping?

How Trapping Hooks You And Sharpens Skills

SPEAKER_01

Over 40 years. Wow. Over 40 years. Uh been in association since 92. Uh, but trapping for me started when I was actually younger than than than that. Uh back in my when I was in my all probably 12, 13, 14 years old. We had a little lady that lived down the road from us. She was a widow woman. Uh, her name was Mithita the Oliver. And she uh had these fur fishing game magazines, and she would loan us one. And when I say loan, I mean you had to take it back to get the next issue.

SPEAKER_04

So you're like she was holding it hostage. You weren't going to be able to do it.

SPEAKER_01

I I would read that thing from cover to cover.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And and the unique thing about that magazine is it's here. It's not over in Africa, it's not somewhere else's. It's here in in areas that we deal with. Right. And when you're a kid and you're reading these stories about the Adirondacks or Alaska and you're these guys mushing through the snow or they're camping out and they're catching all this fur and stuff, it's it's really fascinating. And so that's more what got me into it because my dad was a coon hunter. He was a big coon hunter, that's what he did. He he coon hunted all the time, and we coon hunted religiously. But the trapping part for me was when I got married uh to my wife sitting over Cindy. Um I got married to her and we started trapping, and I've never looked back on it. I've I've done it ever since. And it's just uh it's just one of those things when you start doing it, it gets in your blood. Yeah, it does. It does, it it really does, and it's amazing how how it it it tunes you to nature more because you know you're trying to get an animal a lot of times to put his foot in a two-inch spot in a hundred acre field.

SPEAKER_04

Which makes yeah, it makes me gotta be very strategic.

SPEAKER_01

You're you're not sitting in a deer stand watching twenty deer come out to the cornpile. You're you're trying to get that coyote or that bobcat to put his foot in a two-inch circle in the middle of a hundred acre field. And that that takes takes skill and it takes patience and it takes learning. A lot of mistakes.

SPEAKER_00

I'd like you you have to mess up so many times in order to get it right. But it's it's uh that's how you learn, you know. You and and the more you mess up, the more you pay attention. The more you pay attention, the better you get, you know, you you you learn like and and we use game cameras sometimes, but sometimes it's it's a disadvantage as much as it is an advantage. I can see that. And so I can see that. You know, and it but but I mean you learn from it and you it just makes you better from from the mistakes. I mean, you can go to all these workshops, you can do all the things that we you know, we we do our best to teach people everything that we that we know, but you're gonna have to mess up on your own. Like you just you can't.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, the real world, like taking it to the real world, taking it like going to a spot and analyzing it and being like, okay, I know there's this game in the area, where are they moving? Right. And breaking it down, you know.

Reading Wind, Sets, And Learning From Mistakes

SPEAKER_01

And it and it is, and and you're looking at a lot of different aspects when you're trapping out there, and and mistakes, like she said, you're gonna make mistakes. Don't be scared of mistakes. If you have a trap that's throwed and it's pulled out here, why was it pulled out there? Why was it throwed? What did you do? Did you not have your pan tension set right? Did you not have your trap bedded right? Uh, you know, there's there's stuff like that. Uh play in the wind. You have to play the wind. Probably more so than you do deer hunting or duck hunting. And the reason you play the wind is because if if you're sitting in a say a big field or a wood lot or whatever, if your wind predominantly blows from one direction, you want your trap over toward where that wind's blowing from because it's gonna blow it across the field. So anything crossing a field is gonna come to that scent that you're using, whatever your bait or lure is.

SPEAKER_04

Right.

SPEAKER_01

So you have to learn to use that wind to your advantage, especially with predators like coyotes, fox. Uh wind is a a really key. I can see that, especially if you're trying to lure them in. Exactly. And that's what you're trying to do.

SPEAKER_00

And you you kind of gotta think like them too, because in the woods, they're looking for one of two things. They're looking for something to love or something to eat. That's right. So you you gotta you gotta figure out what they're looking for. You know, um early deer season when you got you know all the deer hunters throwing out the carcasses, you don't have to look very far because you know where they're gonna be. That coyotes have huge travel circles, and but they don't have to travel very far if they know where a gut pile is. That's true. And so that's where they are, but that's where the law comes in. You can't sit within twenty foot of you know live animal matter. So those are good places for snares. Not so much the the footholds and stuff, but and you know, there's a lot of things that you gotta take because into consideration. If you put a foothold in there and you got one, you know, jumping and barking, well, the rest of them's not gonna come in there unless you catch all of them at the same time. Which is unlikely, yeah. Right.

Types Of Trappers And Turkey Nest Protection

SPEAKER_04

So I mean you just gotta live and learn. So what kind of like when I think of trapping, and I don't have a lot of knowledge going into this, I'm gonna ask a lot of probably stupid questions, but no, as far as trapping goes, I know that people trap for reasons like, hey, you know, I'm trying to protect my turkeys, I'm trying to get rid of some of the coyotes. You know, what what types of trappers are there and what's their goals?

SPEAKER_01

There's you have you have several types of trappers. You have the the the nuisance guys, and their goals are that they're making money, but they're also removing a problem for somebody.

SPEAKER_04

Right.

SPEAKER_01

Um and there's a couple different types of those. You have the ones that are uh doing the beaver damage control work uh for the timber companies. Uh you also have the ones that do it in the cities, getting rid of the raccoon out of somebody's attic or the squirrels out of somebody's attic. Gotcha. Um but then you have the the the backyard trappers, the guy, like you said, has got chickens or you know, somebody like that. They got chickens or stuff, they want to just get get that thing caught. They don't want it there extended around. But then you have uh the trappers, like you you said a while ago, to get rid of the, you know, to help your turkey populations.

SPEAKER_00

That's how we got started.

SPEAKER_01

Those trappers right there, you're going in mainly to remove the nest raiders. That's the biggest thing you're gonna have with turkeys, and that's your skunks, your raccoons, and your possums. Because if they come across a nest, that's what they're gonna do. Right. Uh and they're they'll kill the the turkey, especially the raccoons, they'll kill a hen turkey in a heartbeat.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, uh that that's how my husband and I got started. Really? Yeah. Um he actually proposed to me in the woods while we were turkey hunting because I could hear turkeys and he couldn't because he worked in the logwoods for a long time. Ears are shot, yeah. Yeah, and so he was like, hey, I'm gonna I'm gonna hang on to her, she can hear them mile away. That's a pretty good idea, actually. Yeah, and um so but we couldn't we couldn't hardly find a turkey. I mean, we we had several guys were down. Yeah, and and they're like if somebody hears one, by the time you get to it, there's two or three other people there. And we're like, we gotta do something. So we we went to the workshop, we found it it was advertised on on um Facebook, and we went to the workshop and we left there with half a dozen footholds, and we put them out. And I'm I'm cheap. Now, my husband he'll spend money on anything, and I'm like, just don't tell me how much it costs. You know, I just I don't want to know. Right. So um, you know, I get home, there's a box on the porch. By the end of the season, we had like 75 trash, and that's a lot. Got into it fast. Like it real fast, yeah. And man, we just loved it. And we got into it for the nest raiders for the turkeys, but when you start catching coons and possums, you're like disappointed because now you want the coats and the bobcats and the fox.

SPEAKER_03

And they're eating harder to catch. They they are coyote is smart.

Fur Trapping Economics And Global Markets

SPEAKER_00

Well, and because we hunt um pine timber on in gravel roads, they run the gravel roads. I mean, that that's just what they do. And you know, then you gotta learn how to set the gravel roads because if they're running in the middle of the road and they don't like the smell that you got out, they're not coming to you. And you gotta figure out how to get them over there. And so it's like I said a while ago, you know, you gotta make mistakes to learn. And it's been a learning process, but it is absolutely awesome. It's like Christmas morning.

SPEAKER_04

Oh, yeah, going out there and checking. Yes, you could have one, you could not, you know. Every time you go out there, unless you got a camera on, you're like, Right, I could have all my traps full.

SPEAKER_00

That's right. Today could be the day. And we have we have eight grandkids and six of them trap with us. And man, the smile on their face. Two of them caught one a couple of weekends ago, and they're just like through the roof. It's actually we we made a YouTube about it.

SPEAKER_04

That's awesome. So, you know, you see like on TV shows trapping, you know, and and skinning out for furs. Yes. Walk me through the fur the fur game. Like the trapper that's going after fur. What's he exactly going after?

SPEAKER_01

He's he's the the fur trapper today is is going after usually the furs that are worth the most money.

SPEAKER_04

Now, what is that right now?

SPEAKER_01

Uh right now you're looking at beaver, otter, and bobcat and skunk. Skunk right now is the most probably the most valuable in our area.

SPEAKER_04

And what what is the reason for that? It's where's the where are the the skunk go?

SPEAKER_01

Okay, let's let's let's go let's go with this is gonna be a weird one for you guys. I'm gonna tell you right now, you're gonna you're gonna freak out on this probably a little bit. But back in June, there was a sale, uh, one of the big fur sales they have in Canada. Skunks averaged$80 apiece.

SPEAKER_04

$80 a piece, dude.

SPEAKER_01

Here's the thing. All they wanted was the tails.

SPEAKER_04

Really?

SPEAKER_01

They didn't want the rest of the hive, they just wanted the tails. Overseas, over there somewhere in one of those countries, there's a sect of those of the Jewish community, and they wear these big hats. And these big hats are made out of the tails of these different fur bears. And it goes back even further than that. It goes back hundreds of years ago. There was a emperor or king or somebody who was trying to humiliate them so he could tell them apart and he made them wear an animal tail. So they just turned it into a tradition. Now they make these big hats. Really? And it takes a lot of tails to make one of those hats. Expensive hat, huh? They they are. And so that's what's driving that market right now. Is it a niche market, probably for a little while, a few years? Yes, it's probably gonna be a niche market for a few years. It's kind of like what uh a certain TV show did to Beaver a few years ago on the Hatter market. It drove that Hatter market and beaver prices were through the roof. They were they were high for us.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it was real nice.

SPEAKER_01

All because of a cowboy hat. You can guess the show. Yeah. And that drove that market for a for a few years.

SPEAKER_04

So it goes up and down. So it does. The furs, I mean, it's kind of like supply and demand. I imagine it is. If there's a big demand for something specific, like the skunk tails, for example, then I imagine the price will go up.

SPEAKER_01

Right. One year the one year it was otter. Otter, otter prices were up in the hundred dollar plus range just because of the Tibetans over there. They they made ceremonial deals out of them. So it it it it's whatever that market is driving, whether it's fashion, whether it's ceremonial, whether it's you know, whatever that market is is what's driving that price.

SPEAKER_04

That makes sense.

SPEAKER_01

When you see those high prices. Right now, cat prices, our cat prices stay fairly steady. They'll average fifty bucks. Uh, but you get out west, you can get into those thousand dollar cats. One cat for a thousand dollars. But if you ever look at one of their cats, their cats are bigger than ours. Right. And they buy a cat strictly by the belly. They do not buy it, it's strictly by that belly. That's what they buy a cat by, yes. How how wide it is and how many spots is on it. That's that's how they buy cats.

SPEAKER_00

But at the end of the day, trapping is the only hobby that I have that I make money on. I mean, that's probably I believe that.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. There's not many hobbies that I do that I can say I turn into money.

SPEAKER_00

And the crazy thing is, you know, back in the 70s or whatever, that this people did this for a job. Yeah, and those guys those guys weren't giving out any information. They weren't telling you how to set a trap, where to go, nothing.

SPEAKER_04

Which could have inevitably hurt the sport as far as getting awareness and and knowing about it. Because like somebody really good at is not gonna give their secrets up.

Animal Welfare, BMPs, And Modern Gear

SPEAKER_00

Right. Well, then when the prices dropped out, people stopped doing it. And the, you know, the predators started overrunning everything, and populations got out of whack, and then people started doing it back out of necessity, and the money is just a bonus. It's not necessarily what drives everyone. Now, some people it does. And at this point, you know, I'm teaching my grandkids to trap, and they don't know nothing about money. They just I'm teaching the conservation side of and we gotta do this, and you know, and they're little, so like I was to explain and we gotta do this for the deer and the turkey. Well, yeah, we you know, we we're we run our traps and we didn't catch anything. And sh my granddaughter's like she's four or five, and she started crying and she said, but we didn't catch them. They're gonna they're gonna eat all our turkeys. And I'm like, baby, we're coming back tomorrow.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, they won the day, we're gonna win tomorrow. Yeah. But you know, and and the one thing with trapping that really sets trapping apart from other outdoor activities, such as say duck hunting or deer hunting or any of those, is we're the only group that has had our equipment BMP tested, which is best management practices. And what that is, is they went in there and tested this all these different traps in different states, and they tested these traps to see which ones performed the best and which ones did the you know the least harm to an animal. It was all about animal welfare.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_01

And by doing that, our equipment that we have today is way better than what they had, say, 30 years ago or even 20 years ago or 40 years ago. Uh so the the traps that are coming out now, a lot of these traps are used in wildlife studies where they'll catch animals and then they'll release that animal unharmed.

SPEAKER_04

Right.

SPEAKER_01

And and you know, people will sit there and tell you they'll go, Oh, that an that trap's so cruel it's gonna cut their feet off and all that. That's not what that trap's designed to do. It's designed to hold that animal in that place. It's no different than putting a leash on your dog or or anything like that. You're holding that animal in that spot until you can get back to it, and then you can if you need to release it, you can release it, or you can, you know, harvest that animal for the fur.

Water Trapping, Rivers, And Constant Learning

SPEAKER_04

That makes sense. That does make sense. And you know, I've seen a a video, and the only reason the only reason I seen his video is because my son Briggs just loves anything hunting related. I mean, we're just going through YouTube just watching it. And they were in Maine and they were trapping bears. Yeah. Maine. Nuisant bears. The only state. And well, it was talking about how, you know, like the uh when I think of a bear trap, I think of like the big metal steel teeth, you know, crushing the trap. And that's not illegal in Maine. That's what they're talking about.

SPEAKER_00

The snares, that's the same thing anymore.

SPEAKER_04

The foot snare, whatever it is. And I thought that was cool because when I think of traps, that's what I think of. Yeah. I think of bearing.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Well, actually, you know, it's been it's not been that long ago that they could still use those new house bear traps. And most people see a bear trap, they're thinking that great big but most of you most of your bear traps aren't that big. They're not as big as you think they are. Um there's actually some videos out there. A guy here in Arkansas not too long ago caught a bear in a just a regular foot old trap. It was a smaller bear, but they caught a game of fish, they come out, they released it unharmed, and let it go. So it that bear went on his way and wasn't harmed. Uh so that's crazy.

SPEAKER_04

But uh you can imagine rolling up to a bear in a foot trap.

SPEAKER_01

That would be that would be wild. Uh, you know, so it trapping itself though is just it's such a great outdoor, you know, deal. It's not it's not like duck hunting where say three or four of us are getting out there and we're in the blind and we're sitting there and we're all having a good time. Trappers by nature are loners. They are. They're just they're just by nature they're loners. And so it's not where three or four guys are gonna go out and go, okay, we're gonna go, we'll set this one trap, or you know, like duck hunting is. And for a long time that's kind of what hurt trappers, I think, being loners and not being members of these associations or members of these groups and and sticking together and helping each other. So, you know. I can see that. Yeah, and and that's that's changed in the last years. And she was talking about information. Uh yeah, when I first started trapping, you ask any old timer how to catch a mink. Because mink were king back then, they were twenty dollars back in the early eighties. And you ask an old timer how to catch a mink by the foot. That's what he'd say, or in the water. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

And you'd be like, all right, well, I know a little bit just a tiny bit more than I knew before. Right.

SPEAKER_01

And then I got to go with uh a friend of mine, Jim Spencer, and he's been a mentor to me, and I he was a longline mink trapper, so I got to go on his mink line with him back years ago, and that taught me more in one day than I had learned in three or four years. So, you know, going with somebody and finding somebody that traps is a big part of it too. Yeah. And that's the good thing about these associations, all these different state associations, and there's two national associations. You go to these people and you're wanting to learn, that's where you're gonna learn at.

SPEAKER_04

I can imagine, yeah. Because they'll tell you the why. Exactly.

Guiding, Snares, And Bobcat Tactics

SPEAKER_01

If you ask them questions, I'm sure they'd be like, well, the reason we do it this way is because typically it's absolutely and and that's the thing is you know, if if if I've got somebody with me and my boat, because I I trap mostly from a boat. Do you? Uh-huh. I'm I'm more of a water trapper than a land trapper, but I can still catch cows or cats, it's not a problem. But I just like the water animals. I like the beaver, the otter, the mink, the muskrat. I like catching those. Um and the river I trap on is a very challenging river because it's up and down all the time. It's controlled by generators and dams. So I have a lot of fluctuating water. So you trust me, I had to learn how to trap all over from moving from South Arkansas to North Arkansas. I believe it. It's just totally different. You know, one you're in flat country, one you're in mountains now, so it's it's it's totally different terrain. So that's another curve of it is the learning curve. Uh, no matter where you're trapping at, you're gonna have a learning curve. Uh you take guys that trap up north where trapping's a little bit tougher and the conditions and stuff, some of them guys come to the south. Well, the first thing they do is they have a learning curve. There's cotton mouths down here.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

They learn that real quick on the beaver. Wait a minute, that's not a stick. No, I can imagine.

SPEAKER_04

I hate snakes, amen.

SPEAKER_01

So uh matter of fact, uh, one of the guys that came down from Iowa that we had at our convention, that's one of the things he was telling me when we were talking about, he said, I had to learn about cotton mouths. So, you know, you have to learn you have to watch all this stuff and and learn it because it's it's just a huge learning curve in trapping. And the one thing I tell a lot of people is you will never quit learning and trapping. Just when you think you've got it.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, I can you always get better.

SPEAKER_01

You'll get that one cow that'll come and crap on your trap and he'll do it. He'll trap they'll they'll they'll poop right on your pan.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Because he's been pinched. And he won't just do that one, he'll go down the line and he'll do every one of them.

SPEAKER_00

That's insane. Or they'll roll, you know, they'll they'll roll.

SPEAKER_01

They'll roll in it.

SPEAKER_00

There's like a dog, if it's something that stinks, they'll roll and set it off, you know.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So but now we we can sit here and talk about, you know, all the complications, but it's simple. Uh trapping is simple. You can make it as complicated as you want. But at the end of the day, at the end of the day, if all you know is to to put that trap in the ground and make sure it doesn't wiggle, it's simple. Like and it's a good way to start at least. Yes, yes, it is. And and the more you learn, the more complicated you can make it yourself, you know, and and uh but it a lot of times even we make it harder than it has to be.

SPEAKER_04

Oh, I imagine overthinking it for one side.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, absolutely. We we do. I've had trapping partners before and uh and sometimes we we'll team up and do, you know, get a partner to trap with us. And I had this one guy what would take me three minutes to make a set? It'd take him ten because everything had to be perfect. I mean, it it was just crazy how perfect it had to be. Yeah. And I'd I'd be just over going, come on, man, quit. You're killing me. We gotta go. You know, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So my husband and I trap together and we have a saying, if it's good for one, it's good for two. And so, you know, we're we're in the pine thicket and the wind shifts and swirls, you know, and so what we do is we decide what path we're gonna take, and and because we don't wanna be out handling the trap every day. We just want to drive by and and just see him, yeah. And so we we take our path and he sets his side and I set mine. And we set if he set the dirt hole, I said flat fit. You know, we do different things for different kinds of appeal and different critters, whatever we're you know, whatever we're doing. And you know, sometimes he'll say, Why did you do that? And I was like, Well, I don't know. I'm thinking if they're going up the hill, they got a flat spot, they'll put their foot there, and he was like, You're not gonna catch anything. Well, we come back the next day and I caught something. Yeah, you know, and he was like, Well, I never thought that would work.

Lures vs Baits, Pan Tension, And Mink

SPEAKER_04

Well, you know Yeah, I imagine it's one of those deals where like you get tendencies, and I imagine that can hurt you too. It can because you can get used to like you know, like, ooh, that just looks good to me. Just because you naturally know that you put traps there like that often. Right. You know, and you might have missed something that you just over might have overlooked because that looks familiar.

SPEAKER_01

Take a non-trapper one time on your line. You'll be surprised at how many spots they'll show out you didn't pick. Right. And you're going, I probably should put a trap there. I never thought about it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and and I'm hard headed. So if somebody tells me I can't, I'm gonna do it twice to prove you wrong. And so that interferes with you know, it interferes with with things sometimes because he'll be like, I don't think so. I'm like, watch this.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, I know. So go going back to the fur just one time, touch back on it one more time. I was thinking, I had a thought after you got to explaining it about the prices going up and down and whatnot. And you know, people buy things like silver, gold, or they they sit there and they hang on to it till the price is right. Right. Do fur trappers hang on to furs for a period of time, maybe looking for a certain price?

SPEAKER_01

You will have some that will do that, and they'll they'll stretch and dry them or store them in their freezer, and sometimes they store them too long and freezer burn them. Uh, but your fur buyers also do that. They buy and will hold stuff and they click they call it speculation buying.

SPEAKER_04

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

And it's no different than buying gold or silver or you know, any any any commodity. You're speculating that that price is gonna go up later. So if say raccoons right now, the price of raccoons you're lucky if you can get a dollar out of them. Those guys that are buying those coons, a lot of them are holding them. And they're holding them in cold storage, uh they're you know, and they'll hold them and hopefully until the price goes up. And if the price goes up to five dollars, they're gonna make a little money off of them. So, you know, there's they're speculation buying. So you get that. Um even with with some trappers will do it. Uh I've held mine a few furs over, you know, years in certain years, but it's it's I don't know, it's uh it's I don't want to say this. It's kind of weird how the fur market works.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Uh it's a global market. Uh you'll hear people say that uh, well, my fur's gonna stay here in the United No, your fur's not gonna stay here in the United States. It's gonna go all over the world.

SPEAKER_04

Who's sending it all over the world though? So like you sell it to somebody, right? And then that person, do they sell it around the world or do they sell it to somebody else?

SPEAKER_01

Uh going from dealer to you know to to the different buyers. Uh most a lot of it ends up in these big international auctions. Uh there's a big one in Canada, fur harvesters. There used to be two, but one went out of business. And when it ends up in those international auctions, they have buyers from all over the world come in.

SPEAKER_04

Are these are these buyers, are they like clothing makers? Are they like they can be.

SPEAKER_01

That's that's that they they can be. Uh most of them are what I call finishers. Uh they they're the guys they'll buy the fur, and some of them are brokers. Some of them are brokers, they're buying it to sell it to somebody else overseas. Or they're buying it for somebody else overseas. And what they'll do is once they get that fur over there, right? And they've they've got to dress it. What they've got to do is they've got to tan it, they've got to get it tan. Uh the hardest one to tan is beaver. That's the hardest one to dress. Uh China's gotten really good at that. Uh so they're worth it though. Yes. And so once that fur goes over there, then it gets dispersed to wherever whatever market it's going to. So if it's going to say uh Russia as a utilitarian market, China's a big utilitarian user of fur. But they're also a big fashion user of fur. So they buy two different types of fur. They buy the utilitarian type and they buy the fashion type.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, I never would have, I wouldn't have. See, like I said earlier, if you're in it, you know about it. Right. And if you're not in it, absolutely to you, it's like you can't believe there's that much stuff going on with the wood trapping.

Freeze-Proofing Sets, Dyes, And Dog-Proofs

SPEAKER_00

And it it's not always just fire. Like what we, you know, we like if we sometimes we sell bobcats whole and they skin them out. You know, taxidermies buy a lot of them. I can see that. Yeah, yes.

SPEAKER_04

That's somebody even think about it.

SPEAKER_00

But there's a skull market, uh, and they use the meat and the glands for uh bait, you know, and and so they'll buy the whole animal and they use the whole animal. And they, you know, they make a lot of money on that. Yeah. It's like a rabbit's foot. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

You know? Wasn't lucky for the rabbit. That's right. That's right. So as you being a hunter, you know, a deer hunter, when you kill a deer, do you skin it out? And I'm out. Do you do like every animal you mess with, or do you just only animals you trap?

SPEAKER_00

So growing up, when you skin a deer, you don't want to mess up the meat. Right. So when you go to skin animals for the fire, you gotta relearn what you're doing. I bet it's backwards backwards. It's completely different. And so I skin out well, I didn't last year because I had some back troubles, but usually I skin everything because I'm meticulous. Like I skin a squirrel one time, and you should have seen this thing, like it was the I mean when uh growing up, when you skin a squirrel, it's for the meat, and you just you know rip it off. Not when you're doing it for the hide.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And it changes everything. But yeah, um, so I I skin out everything. I got two freezers full of fur. You know, I'm just hanging I'm I'm hanging on to it. I'm gonna make coon skin caps for all my grandkids one of these days.

SPEAKER_04

See, they just pulled up a picture right there where you got it looks like a explain what what's all there. I see the code in the center. I see the top is beaver. That's beaver up there. Yeah, beaver, bobcat.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, bobcat, and you got coons.

SPEAKER_04

See the the tails open on the the whole bottom row, pretty much, other than the three bobcats, is all.

SPEAKER_01

Right on the other side of me are otter. Yeah. Those are otter right there. See the otter there. And then up right to the left of those otter from the way we're looking, you'll see some muskrat and mink hanging in there. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Those are all fleshed and dried. They're not tanned. So those are just ready for the raw fur market. What you call the raw fur? You have two ways to sell hides. You can sell them dried or you can sell them green. Green is when they're just skin out, they're rolled up and put in the freezer. They're not done this way right here.

SPEAKER_04

So what I'm seeing, like on the bobcats and the coyote, I see like the coyote at the top of his head, and on the bobcats, I can see the fur out. So you f you skin it out all the way around its face. Yeah. Yes. Yep. Eyes and everything. You see it on the beaver too.

Hogs, Nutria, And Incentives To Trap

SPEAKER_01

Yes, everything. The reason for that is that's just the way they the forms, they want them on the forms that way. And there's believe it or not, there's an aftermarket, uh what they call a craft market. Uh some of those buyers, once they send those off and they have them tanned, when they use the parts they're going to use, they'll have leftovers. They'll have like the faces left over. Well, they'll just put them in a bulk box and sell them to somebody who sells them at the flea market down, you know, on Saturday or something like that. And so that's what'll happen to a lot of the tails, the except for the skunk tails right now. But the that's what happens to a lot of that. It goes to a craft market. Yeah, see, there's another big wall full of them. That is my daughter and my son right there. And my son over there, he's a he's a big buck killer. He don't trap he he used to trap some, but he's he chases them big bucks now. He's he's a bow hunter. He's a bow hunter.

SPEAKER_03

So Do y'all cut the beavers to make them that round, or are they just naturally round? The way they're skint.

SPEAKER_00

Uh you skin them different than anything else.

SPEAKER_01

All the other stuff up there is what's called case skint. It's where you start at the back feet and then you pull the hide down. The beaver open skin, you make a cut from the base of the tail all the way to the lower jaw. And then you peel them back.

SPEAKER_04

And they're just round like that.

SPEAKER_01

And that's the way they'll come that they want that oval shape. Uh now they're not as picky. That was the reason they wanted the oval was back when it was uh North American Fur Auctions, Hudson Bay. They wanted them in that oval shape, but now they're not as picky about whether they're oval or round. So that's a lot of raccoons and stuff right there.

SPEAKER_04

Do you have to travel around quite a bit?

SPEAKER_01

All of those right there come off of about a five-mile section of river.

SPEAKER_04

Really?

SPEAKER_01

Or the river. Right.

SPEAKER_04

The river.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. Everything you see in that picture.

SPEAKER_03

That's what I was gonna ask. Do y'all have certain areas y'all trap? Yeah. Do y'all move around? Yeah, we move around.

SPEAKER_01

Uh there for a long time. I was trapping up in northeast Arkansas. I'd go up, take a week's vacation, and go up there and trap on a big duck and deer club. Uh they they had a cabin. I'd go up and stay in their cabin and run traps all the time. I'm sure they would invite you in to do that. Oh, yeah, absolutely. There's people and there's other ones that they get paid to go do that. Oh, yeah. You know. Uh it's just that matter of fact, that was a nuisance job right there. I got paid to catch those beavers.

SPEAKER_00

Funny thing about the beaver is on um on their back foot, uh, they have two claws on one toe that they use. What? Yeah. Two toes. Two claws. Two walls.

SPEAKER_01

Split split claw.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and they it's for grooming.

SPEAKER_01

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. That's insane.

SPEAKER_01

The beaver is a very unique animal. They have an oil sac back there. And that oil sac's what they oil their fur with, and they'll use that split claw to groom themselves to get that oil in their fur. And they also have what's called castorium.

SPEAKER_04

What is that?

Workshops, Mentors, And Field Tricks

SPEAKER_00

We're fixing to make a lot of people probably not eat vanilla ice cream. It smells like money.

SPEAKER_01

It does. It it's uh it's a it's a gland they have that they excrete for their territories. They mark their territories with. Have you ever been that's not vanilla ice cream. Believe it or not, it was FDA approved and they used it in vanilla ice cream at one time. So at one time.

SPEAKER_00

It's vanilla vanilla flavoring.

SPEAKER_01

It's a vanilla flavoring. It it really does have a really it smells like vanilla. And you get uh I know you've seen a caster mound. Yeah, you've been duck hunting, you've seen that pile of mud pulled up on the bank. That's their territory. And beavers are very territorial. Uh the the neat thing about a beaver is is they push their young out every two years. They push them out, they make them make them leave. Get gone. So the the ones that are born there that year, they're fine. But the ones that are once they're two years old, they push them out. A two-year-old beaver, when he's traveling, will not make a caster mound set. Because the other beaver in that area will kill him. They're that territorial. He's got to go out and find his own territory. They they will establish his own place. His own place.

SPEAKER_00

Hmm. And they if you if you take all the beavers out of like out of an area, they will move into that area. Instead of rebuilding, they just move in.

SPEAKER_03

And I'm seeing the different size, is that just the difference in a male and female or just an older beaver?

SPEAKER_01

Uh the biggest beaver there, she was a female. Uh catching her that day was a plus because if you catch all the smaller beaver first, the the males and then the young, that female beaver will hold up for about two weeks and she will not come out. And she does that because she knows something's wrong. She knows, wait a minute, she's everybody's hardest to catch.

SPEAKER_00

Can you see that? Yeah, what is it? That's a split toe. That's the two claws.

SPEAKER_04

Oh, hold it up to the camera real close, they'd probably go see it.

SPEAKER_00

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, they're that's a split toe on the back of the foot. They're unique animals. They are. They're very unique.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_04

I've seen a beaver's tail, like tailbones. Yeah. That's that's an odd-looking thing.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, the the y and there's a market for the tails. There's people who make wallets out of those tails. They tan the leather and make wallets out of them. And they're very expensive.

Women In Trapping And Culture Shift

SPEAKER_00

And um, I don't know if every county, but I think most counties have a bounty on them. So like I know Grant County. Um it's$15. Well, you get like two per tail. Uh per tail. So you get like$10 from the state and five from the county in Grant County. And all that is, is if you're catching beaver in that county, then you're saving them money. Yeah. Because those beavers are out flooding timber there, um, stopping up culverts, and and the the county has to do the maintenance and replace those. And so, I mean, they can pay you fifteen dollars per beaver and saves them thousands of dollars. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04

So you saying that reminds me of you know, causing issues, caught costing money. It reminds me of hogs. Right. Hog problem. I saw one this morning. I don't know why it worked. Is as being trappers, do you see people that trap hogs as trappers? Or are those like a whole, you know, like a that's that's a whole different group.

SPEAKER_01

That's a whole niche group over there. Yeah, it's kind of like a subject. Yeah, it's kind of safe. They use a lot bigger than it's a lot of things. Oh, it is, but it's just a different like by the same token, there's guys out there right now who are snaring these hogs. So they're they're snaring them just like they would snare a cow. Um and the reason they're doing that is they can remove a lot of hogs, believe it or not, doing that.

SPEAKER_00

Hogs are very intelligent. Very intelligent.

SPEAKER_04

And you can teach them real quick. And the thing is about them is like there's so many of them, they're such a big problem. And they're moving north, you know, they're pushing up. I remember as a kid uh in Loyola, you would hear about people seeing a hog once every three years. You never see them. Now they're everywhere. They're done pushed up. There's hogs down here, it's terrible. And the game of fish, they're like, you know, just kill them any means necessary, trap them any means necessary.

SPEAKER_00

Like they actually have a really cool program for hog trapping.

SPEAKER_04

What I was gonna ask was like, you know, like how there's a price to beaver tail. What if they did a hog like a bounty?

SPEAKER_01

If they did a bounty, you would probably see a lot more people going after hogs. That's what I was thinking about. They really need to, I would think. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, I saw one this morning on you know, in the the river bottoms there headed to work.

SPEAKER_01

There's so many. It's kind of like and you know, as you you talk about invasive species like hogs, the wild hog population. Uh neutra rats. That's another invasive species that's moving north, and eventually you're they're already seeing those in southern Missouri.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

Final Takeaways And Where To Learn More

SPEAKER_01

And the neutral rats come out of Louisiana, uh and they've just gradually started moving north, uh, you know, and they have a bounty in Louisiana for them. They don't hear yet, but they do in Louisiana. And they do to me a lot more damage than a beaver does.

SPEAKER_03

Really?

SPEAKER_01

Yes, because they can breed so many times a year. They're kind of like a rabbit. And the second thing they could do is they they're burrowers, more so than a beaver. Where beavers will make a bank den, these things will make several bank dens and they can just erode a levee really quick.

SPEAKER_04

Just move the river.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, yeah, they can. They can basically change the course of a waterway because of the erosion they can cause.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. To me, to me, as far as like issues like that goes, like the only way to incentivize people to pick up the hobby of doing it is to throw a little bit of money at it.

SPEAKER_01

It is.

SPEAKER_00

Well, they have a program going right now, and I don't know the exact details, but I know um at one point they were like if you bought a hog trap that was on their list, they paid you like 75% of that price back. Yeah. And then you turn in pictures and stuff, and so you're like a part of a program. Yeah. And I know they've had some success with that.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah. Well, we first got our pig brig, which is a net style trap, right? You know, and they basically burrow under it and then they can't get out of it. And it's really effective. And it's easy to put up and it's effective because you can catch the whole the whole uh group, the group of them.

SPEAKER_00

Right. And you're you're not educating them as much as you do with the the old-fashioned, you know, style. And uh so I I I don't have one of them personally, but I know someone that does and they work great. They've had great success with us. They work really well.

SPEAKER_01

Y'all want to answer the let's answer a few of the questions?

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, let's let's definitely let's look at them.

SPEAKER_01

Uh baiting versus lures.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, what is is there a difference?

SPEAKER_01

There there's a uh lures are just mainly for smell. That's what they are. You have long distance call lures, which will have skunk smell in them. Uh you have just different gland lures that'll have the glands of certain animals in them. Right. Like coyote glands or bobcat glands or fox glands. Where bait is more of a food source for 'em. Okay. Uh early season baiting's probably, you know, they're they're not as much attracted to bait. They're they're running around, they still got plenty of mice, stuff to feed on. Where they're more attracted to lures. Um you get later into the winter when there's less to eat, they're they'll get more attracted to the bait.

SPEAKER_04

I can see that.

SPEAKER_01

So it you know, it's it's it's it's a it's a change for 'em. Uh and most trappers use a conjunction of bait and lure when they're when they're when they're trapping.

SPEAKER_00

So a coyote where so if I cook meatloaf for supper and my husband walks in, he smells meatloaf. So a coyote would smell the beef, the salt, the pepper, the tomatoes, the crackers, whatever you put in it, right? He smells in layers. Yes. And so a lot of times, if that's what they're interested in, the more smells you have, the more they're gonna work your set. Right. The more likely that you have something that's gonna come in at they're gonna investigate and they wanna know what every one of those smells are. So if you've got a lure here and a bait here and a lure here, he's gonna sniff all of that, which means he's there and he's moving. Right. And he's not gonna just and leave. So he's working your set. Investigating. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And and you know the thing with that is is if you your first year coyotes, they'll come to anything. Because he's young, he's dumb, he's stupid, he's like a teenager, he don't know no better. He's gonna go for whatever he can get, you know. Oh, well, look, that's that's that smells good. But you get a coyote that's got a couple of years on him, he's a he's a bundle of nerds walking around. He's not like a first year coyote. And if he gets pinched, he's not gonna come back to that smell.

SPEAKER_00

Ever.

SPEAKER_01

No, he will not come back to that. He knows that smells bad. Now something else fit too. Something else he will he'll come to, but he won't come to that particular lure you're using. You'll have to change up. And that's because he he knows. He knows what it is. That's bad. Okay, that one's not bad because I hadn't smelled that one yet, but that one's bad.

SPEAKER_04

So I can see that. I can see that. That's what they do. It's easy to pick up on that and learn it.

SPEAKER_01

Uh we got one here. There's one there, the pan tension, and it kind of falls for fox and all others, and it also kind of falls into the whole pan tension thing. I'm not a big fan of pan tension. I like my pans to just freely drop.

SPEAKER_04

And when you're saying pan for people that might not know, that's the flat surface that's in the middle of the trap.

SPEAKER_01

Right, that's where that animal's gonna put his foot. Right. That's what he's gonna step on to trigger that trap. Okay. And once he's once he steps on that, if if that pan has any tension at all, and and if you're going after everything, say you're going after bobcats, fox, and coyotes, you're you want a way lower pan tension. But if you were strictly going after coyotes, you can get that pan tension up there to about four pounds. And there's a tester out there that you can order, you can go online and find them. Uh they'll test the tension of that pan, and you just push it on there and push it down, it'll have little marks and it's telling you how many pounds is on that pan. And the way you adjust that is there's a little brass bolt and nut, and you just loosen it or tighten it to get whatever pan tension you want.

SPEAKER_00

I gotcha. But also what that means is if if you got it set on four pounds, you you're only going to catch a coat. Anything if you if a fox or bobcat or something, if it steps on it and it doesn't have that much weight, it won't go off.

SPEAKER_04

That's why you keep the light because you're you're wanting to catch whatever. Right.

SPEAKER_01

If I'm wanting to catch the fox and the bobcat, I want to I want a lighter pay attention. I want a pay attention less of a pound. It's like mink trapping. Uh there was a little video they had on there that I I sent y'all. Uh a mink trapping, you want absolutely zero pay attention. You want that pan as soon as that foot touches it to fire off. Because he's a very light animal. He's he is. There's the video right there.

SPEAKER_04

So you set that where'd you originally set that?

SPEAKER_01

Right up in under that grass, there's a little ledge under there. And those mink will run right behind that grass, right up in that little ledge right there. And you'll actually see me set the trap back up in under there. Uh my wife was filming that standing on a culvert, so it's actually pretty good video from a phone.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, it's pretty cool. So you're not using no kind of lure or main.

SPEAKER_01

No kind of lure or bait.

SPEAKER_03

A beat down like you know you know it's gonna go down.

SPEAKER_01

Mink are creatures of habit. They run the edges, that's and that's basically all you need to know to catch a mink. Because they run the edges. Now you get up north, it's a whole different game. Up there, they use a lot of what they call pocket sets. They'll dig a hole back in and put bait in it. But their winters are colder, and those those mink up there are more successful to bait than the mink down here. You put a piece of fish in there, you're gonna have a raccoon and a possum the next day.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

You know, and and and if it warms up a little bit, you're gonna have some stinky fish and a possum.

SPEAKER_04

So that's pretty cool though.

SPEAKER_01

That's just an example of you looking at the layout and knowing that a little guide piece of grass in there, I'll stick right by the the trap to guide it, and there's a meal.

SPEAKER_04

Heck yeah. So would you ever in a situation say you're you're trapping, you're on a trail, and would you kind of brush up certain areas to try to lure them, like guy, keep them from maybe walking to the side of it?

SPEAKER_01

Yes, you can't. You can guide animals are are creat creatures of habits, they're like us in a way. You you're gonna take the path of least resistance anywhere you're going. Okay. If you're on, say you're in New York City, you're walking down a sidewalk, and there's a ton of people, you're gonna take the the the least path of resistance through those people, right? Mm-hmm. Kyot's the same way, bobcat's the same way. They're going down a trail, that trail's the easy path, that's what they're gonna walk. And so they don't want to veer off of that trail because it's it there's other stuff in their way, they gotta go around this or that. Deer do the same thing. And when that coat's going down that trail, if you get a wide spot in that trail, now he can step anywhere in that trail. But if you wanted to hang a snare in that wide spot, you just pull some brush in, like you said, and you just brush it down, and then you can hang that snare in that spot and catch that coat.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, funnel it in. Coats are are are they they're real cautious though. You don't want to do a whole lot, and then what you do, it has to be extremely natural.

SPEAKER_02

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

Now that's crazy. Yeah, because if it looks if it looks wonky, they're out.

SPEAKER_01

Remember why I said he's a bundling or now bobcats are not that way.

SPEAKER_03

I want to know the trick on catching bobcats because I got a bobcat problem.

SPEAKER_00

Bobcats, where you live, I can help you with that. Uh magnolia. Oh I can't I can't check them after work every day. Uh but bobcats, they're curious. Like they are. I have literally taken a can out of the back of the truck and you know, pocket knife and and cut like a ribbon and turned it inside out and hung it with some fish and lines.

SPEAKER_03

See, I did that on the I I said a couple traps this past uh season and I hung a C D above on a limb.

SPEAKER_00

They love flashy.

SPEAKER_01

I use a little fake that fake white fur you can get at Hobby Lobby or your body. Yeah, we had that out too. And hang it, but you but you want it where it's gonna blow or it's gonna move you. Whatever you're using, you want it to move.

SPEAKER_03

Well we had it burrowed down where you had it deep.

SPEAKER_01

If you got it hanging above that set, just don't use any animal matter, because like she said earlier, 20 foot is as close as you can have animal matter.

SPEAKER_00

But you can buy like white feathers at Walmart in the craft section and take a split shot. Like you can just hang them from or Christmas Tintil.

SPEAKER_03

So what kind of like lure do you put for bobcat?

SPEAKER_00

Do you do lure or it just depends. Like they're not real picky, they like all kinds of stuff. Anything will bring them in. Like they're I didn't catch one.

SPEAKER_01

A really good quick lure for cats is catnip oil. Just go get you some of that catnip oil at the pet store. And if you get that pure catnip oil. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They they make what they call a rub set when you can use this catnip oil for that. And what you do is you just take your steak and put a piece of carpet on it and drive it in the ground. But you want that carpet, oh the bottom of that carpet probably about a a foot high and then about a foot of carpet, and you just spray that with that catnip oil, and that bobcat will come in there and rub on that. Really? Bed your trap right below it. You'll catch them.

SPEAKER_04

They're they're never gonna guess that.

SPEAKER_01

Bobcats are probably one of the easiest ones to catch. And the reason the reason being is because they're they mainly it's their travel patterns. Right. Once you learn their travel patterns, they're easy to catch. Just you find a bobcat track, make a set.

SPEAKER_03

Right there. That's simple. Well, I know where they're going. I've seen deer hunting all the time.

SPEAKER_01

Make a set right there.

SPEAKER_00

Just out of range of my deer stand.

SPEAKER_01

And don't make one set, make three or four sets.

SPEAKER_00

And make sure you take your blood pressure medicine.

SPEAKER_01

They blend in very well.

SPEAKER_00

You'll walk right up on them and uh and never even know it. And next thing you know, it's a Oh man. They you might just be like, I didn't catch up to check them in the daylight. Oh, last year I caught I caught one on a drag, and what a drag is like it's not anchored in the ground. It's just a you know, a like a fork that's like twisted and it catches on on like a like a brush and stuff. Brush and stuff, and keep them from going too far, but you got a 10-foot chain on it. And I caught one on a drag, and like we were up on the old railroad tracks going downhill on both sides, and we're like, oh no, where is this thing? And it was like tangled up in a top, and uh uh that one's it was fun. I can imagine because it's the one thing I wouldn't want to wrestle around with is ballcat.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, right. And they do, they blend in real well. Uh another question I see up there is freezing weather. Uh best traps for freezing weather. Uh if you're up north, down here we don't worry about that too much because we don't have the long freezes like they do up north. If if you were, say, somebody up north in you know, northern Indiana, northern Illinois, Ohio, up Panimals areas, I would use a four-coal trap. Down here, four coal is not necessary uh for coyote or bobcat to the colour. Kind of explain that.

SPEAKER_04

Explain what that is.

SPEAKER_01

Uh your coal spring traps, you'll have the the springs their cells are are coiled up steel springs. And by adding those extra two coals, they're smaller coals, what they do is they give that trap more power coming out of the ground.

SPEAKER_04

I gotcha.

SPEAKER_01

So if you got more freezing weather, that's gonna give you a little bit extra power coming out of the ground. Uh a lot of guys up there they use wax dirt or buckwheat holes.

SPEAKER_00

What do you do, too?

SPEAKER_01

Um I don't use the wax dirt, I use peat moss more than anything. I because it's cheap, I can get it at the you know, anywhere they sell nursery supplies, you know, you can get the peat moss. And the peat moss, you can just sift it out, let it dry, and it's good to go. Uh but as far as the freezing weather down here, we don't have to worry about it down here in the state of Arkansas that much or in the south. But up north they do. So like a lot of those guys up there, they'll make big old they'll have a 55-gallon drum of wax dirt. Uh and it's a lot of work to make that stuff. But if you're gonna trap a lot of canines and a lot of cats and stuff in those areas, you're gonna have to have that wax dirt up north.

SPEAKER_00

Well, actually, we use a lot of it here because where we trap the ground gets wet. And and it I mean, if it gets below freezing for a day or two, the ground will freeze and then trap's on fire. So, but during the summertime we we get dirt, we spread a tarp, and we get some wax, and we just throw it out there and we stir it up every day. Because it gets so hot in the summertime milk, you know, that it it and and another thing, a lot of times I'll just go over to a pine tree and pull the top back and get where, you know, you know, the mulch and stuff under that instead of buying it. I just use I use that a lot. But but we're in a pine thicket, yeah. So it's readily available. Yeah. But the the ground will freeze a lot, so we we but we only use it when the bad weather's coming in. Otherwise, we don't need to. Right. So we don't go through a whole lot of things.

SPEAKER_01

There's one right there that I'm gonna touch on is the dyeing and painting your traps. Uh you can dye your traps if you want to, you can paint them. And a lot of reasons for the dye, one is to protect the trap, and two is scent control. You you have a lot of guys that get hung up on scent control. Don't get hung up on scent control. Right. That coyote knows you've been there, okay? Now, 50 years ago, well, 50, 60, 100 years ago, when there wasn't as many people, scent control was a big deal. But now there's people everywhere. That is true. Coyotes, they know what a human smells like. They know what a tractor smells like, they know what a rusty fence smells like. So, you know, don't get hung up on scent control. As far as dying and painting your traps, that's just a personal preference. We had a lady that uh was one of the in our association at one time, all her traps were hot pink. She painted them hot pink, caught cows and bobcats in them.

SPEAKER_04

That's pretty wild.

SPEAKER_01

So it there's there's people on there that paint them blue, they paint them all different colors. So it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_04

That's probably then just totally reference.

SPEAKER_01

It is, it's just preference. It is just preference.

SPEAKER_00

So, like with me and my husband, uh my traps are one color and his traps are another. And then our dog proof that we set out, we we paint them white so that if we're, you know, we you know, we got creek bridges and stuff, and if we go down the creek bed and set traps, we can check them from the road because that white is gonna stand out. Right, right, right. We don't have to, you know. Did you say dog proof?

SPEAKER_04

Yes, dog proof. All right, go ahead and explain what that means.

SPEAKER_00

It means like a you can not catch a dog? It won't it it's a cylinder. That's the one they dig into. Yes, coons, mainly. Uh coons, possums, skunks, you know, they can reach in there and they'll when they pull their pull their paw out, they pull a trigger and it catches them.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And those are perfect for you know kids and chicken pins.

SPEAKER_01

It is. They had it in the tub.

SPEAKER_04

And he put his hand in there, was digging out some corn or something. I don't know what he's getting. Yeah, get his wrist. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yep. That that those are those foot snares like that, they use those not only on bears, they also use them overseas to study tigers and stuff with.

SPEAKER_04

I couldn't even imagine.

SPEAKER_01

It's amazing how many trap you know, it's amazing people people go, hey, we want these animals released in our area, like those wolves and stuff out there, but I guarantee you they didn't go here puppy puppy to catch them.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_01

They trapped them. They trapped them and and they released them unharmed. So, you know, you've got one side that are people who are conservation-minded. You know, like the trappers and duck hunters and deer hunters and water, you know, fishermen and all of us, we're all conservation-minded. Then you have the other side which is emotionally minded. They play on their emotions. And they don't care about the conservation side. They just play on the emotional side. So if you if you ever get into anything dealing with some of these people, these animal rights people and stuff, you're gonna deal with emotions. Oh, yeah. And that's all you're gonna deal with. They they don't know anything, they don't know they don't deal in facts, they deal in emotions.

SPEAKER_04

Well, I mean, it's like, and you know, when they dump grey wolves back into an ecosystem, it hurts just slaughtering elves. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04

You know, it's like, look at that. But that's cute and fancy. That's as natural as it gets.

SPEAKER_03

I actually added PETA on Facebook just so I can make fun of them. See, that's something I would do. Like I used to comment on all their stuff.

SPEAKER_01

Don't don't say people for eating tasty animals.

SPEAKER_04

No, it don't matter what you're into. There's gonna be people that fight against it. They are.

SPEAKER_01

They are. And it it doesn't matter if it's if it's hunting, fishing, trapping, or if you're swimming down on a swimming hole, somebody's gonna be mad about it at some point in time.

SPEAKER_00

And what we do, the way we do it, is way more humane than what they how the animals take care of themselves in the wild. Yeah, I mean it really is. It really is.

SPEAKER_01

Oh yeah. If you've if if you've never run across raccoons dying of parval or distemper, that is a sight to see. It is it'll make you think about another reason we need to trap. Overcrowded, yeah, overcrowded, they'll they'll just die out and it's it's horrible for them.

SPEAKER_00

And I tell you what, though, um back to turkey hunting, we was talking about earlier, is the reason we got started. Within a year, our population doubled. Within two years of just me and my husband trapping 3,000 acres. Yeah. Within two years, it you know, it it doubled. Oh, it helps. And I mean, like now we get game camera pictures and the the whole thing is just full of turkeys. There'd be 30, 40 turkeys. Whereas three or four years ago, you couldn't find a turkey. If you got one on camera, it was a miracle.

SPEAKER_04

Big deal.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And so now in our our you know, in our the our lease, anybody that goes turkey hunting, they've all everybody killed a turkey this last year. Nobody was out there not able to find one. Right. And and that's just from my husband and me.

SPEAKER_04

Taking away some of the predators that does killing them out.

SPEAKER_00

And we're not just out there slaughtering them. We catch, you know, on the lease, we catch like 30, 40 critters a year, you know. But it adds up, though. Well it does. It makes a huge difference.

SPEAKER_01

Uh one one question that was asked, well, what's the main luxury item in your pack? And the main one I have is my S hook setting tool for it's a tool designed to close and open S hooks. That's my yeah, because other than that, you're gonna have three or four pairs of pliers trying to pry those things in. That one tool does it. That one tool does it all right there.

SPEAKER_00

It makes a huge difference.

SPEAKER_01

It is a huge difference. That's probably my biggest luxury item. That's your go-to, uh that's my go-to.

SPEAKER_00

Uh I I've had some back problems. And so we went from I mean, the hardest part of making a set is hammering it in. I mean, that is the absolute set day is like, you know, the best workout ever.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Uh and so we went to drags and cables, you know, it it so that I could make it less labor as well.

SPEAKER_04

Right.

SPEAKER_00

Right. And uh so we I set a lot of drags and cables last year and it made my life a whole lot easier.

SPEAKER_04

So yeah, it made a difference. Is it is it quicker to like say we're gonna pull a trap up and uh move sets? Is it easier with a trap?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's a lot quicker with a drag.

SPEAKER_00

Because I imagine with it being hammered in, it'd be especially where we, you know, where we if at one point we were trying to pull one with a truck and we could not pull this thing out of the ground with a truck.

SPEAKER_01

Those those the the stakes that a lot of us use now are not the stakes that years ago we don't use the rebar stakes like we used to. We have what they call a uh disposable stake. Right. It's a piece of metal and it's got a cable on it or a chain on it, and you drive it in the ground, and when you yank on it, it'll it'll go down like this, but when you yank on it, it'll come back like this.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

SPEAKER_01

It you can't basically. Yeah, it's what that's what m I used. Yeah, is there a lot of things?

SPEAKER_04

So it's like you're pretty much like the only thing you're missing is actually getting the job done.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04

It sounds like he had all the stuff to do.

SPEAKER_00

He had the easiest target.

SPEAKER_03

My father had everything in Japan.

SPEAKER_00

Well Okay, so we have a Facebook page. Are you um are you a member of our Facebook page?

SPEAKER_03

I'm not.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. So with you being in Magnolia, you're actually in my district. And so we have a district page as well. And there are people on that page that live down there. And so if you were on our page, you could say, Hey, I've got a bobcat problem. Um, I've done this, this, and this. Is there anybody that could come help me get started or come, you know, work with me? And that's the good thing about the the association is somebody's always willing to help. Absolutely. Always. And go ahead and tell them the the name of the district page. Okay, it's District 8, Arkansas Trappers Association. Okay. And I am Is that El Dorado too?

SPEAKER_03

Is that all the same district?

SPEAKER_00

District 8, I I am um let's see, Grant, uh, Hot Spring, and I'm Washtaw, Dallas, Calhoun, Nevada, Union, and Columbia, I believe.

SPEAKER_04

It's a pretty big district.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, it is. And I'm at the top of it. Um, you know, but but it's we we don't do just a whole lot as districts, but you know, we we do put on some one-day workshops.

SPEAKER_01

Uh and if you're on that page, you'll see when one of those one-day workshops is happening, and then you can go to that and get a lot of learning from the workshops.

SPEAKER_04

So I definitely learn some stuff.

SPEAKER_00

So each each district has a page, and then we have just one page.

SPEAKER_01

There's there's nine districts in a state. Gotcha. Okay. And uh there's a lot of learning that you can do on those. We also have a YouTube channel, uh Arkansas Trappers TV.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Uh you can go on there. There's uh not a lot of videos on it yet. We're still getting videos from viewers and getting those put on there when we get them.

SPEAKER_04

So you're accepting like viewer videos to post up?

SPEAKER_01

Yes. Okay. Yes. And the reason we want that is you know, if we got you know one of our viewers that he's uh been trapping for say twenty or thirty years and he makes a set and he catches you know something in it or he's showing how to make a set, that's learning for somebody else. That's that's educational for that other person.

SPEAKER_04

That's a bunch of different point of views, too. It's like one person goes and teaches tries to teach all the skills, you're getting his perspective of it. Right, right. And it's more than just that when it comes to the phone.

SPEAKER_01

And every time I go to a demo, no matter where that demo is or who's doing it, I usually learn something from that demo. So you're gonna be constantly learning. Uh and you may see something that, hey, I never thought about trying that, and you'll try it and it works for you. Or you know, it may not work in your area. Uh I and I think animals uh animals get accustomed to certain things. Uh if you use the same lure over and over and over, eventually they're gonna get accustomed to that and you're gonna have to change up.

SPEAKER_00

One of the things that I learned, um, you know, just on a random set, uh on a random uh demo, um a guy that um he's from South Arkansas down around Chichester, um he did a work he did a workshop for us and he was doing a bobcat demo and he said bobcats love a burnt log. It's like if if you're you know yeah, you know, just if you build a fire, just grab your burnt log, put it in your truck, and throw it out on the set. And that and and I mean he brings a truckload of cats to the fur sale, you know. So he's got a line that's a thing to do. He knows how to catch it. And I mean, who would have thought a burnt log? And you know, just that's just trial and error. Yeah, it's it's um it's curiosity, and so it's just something like another guy said a fox loves a white rock, and so I I got a truck bed full of white rocks. I find a big one and I'm like, hey, that'll work. It's a nice white rock. I'm just throwing the truck, you know.

SPEAKER_04

Well, that's awesome. I I think we're getting close to time now, but uh I think we'll end on one thing, and it's a question for y'all. Who's the best trapper to ever live?

SPEAKER_01

Who's the best trapper that ever lived? Ooh, that's a that that would be a tough question. The most renowned trapper that comes to your mind when you probably the most renowned trapper that comes to my mind would be some of the guys up north, E.J. Daly, uh that these guys are long gone now, OL Butcher. Uh, because when I was reading those fur fishing game magazines, those were some of the guys I were reading, I was reading. And if you've never read any of those old uh stories and stuff from them guys back in those days, those guys were tough. They would go out in the Adirondack Mountains in New York and camp out for months trapping, and they didn't take a lot with them. I mean, they they were pretty rough roughing it. Yeah, the nice little weekend wins. It's kind of like what we're doing this weekend. We're roughing it.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, we're not roughing it like that.

SPEAKER_01

But yeah, but i if I had to say famous trappers and and I would say the guys that came before us, the guys that trapped, you know, during the big fur trade in the back during the mountain man days, though, you know, those guys right there, you look at what they went through. Oh, gosh, you know, Indians, brutal, everything going, you know, after them.

SPEAKER_00

Still doing it. See, I don't I don't know, um, I don't know all the history, but I know that him and and uh a couple other guys in the association, Mike Fisher, Aaron Hitchcock, those guys made a difference in my life.

SPEAKER_04

Right. You know, so it's different, you know, yeah for like just the experience when you got started, you know.

SPEAKER_00

And and that's one thing I love about the association. These guys, I went to Mike Fisher and I said, This fox stole my bone. He he dug up my trap. I cannot catch this fox to save my life. And he told me exactly what to do, what lure to use, a white rock and a pine cone. And I was insane.

SPEAKER_01

This guy was catching 300 fox a year a year ago.

SPEAKER_00

So matter of fact, um he he just caught his 15,000th beaver of his life. And and so those guys keep up with it.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's what's even crazy to me.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean, he he's got he's got some serious information. Yes. And so these guys are my heroes. They're the ones, and me being a female, you know, they never once ever treated me any less than a trapper. You know, I've never been looked at as as a woman. I was I was a trapper. Right. And that that makes a big difference to me because, you know, I might have to do things a little bit different, but I'm an equal. Right. And the same game. Yeah, same game. And it it makes it makes a big difference.

SPEAKER_01

And I'm gonna touch on what she just said right there, being a female in the trapping world. Right now, that is the largest growing group of trappers is females right now. Women are really getting into the trapping. There's several Facebook pages that are geared strictly toward women. Uh there's a lot of women out there right now that are really getting into the trapping. So that's a that that's it's it's interesting that that's happening.

SPEAKER_04

It is interesting because you gotta look at like what is going on in the closet, you know.

SPEAKER_00

And if I if I could say one thing about it, don't don't be a woman. Don't use that as a that that's not leverage. Just be a trapper. Yes. You know what I mean? And like and yeah, some women can't sit traps with their hands, they gotta do it with their feet. Um everybody's different. You you gotta do what you gotta do, but just be a trapper. That's cool.

SPEAKER_04

I mean, it's cool. It's definitely, you know, I'm I'll figure out a lot more today about trapping. I did too. I'm gonna catch them now. I'm probably gonna go with him just to watch it.

SPEAKER_00

Hey, uh listen, we we love trapping, and and if you if you have the opportunity to go to a workshop or a convention, do it. Because these these people, they they will the tra the convention ends on Saturday and Sunday at noon, we're still sitting there talking about trapping.

SPEAKER_03

I promise you, like we we just my father-in-law just started doing it last year and he got into it pretty good. He caught a lot. I mean I mean I can guarantee you he's gonna do it again this year. Absolutely. He was over there coaching. I was thinking that's that same question.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it'd it'd change your life for sure.

SPEAKER_04

Well, maybe we'll see what chocolate catches this year. Maybe we'll uh put the camera with chocolate and see if we can get it done.

SPEAKER_00

Join our Facebook group and post some pictures, let us know. Ask questions, you know.

SPEAKER_03

We're yeah, video just post a picture of nothing.

SPEAKER_01

Video yourself making us sad. Video yourself making us sad. What am I doing wrong? And everybody goes out. Pick it apart. Yeah, we'll break it up.

SPEAKER_00

Somebody'll tell you what you're doing wrong. Oh, I guarantee you. Even if you're doing it right, they'll tell you what you're doing it wrong. Yeah, you got it, you got it, buddy for sure.

SPEAKER_04

But somebody's gonna say something. Well, guys, I appreciate it. Thank you for coming. And uh learned a ton of stuff. And guys, if you want to see more stuff like this, let us know. Make sure you leave a like, hit the bell for notifications, and we'll catch you on the next one.

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Brandon "B" Scott

Host
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Tim Scott

Co-host