Post by Lady Trapper on Jan 15, 2007 16:38:50 GMT -5
~Ways to trap have changed over past three decades~
As a married college student and young father in the 1970s, Todd Lund's modest trapline helped put food on the table and diapers on his son. Red foxes were bringing up to $75 and a big, prime raccoon brought $40.
Today, Asian and European markets are sending fur prices soaring to the heyday years of the '70s, and trappers like Lund couldn't be happier.
"I paid some of my college tuition and rent," the 62-year-old Neenah trapper said, recalling his early trapping days as he checked his trapline in Waushara and Outagamie counties. "The '70s was the big fur boom. Now, my Christmas money's from one check."
Lund, like most trappers, pursues the sport for the challenge and a chance to get outdoors, so he has trapped regardless of fur prices for nearly five decades.
Only the U.S. Army kept him away from the trapline, but even as a military police officer at Fort Riley, Kansas, he found spare time to trap for bobcats and coyotes.
Today, he likes to mix it up with water and land sets, trying for weasels, mink and muskrat. When one species isn't coming to the steel for a few days, another one might, he explained.
Water sets are designed to drown their catches, so it isn't crucial to check those traps every day. But land sets must be checked daily, so he can only devote Christmas vacation time to land sets, he explained. When not trapping, he's a full-time community living specialist for chronically mentally ill adults at Appleton's Grandstone Group Home.
Yesterday's trappers didn't have as many chances to learn trapping tips from the pros like they can today, Lund explained. Expertise in the form of videos, books, Web sites and magazines shaves years off the learning curve and increases those precious fur checks.
Lund, walking along a small creek as swiftly as a man 30 years younger, points to a small rock protruding from the water, marking the spot where his small Conibear body-gripping trap is concealed. He recently learned an internet tip from a mink-trapping pro, and has seen his mink harvest more than double. In three days, he caught nine mink, including one huge male that may fetch $25 (male mink are larger and worth nearly double the smaller female mink).
But muskrats are the mainstay for many trappers, including Lund. They are bringing $6 to $9 each.
"China's our biggest fur consumer right now," he said, noting the irony, since so many American-sold products are now made in China. Muskrat fur is used for coat collars and other apparel trim.
Russia is the major buyer of raccoons, with the furs used for coats, collars and hats. Trappers here hope for a cold Russian winter, as the climate there dictates fur prices here, he explained. A few years ago, Russia had a mild winter, which was a disaster for 'coon prices.
"Italy and Germany buy our wild mink," he noted. Turkey and Korea also are strong fur consumers.
Mild winters can also have an effect on trapping success. Stretching the season here means more catches.
Raccoons normally denned up in cold weather remain on the prowl for food.
"This is easy hunting for predators right now," Lund said, explaining that weasels have easier hunting without the snow.
But those same weasels — known as ermine in winter because they change from brown to white this time of year — are easy to see against the brown foliage when hungry hawks and owls sail overhead.
Lund's father, Albert, taught him the art of weasel trapping in northern Wisconsin. These tiny mammals are only about the size of a hot dog, but can bring $6 each when skinned and stretched.
"I take pride in putting up my fur," he said. Fur buyers pay more when furbearers are carefully skinned, fleshed, stretched and dried. He compared it to his other passion: making his own hand-tied flies for fly-fishing. In fact, many of his favorite trout-fishing haunts in eastern Wisconsin are also his trapping haunts.
Fur buyer Don Bauer of Weyauwega said fur prices are at a 10-year high for many animals. His business buys furs from trappers and hunters in Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan.
"It's hard to find anybody to skin 'coons all night," Bauer said. "You gotta get school kids to do it."
Trappers can make a few extra dollars per animal by skinning their catches, but many prefer to sell Bauer the raw carcasses and save the time and hassles.
That leaves Bauer and his young help with the unsavory chore of skinning piles of muskrats, raccoons, coyotes and other furbearers.