YOU LITTLE WEASEL

A picture is worth a thousand words, they say. This photo is a complete detective novel if you give it a quick study.

For you non-trappers reading this, let me give a bit of background to make what you are seeing more understandable. The metal and wire you are seeing in the photo is properly called a body-gripper trap. They are often called Conibear traps because they were invented and first marketed by a man named Frank Conibear. Now, most trap manufacturers produce their own versions. Body-gripper traps come in sizes from very small models, used mostly for mink and muskrats, to very large ones used to capture beavers.

Here’s a photo of one set and ready. The trapper places the trap in a location, such as at the entrance of a burrow or on a trail used by the animal being sought. Hopefully, when the animal comes along, it will try to crawl through the trap, rather than go over or around and when it pushes on the trigger wire, the trap snaps shut.


These traps are killers and aren’t ever used if there is a chance any non-target animal is likely to encounter it. Once the trap fires, the end is near for the captured animal.

Usually, the trap strikes hard enough to render a knock-out blow and the animal becomes unconscious. The grip on it’s body or neck then prevents it from breathing and it quickly dies from asphyxiation. Picture how a common mousetrap works and you will understand the workings of a body-grip trap.

Weasels are the smallest fur bearing predator that is legal to trap in Indiana. Few trappers target them because they are relatively uncommon, usually require special traps and techniques and are of low value in Indiana because most weasels this far south don’t turn white in the winter. In northern states and Canada weasels do change color with the seasons and white weasels, called ermine, are much more valuable to furriers.

The body-grip trap in the top photo was set in a dry ditch in a trail being used mostly by raccoons. It’s a common set. Perhaps spots like this are “weasel highways,” as well. Weasels are so small and skinny, most can pass through a trap of this size repeatedly and never hit the trigger wire.

That’s the story of this picture. The trap set and ready. The weasel hunting for its next meal captures a deer mouse and is proudly carrying it down the trail. Perhaps the weasel has gone through the body-grip trap several other times unscathed, but this time, the mouse in it’s mouth strikes the trigger, the trap fires, weasel caught and the mouse becomes a clue to this mystery novel.

The epilogue to this tale is the mouse will become bait for a coyote. The weasel will go to a taxidermist to be turned into a nature display.

POSSUM CAMP?

Daniel doesn't hunt but does
get a bit of supervised target practice. 

My barn turns into “deer camp” this time of year, usually populated by brothers, nephews and a few friends. I love it.

We've rigged up a pulley in the rafters to hoist up deer for skinning and I have a home made skinning winch I use to pelt out the fur bearers I catch on my trap line. There are bows and guns and camo clothes intermingled with tools, welders, ATVs and a smattering of fishing gear.

This past weekend was my nephew Daniel’s first visit to deer camp. At 8 years old, he’ll get to accompany hunters, but not carry a gun. In another couple years we’ll see. It’s fun to watch Daniel experience all the “new” things that go on at deer camp.

This is just setting the scene.

Brother John and nephew Noah are hoisting a deer on the rafter pulley. Daniel is dividing his time between helping pull the rope - he probably weighs about 52 pounds - and watching me remove the pelt from an opossum.

Deer hung, possum skinned, John asked what everyone wanted for lunch. I suggested possum.

“Can you eat possums,” asked Daniel?

“Sure,” I said.

“Have you ever eaten possum,” asked Noah?

“No, I never have, but I know people who have and know in some places eating possums is quite common,” I answered.

John said, “We have chicken or beef burritos.”

“Or possum,” I chimed in, jokingly.

At 8 years old and new to the game, Daniel didn’t realize I was being jocular. "I want possum."

So I went to the house, put a bit of Frying Magic seasoned coating mix in a plastic bag and returned with a skillet containing a bit of vegetable oil. I cut a few chicken nugget-sized chunks off the fresh possum carcass, dusted them liberally with Frying Magic and dropped them into the hot skillet, now on the stove.


Once they became, as Food Network star Alton Brown would say, “golden brown and delicious,” I pronounced them done.

The verdict?

“Possum does not taste like chicken,” I stated.

“It’s not gamey tasting,” John said.

Noah sampled his first bite and said, “I don’t know what it tastes like.”

Daniel nailed it as he reached for his second nugget, “It tastes like possum!”

Not only that, we all agreed, it was very tasty.

Will I be filling the freezer with possum meat this fall? “Possumly!”

SKUNK TRUCK SOLD

Most guys like their trucks as much as cowboys like their horses. Trucks are hard-working, sometimes daring, usually dependable and for outdoorsmen, their ticket to adventure. As my love for trapping expanded, so did my need for a sturdy, dependable truck with 4-wheel drive.

There it was, sitting in a vacant lot in St. Anne, IL. A black, 4X4 Ford Ranger. It looked to be old enough to be affordable. It was a 1990 and this was in 1999. The owner and I cut a deal and I became the owner of the “Skunk Truck.”

I’ll admit to hauling more than a few skunks around in the truck along with plenty of other, equally foul smelling items. I never minded people calling my Ranger the Skunk Truck. I fitted the truck bed with a black fiberglass topper and I often thought about painting white stripes across the hood and up over the cab and topper. I never did get around to that project.

Now the Skunk Truck is 22 years old. It still runs and would likely serve me for another year and maybe another after that. Maybe not.

The Skunk Truck was my
Ticket to Adventure

So I bought a different truck. So far, it doesn’t have a name.


I looked up the “blue-book” price on the Internet and it pegged the private sale price at $750. So I put it out by the road with a sign $700 OBO. No takers after a week so I listed it on eBay with an opening bid of $500. To my surprise, someone bid on it. Then they were outbid and the price kept going up. It ended up going for $725.

So the Skunk Truck is heading back to Illinois tomorrow when the new owner drives over to pick it up. I’ll hate to see it go. It was my ticket to many adventures.

BADGER BOMBS

I well remember the first badger I ever caught in one of my coyote traps. The trap site was at the top of a sandy hillside and even when I was 50 yards away I knew something strange had occurred.

  Most trapped raccoons and coyotes spend some of the time from when they are caught until you get to them digging. A particularly industrious digger in light, sandy soil may shuffle around a half bushel of dirt that is fairly easy to level out once you remove the animal from the trap.

  At the top of the hill was more than a bushel or even two bushels of dug up dirt. It looked like a back hoe had been in operation. Or a bomb. When I got to the trap site, or should I say, excavation, it looked more like a bomb. The hole was easily 4 feet deep, the rim of dirt encircling the hole was about 2 feet high. The bomber was a badger.

  Though badgers aren’t uncommon in Indiana, they are protected. A few miles west of where I trap, in Illinois, they would be fair game. In most places badgers are considered to be pests because of the holes they dig when they prey upon gophers and ground squirrels.

  I carry a snare pole with me at all times to assist in releasing captured animals. Loop the snare around the animal’s neck like a collar on a dog. Except badgers have necks like linebackers. So there’s always an element of uncertainty!

 The one I caught yesterday was no exception. Bomb crater, snarls, teeth and claws. Eventually we parted company, both unscathed. Then the work. The dirt has to go back into the hole. And I don’t carry a backhoe with me on the trapline.
 

OVER BAGGING

 There’s no limit on the number of coyotes a trapper can catch, either on a daily basis or seasonally. Many trappers are happy if they only catch a few, others aren’t happy unless they catch hundreds each year. Me? During the first month of trapping season when only coyotes are legal, I have a goal of catching one and one half coyotes each day. 

  I realize it’s impossible to catch half a coyote so my actual threshold for success is to catch one or two each day. Why not more? Because of the work involved after the catch. 

 I’m a recreational trapper. If I have one or two coyotes in the truck at the end of my check, I haul them into my shed and open a beer while I remove the pelts, clean up the fur and slide the hide on the stretchers to dry. Depending on the mood, some tunes or talk radio makes for a pleasant end of the afternoon. Need be, I’ll crack open a second beer. More than that, the work takes precedence and time disallows any casual quaffing of beers. It’s drudgery!

 A few years ago my goal of one or two per day worked out almost perfectly. I had one day with zero catches, two days with 3 catches and all the rest were one or two. I’ve come close to perfection the last couple year and was on track this year, as well. Until today.

  After finding my bait dug up and coyote tracks all over my first set, but no coyote, then nothing in the next few places I’d placed traps, I caught number one in the corner of a corn field. Then I caught another on the next farm I checked. Then three traps later, at the end of a row of pine trees number 3 for the day was encountered. 

  “Oh Molly,” I told my dog who rides along with me as I check my traps, “We’ve over bagged.” 

The next spot had only been set 2 days ago and since it has a good history, I’d installed 2 traps there. Both of traps were clamped solidly to coyote feet. One was a youngster, the other a mature male. 

   With only one last field to check and two traps set, I thought the five in my truck was it. 

  

Wrong! The next to last trap had a small blonde coyote nailed down - probably a litter mate to the one I caught in the other set yesterday. Six in one day far exceeds my wants, expectations or the amount of work I wanted to do.  

  But I did it. Maybe tomorrow I’ll get a day off - or at least time for enjoying a beer while I work. 

A FEATHERY FUTURE

The United States is often called a nation of emigrants. That is certainly true of the citizenry, but almost as much from the wildlife. Nowadays, many of them are called “invasive species” and devout environmentalists hate them.

More than a few of them have proven to be welcome additions to the native fauna of an area by most people (and even a few devout environmentalists).
No species has made a bigger impact than the ringneck pheasant.

First imported to the Willamette Valley in the Pacific Northwest, they’ve been transplanted to every state in the country. Most places the introductions failed. The birds are adaptive, but not that adaptive. In a few places they thrive, given ample habitat. There’s no place in the country they fare better than the State of South Dakota.

I have feathers in my future. Long feathers. Feathers plucked from the tails of wild, South Dakota ringnecks. Hopefully, probably, unless I fall in a badger hole and break a leg, one could say undoubtedly, there will be several sets of tale feathers sticking out of my game pouch for the next several days.

My grandparents immigrated to the United States as children. A few years earlier, ringneck pheasants immigrated to the U.S. As descendants of immigrants, both the pheasants and I have a date with destiny.  

PLEASANT UNCERTAINTY

  I posted a note on Facebook early yesterday making a statement and a rhetorical question. “Coyote trapping season opens today. Am I surprised it rained more than  2 inches over the weekend?”

  That’s just one of the challenges of trapping for Midwestern coyotes. Couple that with unharvested fields, harvested fields the farmer feels the need to disk or plow in the fall and fields freshly planted with winter wheat and access to my normal trapping locations is always a factor.
 
  Most of the other challenges are more Mother Nature oriented. Wind and wind direction certainly has an affect. Even a drizzle of rain that doesn’t turn fields into lakes can ruin the best-made set. 
     Then there’s the quirks of trapping a very intelligent and cautious animal. Coyotes are strong. The gear and technique used have to be top notch or the animal will find the weakness and exploit it.

  This morning I’ll be heading out towards what I’ve coined, “the pleasant uncertainty.” I first used it in conjunction with going fishing. The pleasant uncertainty exists until you make the first cast or get the first strike.

So what will I find when I get out on my trap line today?  I’m uncertain. But I’m looking forward to it.