Looks great on the trailer!

This “getting ready for trapping” is really taking a lot of time.  Yesterday I didn’t have a lot of time but I figured I could get everything done and loaded and ready for Monday morning (that’s tomorrow by the way).  But, when I looked at my old rubber gloves one pair had to be tossed in the garbage right away and the other I thought might have a chance at being fixed.  I’ve been working on them since yesterday and now am having doubts about their usability.

It’s the right hand glove that takes the most beating, notice the tape between the thumb and index finger.  There is a dime size hole under that tape.  That is what I’m trying to patch right now.

I also grabbed my bag of flagging clips and started to count out my 150 for my trap lines and found that some of them were so faded there would be no way to be able to see them out in the swamp if I didn’t change the tape.  I also found that most of them were so wrapped around each other that making them come apart in order to be seen would be more trouble than just changing them out right now.

So, that is what I did, I spent the next 3 hours taking the old flagging off and putting on new.  You can see from this picture why I had to do it.

The new flags will be a lot easier to see, plus they are not all wrapped around each other and not flapping in the breeze.  I thought of another thing to do with them and later on (someday) I’ll let you in on my newest idea!  Always gotta be thinking!

So, now my allotment of 150 flagging clips are ready for the swamp.

That’s pretty much all I got done yesterday and with church and all today, there has not been much getting ready.  So tomorrow morning I’ll be back busy getting more done.  I hope to get out of town by noon and get a few traps set up at Pete’s pond.  If I can get that done at least I have started.  If for some unknown reason that doesn’t happen then it won’t be until Tuesday morning that I will start.  Times awastin and 40 degree weather is upon us!

Today, Bob caught 4 rats in the 7 traps he has in open water and he saw a whole pile of rat houses in an area that is mine to trap.  I think they were covered with snow is the reason he has not seen them until today.  Bob also got all his live traps set for racoons and that will mean more fur and a bigger check in the end.  Racoons went for an average of about $18 (I guessing at the number, as I didn’t put the numbers in the calculator, just looked and made a guess, it might be more) at the Utah Fur Trappers Auction yesterday.  Rats were only a bit over $9 average at this auction but I think I know the guy who bought them and that tells me A LOT!

So, with hopes running very high on a large catch and a pay off of more than we have ever netted in the past on the horizon, we are charging forth with as much enthusiasm as a couple of guys can muster up!

I’ll be posting daily trapping “stuff”, so keep coming back and seeing just what is going on out on the trapping line.  I’ll be taking lots of pictures and trying to keep dry at the same time!  Trapping is fun and every trap is like a new Christmas present…you just never know what might be waiting in it!

Bears Butt

February 9, 2014