Trapping Raccoon's
There is a certain shorter someone in my house who passed trappers certification this summer and now considers himself a bit of a mountain man - never mind that he doesn’t even have the beginnings of a beard. But he is a bona fide trapper now, gosh darn it.
Personally, I have not taken trappers certification classes, nor will I ever. I won’t. I know even less about trapping than I do about fishing and traditional hunting – if that’s possible – and I’d rather not be involved. I do have a beard, though.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not averse to trapping itself. I respect the talents and skills that real trappers bring to the table; I just don’t have any of those skills myself. I understand the need and the worth of trapping; sometimes a few critters need to be culled for the sake of all critters. I get that.
I just don’t think that any man with the limited dexterity and the slow reflexes that I possess should be fiddling around with cold, steel metal traps, spring-loaded to clamp down vice-like on fat fleshy fingers, never letting go. But that’s just me.
However, imagine my own surprise as I found myself accompanying the previously mentioned younger guy, who looks a lot like me, out in the woods – checking traps – in the dark – with flashlights. Did I mention it’s raining? Have I said how much of a pansy I am? This was not to be a high-water mark for my outdoor pursuits. I was not having the time of my life. I am not going to pen a poem about my love of trapping. But if I did, it might start like this.
Metal trap upon the wall….
Catching animals in the fall…
Furry hides that I must skin…
Nine fingers have I, where once were ten…..
Typically when I make a trek through the woods it’s a series of falls and stumbles and swears; and that’s in good weather. Now take away the sun, throw in some dense fog, and include some throaty night sounds similar to what a sasquatch might make, and I’m pretty much careening through and colliding with every pine tree in the tri-county area; in the hopes of trapping – what – a raccoon? Really? A raccoon? I’m doing this for a raccoon?
The roads in northern Wisconsin are littered with raccoons; there’s probably 20 raccoons on the highway between here and Superior on any given day, and I’m out after dark, a gazillion miles from nowhere, creeping along a little stream in hopes of finding what amounts to a trapped giant-rat-devil, which may or may not bite me before it goes to meet its maker. I’m not sure about other mountain men, but I’m almost certain I’m allergic to raccoon bites. I can feel pain, it doesn’t have to be proven again.
I’m told that you can get up to around $50 for a raccoon hide. Minus the gasoline and vehicle repairs to get to these remote raccoon habitats; factoring in the cost of bandages; plus the price of replacing ripped clothes, the cost of the search-and-rescue team; rabies shots; lost items and a few other odds and ends – we’ll lose about $150 for each raccoon we catch; which is actually a little less than I lose doing most of my other activities. Perhaps trapping is something I should be doing.
At the time of this writing we’ve yet to trap anything. I know this is going to go against the trapping effort we’re involved in, but I’m glad we haven’t caught anything. Do the math – less trapped raccoons means less raccoon bites.
But I’ll go; it’s part of my job as Dad. And it is better that an old, would-be mountain men accompany a young, future mountain man into the woods - because of the possibility of those previously discussed bites.
Plus, those after-dark sounds might actually be from a sasquatch.
Darrell Pendergrass lives in Grand View.