Beaver Snaring in a Pond

2013 N.T.A. Ohio Convention

I am very excited about the upcoming convention approaching fast. I look forward to meeting many of you personally. For those of you who may not be aware this year convention is to be held in Lima, Ohio on August 1st through the 4th. For more information such as driving directions, overnight accommodations, and the tentative demo list visit  http://www.nationaltrappers.com/convention.html.

See you there!

If you're a new trapper or a seasoned veteran, School of Trapping can help you catch more fur. The site is packed with hardcore information from every aspect of the trapping industry. Whether you are a water trapper, a predator trapper, or a lure maker you will gain valuable knowledge from this site. Come check it out!  
http://cajunbill.proboards.com/index.cgi

My Trip To Become A Trapper

    Hello my name is Caleb Matthews. I am 17 years old and I live in south Arkansas. The first time I was introduced to trapping was while I was cleaning out my grandparents camp on Lake Wilmot.  I came across an old rotten duffle bag filled with Blake & Lamb double long springs and Oneida Victor coil springs traps. At that time I was 10 and to be perfectly honest I had little interest in the sport. Even so the traps still ended up in an old storage shed behind my house. 

     Several years later I overheard a few of my friends talking about this thing called trapping. I still didn't understand it or the crazy obsession my friends had with this boring sport. So one day I asked, if you can't get any money for it then why in the world are you bothering with it?  They were silent for a moment. Then they said because it's fun. It was killing me. I was going to prove to them once and for all that there really wasn't anything to trapping.

     So we planned a trip, and I told them I had just the place...my grandparents camp on the lake. Those thirty rusty traps I found underneath the deck ironically would become my demise. That terrible disease that eats from within every trappers brain that drives you to catch fur and to want to catch more and more. You're never satisfied. Anyway our impressive campaign was to have two trap checks. When we arrived at the camp we unloaded the truck, filled what traps we would need in our boat, and crossed the lake. We then spent the next three hours slapping a trap down on every trail that we could, and making sure that they were solidly anchored with tent stakes.

     I kept it to myself but by then I was having a good ole time. That night just the anticipation was killing me. I probably had a total of three hours of sleep. The next morning we set out with high hopes only to have about twelve snapped traps. However we didn't let that get us discouraged. We continued to set traps on every trail we could find the second day. By then we had close to sixty sets. The last night of the trip the same anticipation visited me as it had the previous night.

    On pulling day our line produced a opossum and half of a rat. Though my friends were disappointed I was ecstatic. That was the last week of the 2009-2010 trapping season and I was sorry to see it go. That was three seasons ago. I must say I am a lot less ignorant then I was at that time.  Now I just about eat, sleep and drink trapping 24/7 365 days of the year. There is just nothing else like being out in Gods creation twelve hours of the day and learning every characteristic of your target animal.