# Old Trapping and Fur HUNTING Pics



## griffondog (Dec 27, 2005)

My grandfathers older brother was a big time hound hunter and trapper in the early 1900s. I found this old pic of him and my grandfather on a bobcat hunt . I dont know the date of the picture but my grandfather was born in 1896. My grandmother thinks the photo was taken in Luzerne. Anybody else got any old pics?

Griffondog










*Following Photo Added by Moderator*:


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## David G Duncan (Mar 26, 2000)

griffondog,

Really neat photo!!

It sure looks like it was taken in the early 1900's.

Thanks for sharing it with us!


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## mhodnettjr (Jan 30, 2005)

now that is a cool pic! i hope to see some more old pics from other trappers. I'm the pioneer trapper in my family so i dont have any old things to go through.


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## ottertrapper (Jan 6, 2006)

I will see what if any I can dig up next time I go home. My dad and his dad my grandpa trapped from the 50's and 60's and maybe some in the 40's. I will see if my dad has any photos from then. Great picture by the way. Otter


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## David G Duncan (Mar 26, 2000)

griffondog,

I hope you don't mind me adding an old photo to your original postings, which is truly one of my all time favors.

This photo of a mink and ermine trapper is one I have admired for the past 50 years! It is on page 144 in A. R. Harding's book "Steel Traps", which has a copyright date of 1935. The young man has a strangely similar appearance to the gentlemen in your photo. Don't you think?

How he got those mink and the ermine to hang by their noses from that cane pole is a mystery to me  .

Maybe we develop a nice collection of our favorite old trapping photos in this thread and then turn it into a sticky  .


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## griffondog (Dec 27, 2005)

DAVE 

Cool picture I hope to see more. My guess on the age of my pic is about WW1 that would put my grandfather under 20 in the pic. I have pics of my great uncle duck hunting in the 30s and he looks 20 years older in those pics.

Griffondog


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## David G Duncan (Mar 26, 2000)

Here is a photo of a proud young mink trapper taken in 1960!











And a photo of a proud old beaver trapper taken in 2006.


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## mhodnettjr (Jan 30, 2005)

haha I have seen that guy before! maybe up near fife lake.


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## David G Duncan (Mar 26, 2000)

Mike,

You are good!

I guess I can't slip one by a sharp eyed trapper like you  .

In this photo I was probably 15 years old. That year I caught 10 mink, which was a big deal in our small town back then.


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## Sprytle (Jan 8, 2005)

David G Duncan said:


> Mike,
> 
> You are good!
> 
> ...


Was that when you lived in Marne Dave?? Where did you live in Marne??

-Bob


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## ottertrapper (Jan 6, 2006)

Nice pic with the mink Dave!!


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## target-panic (Jan 9, 2006)

Hey Dave,
I bet you still have those hip boots tucked away somewhere right??:lol: :lol: :lol:


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## David G Duncan (Mar 26, 2000)

Sprytle,

Boy, you have a good memory! Yes, it was in Marne and I lived directly across from what is now the elementary school. And the old Berlin High School, which has been torn down, was just across the street from my house.

target-panic,

Ya, hip boots have always been my favorite foot wear . But for some reason they don't seem to last me more than a couple of years, before they get to leaking pretty bad :sad: .


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## mhodnettjr (Jan 30, 2005)

Here are a couple of real old timers here. The one guy has a shirt on that says "central michigan" I would imagine that it's because he was one of the pioneers of our great state and the first to venture north of the detroit area. 



















Actually I had to put something goofy in here, I liked this thread so much I couldn't stand to see it on the second page.


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## David G Duncan (Mar 26, 2000)

Mike,

I like it, I like it!!

Quite a time machine you have there! Amazing how a little "black & white" treatment can take you back a 100 years in time :lol: .

Now, Tim definately has the "no smile" pose down pat, which is a must if you want to really capture the old time picture look  . I think the cameraman was telling them to hold still until after the flash in the pan :coolgleam . So they have that frozen face stare, which is an earmark for a really old photograph.


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## mhodnettjr (Jan 30, 2005)

Tim is the master of "no smile" photography. He is a reserve officer in our local police department. Some of that hard%#$ stuff follows him around everywhere he goes:lol: :lol: . so as far as anyone knows, John Wayne, I mean Chuck Norris, I mean Tim, has no emotion.


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## David G Duncan (Mar 26, 2000)

Here is a 25 year old photo of my son and I getting ready to pack out a 60 lb. super blanket beaver.

Our buddy Luke was also along on this adventure.


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## mhodnettjr (Jan 30, 2005)

I dont know how anyone in the world can look at that picture and not have a smile with a warm fuzzy feeling.


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## griffondog (Dec 27, 2005)

Thought I could become a long line predator trapper with this two week catch of fox. This was taken my senior year in 1978. No yotes in oakland county back then.

Griffondog


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## mhodnettjr (Jan 30, 2005)

wow great picture! Its cool to see the foxes like that. I sure missed out on that era.


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## t_steinhauer444 (Dec 7, 2005)

mhodnettjr said:


> Tim is the master of "no smile" photography. He is a reserve officer in our local police department. Some of that hard%#$ stuff follows him around everywhere he goes:lol: :lol: . so as far as anyone knows, John Wayne, I mean Chuck Norris, I mean Tim, has no emotion.


Ya, I hate to admit it but mikes right. John Wayne Passed away and two days later I was born.:coolgleam What can I say. 

I love the old trapping pics, It made me dig out some old family hunting pictures to look at. Awesome pictures guys, keep em comeing.


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## David G Duncan (Mar 26, 2000)

griffondog,

Great photo of a great catch of Red Fox!!!

I believe it was in 1979 that I got the highest price for my Red Fox at $85 each. Do you remember what your fox sold for ?


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## mhodnettjr (Jan 30, 2005)

David G Duncan said:


> griffondog,
> 
> Great photo of a great catch of Red Fox!!!
> 
> I believe it was in 1979 that I got the highest price for my Red Fox at $85 each. Do you remember what your fox sold for ?


at that rate a good weeks trapping would pay my mortgage:yikes:


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## griffondog (Dec 27, 2005)

Dave

In 79 or 80 I sold 50 cherry fox at the old SMTA Marshall fur sale. Leroy Hendrix bought the fox for 95.50. 


Griffondog


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## Yoopertrapper (Jan 24, 2006)

griffondog said:


> Dave
> 
> In 79 or 80 I sold 50 cherry fox at the old SMTA Marshall fur sale. Leroy Hendrix bought the fox for 95.50.
> 
> ...


Was that each fox or for all 50?


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## multibeard (Mar 3, 2002)

Man I haven't heard the Hendrix name in a long time.

Roland the boys father was a buyer that had his act together at the Ravenna sales. May times is stood next to him while I was bagging furs off the end of the auction table.

More that one time I noticed a check being written out with the trappers name on a check before the furs had been sold. All that had to be added was the $$$ amount after they bought the lot. Roland had the boys going thru the tables and deciding what lots they were going to buy before it was even brought up in front of the auctioneer to be sold.

It is too bad that the red fox numbers will never be able to come back like they were in the old days. The coyotes have seen to that.


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## griffondog (Dec 27, 2005)

Yoopertrapper that was for each fox.

Multibeard the Hendrix family bought all my fox for 5 or 6 years in a row. Zander fur bought all my rats at the same time. 

griffondog


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## multibeard (Mar 3, 2002)

The local buyers didn't like it when Zander started coming from New Jersey. He paid better than the locals.

I over heard a buyer from Grand Haven trying to get Jack Van Hoose to quit bidding so high for the fur. Jack told him where to go as he was making good money with the good prices he was paying and wouldn't screw the trapper.

Lots of memories from the Ravenna fur sale in the good old SMTA days. Lots of work putting it on but lots of fun too!!!! Lots of characters among the fur buyers


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## griffondog (Dec 27, 2005)

multibeard

Chuck Schrader and Mason Hanes were two of the biggest nuts I ever met at the sales. I think Chuck got in trouble for mooning the crowd at the Elba sale. Becky told me at the Outdoorama show Mason was buying fur again. I wonder if Herb Baxter still has the old fur sale records.

Griffondog


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## David G Duncan (Mar 26, 2000)

griffondog,

I knew Leroy and his father well. Back in the late 60's I was the secretary / treasurer of the Zone 3 Trappers Association, when Gary Dunlap was the president. Before Gary, I believe a trapper by the name of Dick McKibben (sp?) got the Zone 3 Assoc. started down around Yankee Springs, probably in the early 60's. That was all before the Southern Michigan Trappers Association got started by a guy named Hoyt. It was the old perverbial problem of if you don't like the way the Assoc. is being run, then start your own association.

For a number of years, we ran two fur auctions a year at Ackerson Lake south of Jackson. I remember at one of these sells, when the McKibben's (father & two sons) brought in over 200 red fox caught in the U. P. and northern L. P., which sold for the unheard of high price of over $8.00 each. It was probably around 1970.

Yes, I remember Chuck Schrader, boy was he a wild and crazy guy!!!!


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## multibeard (Mar 3, 2002)

griffondog. I forgot about your post from 3/30 that I didn't answer.

Schrader kept my kid in stitches when we were bagging fur at Ravenna. The last I heard of Schrader I think it was that he was a pro bass fisherman.

I ran into Lanny Hupt (sp) in a restaurant in Walkerville a couple of years ago. He was buying deer and cow hides. He got out of the fur buying when prices fell. I got his address and sent him a copy of a picture of him out of the Muskegon paper taken at the sale.

I still have a few old fur slips from the sale stuck some where. Herb sure devoted a lot of years to keeping the books for the SMTA. Becky's dad was president for a while.

Van House bought $10,000 worth of fur in a garage in Mears one day. I sold some of my fur to him but told him I had a mink in the truck that he was not going to by for the 24 bucks he was paying. After every one left I brought it in and he accused me of having a ranch mink because it was so big, 36 inches tip to tip. He bought it for $36.00. Jack was one of the more honest buyers.


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## David G Duncan (Mar 26, 2000)

multibeard,

You sure do have a great memory! Thanks for sharing them with us about the good old days. Do you have any old pictures taken at any of the fur auctions?

Your 36 " mink story brought back some memories for me. Back in about 1968 I was living and trapping around Jackson. One morning before work I was running my mink line, wading up a small stream in the dark. I had a blind mink set made with a # 1 Victor Longspring Stoploss trap, in a small feeder stream, where it dumped into the main creek.

As I approached this set and shinned my flashlite in that direction, I got the reflection of a set of eyes that appeared to be way too large to be a mink. My first thought was that I had caught a black cat. But what the heck was a cat doing hunting in the water?

Well, it turned out to be the largest mink I have ever caught. My favorite muskrat and mink trap, the #1 stoploss trap had done its job.

It was a beautiful buck mink that easily stretched to a little over 36 inches! I sold it at our Ackerson Lake fur auction, to a great fur buyer by the name of Bob Phares, who came to all our sells from New Palestine Indiana.

Unfortunately I really don't remember what he paid me for this mink. Bob specialized in buying mostly mink and red fox. We could always depend on him to keep the bidding fair and he gave Hendrix some good competition in the mink and fox department.


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## multibeard (Mar 3, 2002)

Dave 

I have a few pictures from Ravenna. When my puter smart son gets here up to hunt turkeys maybe he can figure out how to teach the old man how to post a few pictures.

There is more to the story of the 36 in mink. I was trapping the Oceana Golf course to keep the rats from caving in the banks on the ponds. I never intentionally set for mink there as they helped keep the rat population down.

I had a set in a tube in the middle of the swamp that caught quite a few rats moving down the stream that fed the ponds. One day as I stepped up on the tube to check the trap I noticed the back of a rat floating in the foam. 

When I reached out with my trapping hook to catch the trap chain to pull the rat out, the rat just rolled and disappeared into the water.

 A rat with a #1 stop loss on its foot shouldn't float in 2 foot of water. I started to look the area over. I noticed the tag alder at the lower end of the hole was a chewed up. Then I looked into the water and could see the tell tale white throat patch.

After I hooked the mink out of the bottom of the hole with its foot in the stop loss the rat floated back up to the top. I wish I could have been a little birdie in the bush to know exactly what happened that night. There were three little pin pricks in the hide on the rats head. Did the mink have the rat when it got in the trap or did it kill it after getting caught and before it drowned.

What really happened I will never know.


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## David G Duncan (Mar 26, 2000)

multibeard,

Great story!!

So this huge 36" mink apparently was making a very good living by helping you harvest muskrats! And apparently he was getting really good at his trade, as he might have been carrying one with at the time you tripped him up in your #1 stoploss!

What type of stoploss were you using? I used Victor's, never did like using the B&L's for some reason.

It is a great credit to these little #1 stoploss traps, that we each caught our largest mink even in the same type of trap.


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## multibeard (Mar 3, 2002)

It was a victor #1. I have a few 1 1/2 stopploss around some where. I bought them from Ray Auw's widow. Ray was the man that got the Ravenna Fur sale started.

The early ones, like is in one of the old trap pictures, are only good for hanging on the wall. I think the wire that went across the jaw pivots and was the pan dog actually pushed a rat out of the trap.

I always used the delay pin on the stoploss wire. I just hooked it a little ways not all the way. It didn't take much for a rat to pull it out to release the stoploss wire.


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## griffondog (Dec 27, 2005)

Dave and Multibeard

I never had much luck using a no 1 stoploss for a mink trap. I really liked a no 2 victor coil for mink. Caught them around both shoulders a lot of the time. **** in a 2 coil was another story! When I Was going to NMU I caught a bobcat in a vic 1 stoploss in a mink and rat set under a rd just out of Marquette. Big foot in a little trap.

Griffondog


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## David G Duncan (Mar 26, 2000)

griffondog,

To tell the truth, I only use my #1 Stoploss traps in locations where I do not have deep enough water to drown a mink or muskrat.

Otherwise I would prefer to use a # 1.5 coilspring!

I have caught and held just about everything in these little #1.5 Victor Coilsprings. Otter, bobcat, coyote and beaver! But they were never the intended target furbearer when I set them.


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