The
2003 Mercer Advanced Trappers Workshop
Article from May
- Jun 2004 Buckeye Trapper
by Mike
Bruns
First a little history of the Mercer Wildlife Area. It is located
on the Southwest corner of Grand Lake St. Mary and lies in Mercer
County. It consists of 1,408 acres and is primarily managed for
waterfowl. There are seven ponds, which were constructed for waterfowl
nesting and utilization. Approximately one-fourth of the wildlife
area is in cropland and meadow. Part of the wildlife area is in
the lake itself and includes a number of small islands.
Looking at the different types of habitat, it is easy to see why
many different furbearers make this area their home. These include
muskrat, mink, raccoon, opossum, skunk, fox, both red and grey,
coyote and beaver. There is also a pair of bald eagles that reside
in the area.
The Mercer Wildlife Area is a great place to hold a trapping Workshop.
As mentioned earlier, it has a good variety of furbearers to pursue.
It also is very accessible to any of the trapping areas. There
is a need to control the population of these furbearers in order
to increase the nesting success of the ducks and geese.
On November 1 and 2, 2003 a Trapper's Workshop was held under
the direction of the head instructor, Harry Kinnison. Other instructors
included Harold Weismiller, Jeff Irwin and myself. We had five
students who were very eager to broaden their trapping knowledge.
Several of these students had been here before and realized the
advantage of hands on experience.
Harry started Saturday morning off with introductions and an explanation
of the schedule of events. He then proceeded to talk about basic
trapline principles. This included the different types of traps,
matching the correct trap to the right animal, trap anchoring,
drowning rigs and dispatching your catch; should it be needed.
I then took the students outside and showed them trap preparation.
This included the dye and wax method, the trap dip with gas method
and the water trap dip. Advantages and disadvantages were pointed
out. It was stressed how important it is to take good care of
your traps in order to make them last many years.
Next, Harold did a demo on trapping raccoon with box traps. This
was very informative as Harold has some neat baiting tricks to
limit non-target animals. We then followed Harold to a pond for
a water-trapping demo.
I then put on a canine trapping demo, since two of the students
wanted to learn predator trapping. A standard dirt hold was explained
along with trap bedding, and trap blending, along with baiting
and luring variations.
After taking a dinner break it was finally time to go out and
set some traps. This was what everyone was looking forward to.
Harry, Harold and Jeff took three of the students to the marsh
area to make sets for muskrats while I took the other two with
me to look for some good locations for fox. Kyle and Jacob were
the two trappers with me. We had enough time and traps for each
student to make three dirt sets. These were varied between standard
dirt holes, mouse holes and one flat set. We then went to the
ponds to find Harry and his crew just finishing up.
Now came the hard part, waiting for the Sunday morning check.
We all agreed to meet at 8:00 a.m. the next day.
The next morning everyone was eagerly waiting to see what the
sets would produce. I took Kyle and Jacob with me and headed out
to check our fox sets. The first set we came to was Kyle's and
was untouched. This set was at a drive coming out of the prairie
grass and given more time would have surely produced.
The second set was Jacob's and was put in by an island of trees
and brush, making for an ideal canine hunting spot. As we approached
we could see that the trap was snapped and laying out of the trap
bed. Upon closer examination it was easy to see that a deer had
trampled this set.
Set number three was Kyle's and was located along the edge where
mowed grass met up with prairie grass. This set was not disturbed.
The fourth set was Jacob's and was put in at an outside corner
of some fencing. This set was messed with. The lure stick had
been worked out of the hole. It looked like the animal had worked
the set from the side, but we couldn't find any tracks to know
for sure what did it. Although fox do this, many times I find
raccoons to be the culprit.
The fifth set was also Jacob's and it too was disturbed. This
set had been put in at a gate opening between the fence. It wasn't
possible to find any tracks in the grass to indicate what we were
dealing with.
This left us with only one remaining set. This was Kyle's third
set and was also located at a gate hole further on down the line.
As we walked over towards the last set I explained that patience
was a big part of predator trapping and that one shouldn't expect
too much in a single night. As we crested a small hill, the final
set was in view, but still a little ways off. As the morning was
somewhat foggy I couldn't see anything moving around and figured
that set was also empty. But as we approached I could start to
make out an immobile form and was starting to tell Kyle that I
thought he had connected with a "grinner" when all at
once a grey fox started jumping around. Man were we all excited.
After congratulating Kyle and taking some pictures, we dispatched
the fox and headed back to the main area to see how the water
trappers had done. These trappers were also very happy, as they
had connected with nine muskrats.
After taking some pictures, it was time to demonstrate proper
fur handling techniques. The young trappers then tried their own
hand at putting up fur.
It ended up being a very enjoyable weekend for both the inspiring
young trappers and also the instructors. I would like to thank
the Ohio Division of Wildlife and also the people at Mercer Wildlife
Area for letting us use such a fine facility. I can't say enough
good things about a program such as this and the opportunity for
learning through hands on experience. It makes me wonder, if I
would have had something like this years ago, maybe it would not
have taken me over a year to catch my first fox? ### Mike
Bruns, OSTA District 2 Director, 5130 Karafit Rd., Celina, OH
45822
Editor's Note: I would like to personally thank
Mike for taking time out of his busy trapping season to write
this article for the BT. Starting with the Nov/Dec 2003 issue
we have been featuring stories relating to OSTA events which are
benefits to our members. It is our hope that these articles will
give members information on these events, which they may not be
too familiar with. Hopefully, members will take advantage of them
in some way, either by reading or by attending one of them first
hand.
|
