I started trapping myself, only five years ago, but I have been tagging along with someone who traps for approximately eight years.

It all started when my brother caught his first animal in a leg trap, a sow coon. I watched for two solid hours after it was brought home, as my Dad and brother John attempted to skin it. The fur was rough, tough, and full of holes by the time the process was done, but it was an experience that has stuck with me and planted a seed.

After that, my brother was hooked on trapping and I, always being his little shadow, would tag along when he ran his trapping lines.

As the years passed, we caught several more coons, an otter, a flying a squirrel, and countless snakes, but the majority of our hides that we collected in the shed, were mere possums.

Both my brother and I learned in time, how to properly skin and tan hides.

John did try to sell some of the pelts, but never made more then a few dollars from them. But money wasn’t important to either of us. We simply enjoyed having fun, being together and learning as we went.

One instant that comes to mind is the time we out smarted "Ol’ Bushel Britches" the coon. Down the hill from our house, was a little creek that we trapped on constantly, when fur-bearing season came in.

One day, John and I ran the lines and found that one trap had the bait of sardines stolen from it and it was also sprung. So we reset it along with adding new bait to the set.

When we returned the next day, we found that the exact same thing had happened again. After the same scenario continued to take place on a frequent basis, we started calling the coon "Ol’ Bushel Britches", after the wily Sheriff off of "Robin Hood". This went on for a week or so, and growing irritated, we came up with a plan to catch him.

The bank of the creek, by which we trapped, grew thick with bamboo cane, so John cut a piece of the hollow cane, about 4 inches in length and instructed me to fill it with Jack Mackerel.

Let me insert here, something about Jack Mackerel. First off, it reeks of dead fish, and secondly, once you touch or handle it, the smell stays on your skin and is very difficult to remove. After the trapping experience with this stuff, it is hard for me to even gulp down tuna. So knowing that, you can guess why I got the task of handling it and stuffing it in the cane.

Anyway- I did as I had been told and then we placed the cane filled bait in a small opening in the rocky ledge, and put the set in front of it. I then piled rocks around sides of the trap, to keep the animal from reaching around the trap to steal the bait. We then went home, and anxiously waited to see what our set would produce.

Early the next morning, John and I set out with our dog, Abe, to check the special trap. Abe ran ahead of us to the creek and we then heard him barking furiously at something. We hurried down the steep hill to see what he had found.

Then we saw him at the general area that our "lucky" set was at, and we knew instantly that we had succeeded in catching the sly coon. That big boar was really mad and angry with Abe, and bared his teeth and hissed at him until he saw us, then we became his latest enemies. John had his .22 rifle with him and while I held Abe back, shot the coon and made sure that it was completely dead, before he removed and inspected our trophy.

We rejoiced as we ran the rest of the line, and then went home to have our picture taken with the coon, before we skinned him. As we skinned the animal, we promised ourselves that we would someday mount him and respectfully display his proper name on a gold plate, ‘" Ol’ Bushel Britches, the wily coon’".