Why I Trap

Standing on an old logging road in a creek bottom, the bird gobbled 125 yards out. I found a wide-enough tree that matched my camo pattern and put my padded seat and gun down. I walked back 30 yards with my favorite, chalked-up box call and scratched out six, high-pitched yelps. The bird cut me off.

As I walked back to my setup, I slid my headnet into place and put a Tom Teasers diaphragm called “Hot Sauce” into my mouth. I sat down, propped up my left knee and pointed Granddaddy’s 1100 and hot load of 2 3/4 at an opening in the logging road 15 yards away. Motion ceased.

Sixty seconds later, he gobbled again—75 yards out.

Is it really going to play out like this?

Thirty seconds later, he rounded the bend in the road, beard swinging. There was no strutting or scanning, just a dead run to the gun.

It’s been some years since I killed a turkey. New callings, new additions and increased responsibilities have changed life’s recipe. Zero complaints with where I’m at, but it has meant increased time between turkey hunts.

A decade ago, I got into trapping. It’s true that I trap because I enjoy the challenge of trying to catch an animal as I think back to those fur traders from 100 years ago. What a tradition!

However, in the back of my mind, I’ve always hoped that my trapping efforts would make some sort of a difference in struggling turkey numbers. While I do believe lower turkey numbers stem from multiple things, when I see a bobcat dancing with a 550 or a coon carving out a circle around a tree, I often think to myself, no more turkeys for you. Does my trapping help? I think so, at least on some level.

My mind was made up long before that turkey hunt two days ago, but I’m going to keep trapping as long as I’m able. I’ll save a few turkeys and hopefully keep a lot of nests from being raided by coons and possums. I’m a really simple guy. Planting steel is all I know to do, how I can try and make a difference.

When the longbeard hit that 15-yard gap in the logging road, one leak from the Hot Sauce locked him down. From the first gobble to the flop was only a couple of minutes long. Fast, but exhilarating and fun and humbling to see it all that play out like that.

I sat down in that same road and looked at the prettiest feathers in North America. I wondered if a raccoon being caught in a DP by someone two years prior led up to my morning. I prayed, smiled and reflected on all that it takes to grow a wild turkey from egg to the gun.

I don’t have to be the one to experience the fruit from my trapping efforts. As long as someone gets a thrill from a gobbling bird on a chilly April morning, that’s good enough for me.