Trapping: hunting for the suburbs?
Any interest in expanding trapping to include meat for the table?
I know you can eat many fur-bearers, but I’m talking about
doing more to include the trapping of rabbits and fowl and possibly
other primarily eating game.
I find trapping to be more effective than hunting…and just as enjoyable
and cultural (heritage).
I also find that the same dynamic that works for bow-hunting in
our ever-more-crowded areas might be made to work for trapping.
Trapping is quiet. It can be done with very tight targetting (no
non-game troubles). I’ve always felt it can be done very close
to developed areas with very little trouble. Much less than with
gun hunting!
These factors would seem to make it a viable concept to look into
further at any rate….
*****
Trapping for food?
I see hunting as ‘iffy’ in terms of sport and primarily meant to put
food on the table. The best way to do this equals the best way to
hunt, to me. And the etiquette around such creates the ‘sport’.
Call it what you like.
I’ve been a hunter for decades, trapper too. Typical trapping
game is for fur, not the table (I know folks eat coon, but…).
Given the close-quarters our world is turning into, I wonder if
trapping might not have a future rolein terms of other game
and fowl. I used to trap in subdivisions, I trapped
very close to civilization. I caught close to 0% nontarget critters,
it was a nonissue.
My main desire in hunting is to put food on table, secondly to
get outdoors. Both could be covered by trapping and have been
in days of yore and in some lands today.
I always found that I preferred the trapping mode. It was more
like *farming*, more efficient. It seemed like the ‘one on one’
aspect of the shooting sports was a somewhat wasteful mode to follow
to put food on the table. …Of course we optimize it via scouting
and sitting around or flushing during the few prime hours, but
still looking for one critter at a time isn’t the only way to
get the job done.
Thus I wonder about trapping things like wildfowl.
I also wonder about deer traps, deadfalls and snares. Wounding
and wandering of shot game would drop to nil. No noise. No projectiles.
I live on 4 wild acres with lots of deer passing thru. But with a
subdivision nearby. I could safely get venison via deadfall without
worrying anyone. I could not use bow or firearm.
(This issue perhaps partly relates to the crossbow debate.
As we get too crowded for firearms, why not evaluate the
effectiveness of certain crossbows for improving killrates.
Improved accuracy, heavier bolts, bigger cutting surface,
shorter trails, less wounding, handier, less training required,
range extended…)
This also extends to fishing. As a kid I used trotlines and juglines
quite a bit. They worked. Native Americans use nets. I’m a
native American! 🙂 (Enter politics…then exit please.) I’d rather use
all of these to provide fish for my table. There is of course plenty
of lore and culture surrounding these ‘sports’ so don’t worry about
that. Maybe trotlines are legal in some states for some fish.
Same with spearing, bowfishing. (Why all the subtle distinctions I
wonder. Carp really are NOT trash fish. Why let us bowshoot them
and not others?) I picture these tricks applied on salmon personally…
Note that I’m not questioning bag limits. Just looking for
better ways to get the job done….
Are the main real world objections to these things litigious
and bureaucratic? —In that case I suspect that game departments
give themselves too much credit for their monitoring of the
shooting sports. Try to stop the kneejerk about how barbaric
everyone was back when these modes were legal… Fire away
with the real objections!
This also dovetails into my wonderment about seasons. Here in
Michigan we have about 500 seasons for everything that moves,
all on different dates and times. Nature isn’t really that detailed.
Nor are sportsmen that successful. Why not simplify?
Lastly, what’s up with non-reciprocity of licenses across state line?
Do we want to encourage hunting or not? Tourism? If licenses were
good everywhere, wouldn’t MANY more folks buy them everywhere?
Sure your ‘screw your neighbor’ revenue might drop, but overall
sales would cover the loss. I go on a drive across
a few states and if I want to wet a line or try my hand I have to
bring a filing cabinet and a big bank account to handle all the
paperwork.
Just wondering….
*****
Trotlines, anyone?
I do all forms of fishing with equal interest. My primary purpose
with all of them, however, being meat for the pot. I personally
can very readily layer my quest for supreme experience satisfaction
on top of my first mission.
I have no quarrel with limits or seasons.
However, I find one-at-a-time fishing to be as relatively ineffective
in general as one-at-a-time hunting. (Which is why I prefer trapping.)
I’m wondering if theoretically there’d ever be any room for more
alternative methods in the sport-fishing or citizen category, or whatever
you call it.
Personally, I’m a subsistence fisherman, just like any aborigine, just
as connected to my ancestors as they are. I’m a Native American in any
meaningful sense of the term. But call it what you like.
I know there’s some places where trotline for catfish is legal.
Possibly even some types of netting.
I would think that expanding these methods to an extent, while
keeping limits, etc., in mind could be done.
No one but me and a few others ever fishes where I fish anyway.
I’d say that “heavily fished destination resort glamor type waters”
make up only 5% of the fishing that is regularly done or available.
I could set up a small net or trotline in my local creek once a week
for a weekly meal and not interfere with anyone, or take untargetted
game or have a problem with limits. Nor would I be any less cultural
than anyone else. I’d just be more likely to get my weekly fish dinner
and be able to spend less time doing it (fishing not being an amusement
for me, and culture generally inclining toward necessity and efficiency, I
don’t regret the appearance of ‘not enough time for fishing’).
Views?
