Hometown Trapping

Earlier in my trapping and hunting career I was limited to my parent’s driving me down “home” over Thanksgiving holiday, as it is a 90 minute drive and I had not yet my driving license. Whereupon reaching my hunting grounds I had access to an old beater farm truck or a quad with which I used both to get the required mobility to be successful. In accordance with this, ever since I was a little boy I’ve been wishing and working so as I can get my own truck that I can take hunting and trapping when I can legally drive. My hard work persisted and now I’m driving a four-wheel drive Chevy Silverado short-bed truck, the ultimate outdoorsmen vehicle (at least in my own biased opinion).
Now, I finally don’t have to rely on my parents to get south. I have the freedom to go hunting and trapping every weekend now during season and still including Thanksgiving break. The only thing that separates me now is the 90 minute drive to my grandparents, as this quickly becomes an expensive endeavor.
Luckily, I have come up with a solution that will help me curb this potentially high bill for gas, and that is to do some trapping around my home when I’m not chasing wild game in Mahaska. This is the first year that this great opportunity has been made available to me because of my Silverado. Trapping around home I think and hope will provide me with some of the best trapping that I will ever get to experience. As the fur around my home is an untapped resource, that hasn’t been pursued in many decades, this meaning that there should be a vast amount of critters.
I hope to be able to trap several bridge crossings and some public hunting grounds, in which I have scouted during this pre-season for sign of furbearers. This scouting has been a success and I’m greatly looking forward to laying some steel in these new locations. However, as I will be trapping outside of a major urban area I realize that I might face some trap and fur theft because of the surrounding large population of people. This will make it critical for me to check my traps in the cover of darkness (well before sunrise), when it will be very difficult for people to see me checking traps.
If I execute this plan of trapping around my home with good order I think that I could make some good profits and put some spending money in my pocket, but most importantly this will give me more opportunities to do what I love doing. I’m greatly looking forward to the opening of the season as this will be a great change in the monotonous school day, a boy getting to check fur-laden traps before the 8:00 am school bell rings.