Rise and shine for a little hunt

Our 18th stop was at 4:23, that’s right, a.m.

The male mink-a buck-was a welcome sight and made me forget how cold my toes had gotten. The temperature was now 12.9 degrees fahrenheit.

I was a little surprised my feet were feeling frozen because they were dry on account of my chest waders and the scrambling down and up the ditches felt like mini mountain climbing efforts.

Steve said we were about halfway through the morning’s checks. Considering the first check was at 2:40 a.m., it still felt like I hadn’t even reached morning yet.

It was old hat for Steve. He’s been rising before zero dark thirty for more than 30 years to drive these rural roads in pursuit of furbearers at various spots, usually bridge locations, in the right-of-way.

My first outing with Steve was after the recent ice storm. Discretion being the better part of valor, he called for retreat when we finally turned onto the gravel after taking the highway about 20 miles until the turn-off. The lane was a shining sheet in the headlights.

Steve knew from experience it wasn’t worth the risk of unintentionally parking his truck in the ditch.

This morning promised good enough roads after a week of some sunshine and enough melting. It also promised to be cold. The stars and waning moon always feel brighter when it’s a calm and dark scene.

The general furbearer season started Nov. 2 and runs through February. Steve had this line set for minks. His modus operandi was using small body-gripping traps set under the water. The snap of the powerful spring is enough to kill outright. As they were submerged, drowning was an insurance policy.

Mink are high metabolism predators. Therefore they hunt, and hunt, and hunt for that next meal. Maybe the meal is a frog in its winter stupor, maybe a fish that zigged when it should have zagged? But first on the preferred menu are muskrats.

Muskrats are a convivial furbearer that have been a starting point for many a trapper. These fecund aquatic herbivores are the waterway’s version of the rabbit. Plenty of man and beast have staved off hunger with muskrats.

Since mink and muskrat share habitats and travel habits, to trap for mink is to also trap for muskrats. Many a greenhorn earned enough money on ’rats to further catch the fever for trapping that, turns out, is seldom cured.

Steve still has the fever. He must to keep up the routine as he makes another stop, and then picks his way down the ditch. He avoids the ankle breaking rip-rap, slippery slopes and shores, and even garbage from the slobs among us who’d rather spend money on gas to drive to a rural bridge to dump their oddities rather than just do the right thing.

Once down to the creek, Steve often had to break through the ice to check the set, usually with a hatchet. Most times the trap was empty and left in place. Sometimes he needed to reset the works to clear them of detritus. When there was a catch, then it meant time for extraction and resetting.

Finally, he’d retrace his steps and clamber up the steep bank to the road. All this is done in the dark and in any weather, ice storms notwithstanding.

I went down to the water with Steve for about half the checks. Other times, I watched from the bridgetop. Sometimes I stayed in the truck to write my notes.

What would drive a person to engage in such demands, day after day, and in particular at such an ungodly hour? It’s not the money, and hasn’t been for a very long time as the last “fur boom” ended in the 1980s. “Think Mink”?

“It just gets in your blood,” Steve said. That’s a common response from the remaining trappers. I also believe trapping offers a vigorous mental exercise as thinking about all the species, their habits, the equipment, methods and rules is quite a puzzle to solve. Plus there’s the thrill in practicing your pursuit in a way that goes undetected by the public.

At check No. 24 we found a mink in the trap. The water froze thinly over the set with such clarity that it seemed like I could have reached right to her. Though still, her fuzzy body exuded vitality. It was paradoxical but true — like a finely taxidermied piece in a museum.

My toes were painfully cold. Orion’s belt fell below the horizon. The temperature was 14 degrees. Check No. 34 yielded a double on muskrats.

Our last stop was fruitless, No. 35. The time was 6:14 a.m. I figured my feet would have warmed up on the drive home: wrong. Insulation now worked to keep the heat out of my boots.

Driving back to the city, black was yielding to gray in the east. Steve said nine muskrats and three mink was an average acceptable catch. After they are skinned and prepared on drying boards, the fur check will account for the route's gasoline.

The catch could never account for the time though. But there’s no need to, when you are enthralled with a timeless tradition.

Looking up, looking ahead, and keeping my pencil sharp.

John Lawrence Hanson, Ed.D. teaches at Linn-Mar High School. He sits on the Marion Tree Board, and is a member of the Outdoor Writers Association of America.