Trapping tribe convenes for 80th anniversary

Their roots run deep, reaching back to America’s wild frontier, finding common ground with the likes of Grizzly Adams, Kit Carson, Jim Bridger, and Hugh Glass, frontiersmen who played an elemental role in taming the country’s western wilderness. It was the era of rugged mountain men, their ambitions fueled by a booming fur trade whose currency was the coveted pelts of mink, raccoon, fox, fisher, and, most importantly, beaver. That same pioneering spirit and a reverence for the country’s rich trapping heritage was robustly celebrated this weekend in Chester County when the Pennsylvania Trappers Association (PTA) convened to mark their 80th anniversary.

Held on the sprawling grounds of the Romano 4-H Center in Honey Brook, the three-day event ran from June 15 through 17. The PTA has held an annual “Trappers State Rendezvous” ever since its founding in 1937, but this year’s edition was unique in that it was the first time in history that the event took place in the PTA’s District 12, an area comprised of Chester, Montgomery, Bucks, Delaware, and Philadelphia counties. When I visited the rendezvous on Thursday, the rustic ambiance hearkened me back to my own youthful muskrat and raccoon trapping days back in the 1960s.

The event featured vast displays of every conceivable kind of furbearer pelt and over 100 vendors selling foothold and conibear traps, packbaskets, cable restraints, lures, baits, outdoorsy artwork, and books and videos about trapping. Fur dealers and fur buyers were also on hand. Most of the folks I spoke with at the convention, like PTA President Brian Mohn, traced their enthusiasm for trapping back to their childhoods and remain passionately committed to the trapping culture as adults. Mohn, now 56 and a member of PTA for 40 years, started trapping at age ten. “We’re the oldest and largest state trapping organization in the United States,” he declared. PTA boasts around 3,400 members, 150 of whom reside in District 12.

Mohn’s ongoing zeal for trapping is manifest. “I run a 100-set, multi-species trapline in the Hamburg area where I live, targeting fox, raccoon, mink, and coyote. I also trap beavers in the Poconos and run another trapline in the Adirondacks in New York State.” Mohn added that a beaver pelt can sell for $20 or more. “Most of them go to make felt hats, and that includes the best brands of Stetson hats,” said Mohn. “Coyote fur is also in high demand and is used as trim on jackets.”

Honey Brook’s Dave Rodgers, one of the event’s organizers and District 12 Treasurer, began trapping at age 11 and has stayed with it for 36 years. “I started trapping muskrats and opossum back then, but today I focus on red fox,” he said. Rodgers and other event organizers said they expected three to four thousand attendees at this year’s event. “The emphasis for the rendezvous is on education,” Rodgers added. “That includes trapping ethics, trapping techniques, and handling of pelts, among other things.”

Other educational aspects of the event included hourly seminars on topics like predator hunting, cable restraints, pelt preparation, and tips on trapping raccoon, beaver, bobcat, otter, fisher, and other furbearing species. The event schedule also featured fur handling demonstrations, trap setting contests, membership meetings, a mountain man race, and an auction.

Rick Ameisen, the District 12 director and primary PTA rendezvous organizer has been a dedicated trapper for 25 years. He was palpably excited about bringing the Trapper Rendezvous to his home town. Ameisen, 42, expressed confidence in the event’s success. “I have a lot of pride in how well this event has unfolded,” he said. “One of our goals is to have a successful event that attracts people to this area who may have never been here before. We expect great attendance, but the fur market is depressed, so the number of trappers is down a little bit.”

Ameisen runs a trapline consisting of around 30 sets, mostly for red fox. While most trappers here started out trapping muskrats in their youth, there was a consensus that almost no one in our area traps muskrat these days. That’s because there are so very few to be found. They also shared a suspicion that some kind of muskrat epidemic had decimated the once omnipresent furbearer’s numbers. “The primary furbearer targeted today is the red fox followed by raccoons, mink, and a steadily increasing population of coyotes,” said Ameisen. “Beavers are also a part of the mix.”

Another event organizer, Steve Senn of Eagle, noted, “Some of the most successful trappers in the state live right here in District 12.” Senn, age 56, added that “While I started trapping as a kid, I got away from if for about twenty years when other obligations, like keeping a job and starting a family, intervened. But when my ten-year-old son expressed an interest, we both went to trapper training school and shortly after that he started having great luck on fox, raccoon and beaver.”

To a man (and woman), those in attendance at the 80th Anniversary Pennsylvania Trappers Association State Rendezvous would tell you that trapping is not quite the lucrative enterprise it was back in the days of Jeremiah Johnson, or even back in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Unfortunately, the bottom has quite literally dropped out of the fur market. A shift to low cost fashion coupled with the rising popularity of cheaper, alternative “faux fur” produced from synthetic fibers is often cited as a major cause of this collapse.

A bit of perspective: When I started trapping back in 1965, a prime muskrat pelt sold for about $5.00. A prime fox hide could fetch as much as $75. Fast forward to today where muskrats have fled the scene, and although foxes remain abundant, the price for a prime red fox pelt has plummeted to about $5. Factor in inflation, figuring how much $75 was really worth in terms of today’s dollars back in 1965, and you’ll get a better sense of how far the fur trade has fallen.

Given the economics involved, it’s obvious that today’s trappers aren’t in it for the money. So why do so many continue to brave the elements, enduring wind, rain, sleet, and snow to set and check their traplines every day during trapping seasons which generally run from October into February?

PTA Public Relations Director Barry Warner offered an explanation. “We trappers are an integral part of scientific wildlife management,” Warner asserted. “For example, today some misinformed people believe fishers are having a significant detrimental impact on our turkey population. But, in fact, notorious nest raiders like raccoons, skunks, and opossums are far more detrimental to turkeys and other wildlife than fishers. Trapping helps keep these populations in tune with the habitat and makes for a much healthier overall wildlife population.”

Warner, of Dallas, Pa., acknowledged that, unlike the generations that preceded them, trappers today rarely, if ever, realize any profit from their efforts. In fact, modern trappers operate at a loss, yet continue to soldier on. “The cost of pursuing our trapping activities far exceeds the price we earn selling our furs,” admitted Warner. “We do it because of our commitment to a way of life and a love of what we do.”

*** For more information on the Pennsylvania Trappers Association visit their website at PAtrappers.com .