It's Time. Right?

[ozarkmountainman]

Time to start thinkin' about messing with traps, and trap stuff. Historically I've waited until September, or more likely October to do the work. Cool days, with maybe a few falling leaves just feels right.

However the last few years I've been dealing with all these crazy pain issues and motivation has been hard to come by. I've committed to a fairly hard season this year, pain and prices be damned, so I think getting an earlier start may help.

Thing is, I literally have a few hundred traps that are ready to go, maybe some tuning and such, but I could start laying a large line, both land and water, tomorrow if I wished (I don't). But I also have a few body grips with broken parts, mostly triggers. I have at least a couple that won't stay set. I have twisted up cable, some rusty cable (gasp), things like that.

With foot holds, I probably need to clean and dye/wax maybe a hundred or so. Since that leaves me with about three hundred of them that don't need anything done to them to speak of, I reckon that sounds stupid. Still, I like them all firing on every cylinder. And I have to remember to work on my catch stick 'cuz it's STUCK.

I own several hundred bottles of lure. Being a past dealer left me with a bunch, but I also have buckets and totes of old stuff, many without labels, and many with rusted on lids. I also bought out a man down the road two years ago for another big box full. Man. I said last year I was going to spend some time fixing those lids and maybe labeling what I know is what. Or maybe that was TWO years ago I said that...

Motivation is the issue. It's harder. And the pain stuff doesn't help a bit. So I'm going to take small steps each week, with a goal in mind where I need to be after that week is done. I'll have some fun with it like I used to. I'm trying for fifty otter on one creek system near here if the landowner issues work out. And of course there's everything else, and it all needs to be prepared for. Fun, fun, fun.

And think of that big 'ol fur check waiting at the end!

Dale

[bigbob]

Good luck, and have at it! Just be careful.

[krank]

I already cleaned and sorted a wheel barrow full of traps last June. I have a couple dozen predator traps ready to go. All my coni's are laying in a pile and they can just stay there. All my good lure is in the freezer or the fridge in the barn. Need to tear down my Yamaha Big Bear and get it mobile.

[bigbob]

Yeah, woulda, shoulda, coulda! Been there, done that.

[segsarge]

Every year I tell myself I'm gonna get an early start, and every year I put it off until the last minute. Some of the stuff is already done, like beaver traps and a few predator traps. But there's a ton of 1 1/2 coils that need done and I need to get another sifter. My old faithful one has seen it's last season I'm afraid. Body grips need checking for new triggers and have to make some new cable stakes.
I started the nicotine patches to stop smoking and the damn things give me the shakes. Hopefully I don't end up with a #2 Montgomery on my hand. I don't care for that kind of jewelry.
Trying to get ready for bow season and clean up the camper. Plus I gotta cut some firewood for deer camp. Also need to go set tree stands next week. So things are about par for the course, I'm already behind.

[bigjohn]

Do all my stuff end of the season before putting in totes. When I get a ADC job I don't want to be scrambling to have equipment ready.

[krank]

I have posted over the years that I always put my stuff away at end of season and I do. I have stuff I always go for first and it is ready to go. The rest is a mess.
That business of the patch. I used it in 1995 to quit smoking Camel filters. Worked great but now how do I quit the patch? Quitting the patch was tougher than the cigs.

[bigbob]

Don't the patches come in a diminishing nicotine rate, like the E-cig's? Maybe try the E-cig's. I know several guy's that have quit altogether on it. E-cig thing too.

[krank]

E-cig would be worse for me. The 7mg patch still keeps you charged with nic. Sooner or later it comes to will power. I tried Chantex too and it was horrible. Nightmares and depression.

[bigbob]

The E-cig program will slowly reduce the nicotine till it's down to zero, then your will power will let you stop sucking on the unit.

[bigjohn]

Never needed any help quitting,just make up your mind. Almost everyone I know that quit and stayed quit did it that way.
The patches are just a crutch IMO.

[krank]

The reason I never completely quit is because I didnt want to. Quitting store bought cigs took the patch for a couple weeks and that was that. A while later, I took up the pipe. Been using my briar pacifier ever since.
My old buddy Ralph told me he quit when he was 30. He was driving down the highway and threw everything out the window. I asked him how long it was before he lost the desire to smoke. He says he never lost the desire and fifty years later he still has the desire. He told me that when he sees me puffing on my pipe at the campfire that he feels like knocking me down and taking my pipe away and smoking it.

[ozarkmountainman]

I think you need to go back to smoking the OTHER stuff in your pipe...

Dale

[bigbob]

When I was a kid about 10/12 or so, I was riding my bike around and saw a kid with a big serving spoon, the kind with the hole in it, sticking up in his back pocket. I asked what what is was for, he said He went to the bowling ally in town to sift out the cig butts from the sand ash tray so he could smoke them! Never had any desire to smoke, and especially since my old man was a Camel's chain smoker.

[ozarkmountainman]

I tried grape vine. Once. Probably cured me forever!

Dale

[krank]

Mom says they used to smoke catalpa pods. Better known as lady fingers.I would imagine that was pretty harsh.
I have taken a corn husk and cut out a rolling paper and rolled up some corn silk with a sprinkle of tobacco. Not bad.
I am surprised I smoke at all because, when I was a kid, everybody smoked and I hated it. Dad would light up a cig in the car and all us kids were gagging on it. People came to the house and the first thing they did was whip out a ciggie and start smoking. We had an ashtray the size of a hubcap on the coffee table in the living room. All them old men sat on the bench outside the grocery store waiting for their wifes to get done shopping. They smoked and chewed and always tried to get me to. My doctor used to smoke in the examining room.
Years go by and nobody smokes. I got tired of anti's telling me what to do. Made me want to smoke more.

[bigbob]

We called them "Lady's cigars". They get Catalpa worms on them in the spring that makes a killer bait for Gillies.