I was just passing on some info to the O/P and possibly others who might be getting stored up for a winter of trapping.
Rob
Trapping Advice
- Thread starter slinkylegs
- Start date
Rob
I think it’s federal. The government made international agreements on the humane trap standards, so why wouldn’t it be. There was a lot of dirty dealings that went into that agreement that you couldn’t export to Europe unless you signed that agreement but mink and fox were conveniatly left out so they weren’t affected much at all. Its like the european fur industry and the animal rights people got together and had a really ugly baby. The USA never did sign it, and nobody held it against them, sanctionwise. What else? You know how the “testing” is done? You send your trap in, pay the fee and they kill a bunch of housecats.
No the license is free or quite cheap, but that is for a line/concession. I would say that $80k is the low end of things I heard some are asking $150k!!
At the price of fur these days you will never come even unless it is a concession you inherited from someone. Friends I know always tell me that the furs they sell break them even with there cost of fuels and maintenance like snowmobiles and cabins and traps.
I think it is more a life style/access to the land and a cabin cause up here there is no cabins in the bush you can really buy, most of them are attached to a concession.
That would be cheap trapline. The real value is in the cabin leases or the existing cabins. Technically you can’t even sell a trapline, only your improvements, or existing improvements that you bought or perhaps inherited. Whats a cabin lease/cabin in wilderness or near wilderness worth to someone who wants it and can’t have it any other way? Someone who would rather have his exclusive snowmobiling retreat, hunting base or whatever? The sad part is is most of them aren’t even trapped.
Up here if you don’t trap it you loose it. It need to be trapped 3 out of 5 years if I remember right. And you never own the land. Some traplines have no real access to hunting cause they are in lottery only zones. So if you want a place to do it all you have to go far and that means fly in fly out… so that ain’t really any good money wise lol! Oh and plus you are not exclusive, anyone can hunt, snowmobile/quad etc one any traplines up here.
Here you’re supposed to trap them too; but nobody checks. It’s not unheard of to buy fur just to sell them to have something on the books just in case. A cabin in the bush where you could otherwise not have one, and without a change in the law will reasonably never be another is a real bargain from a recreational point of view. Compared to a cabin at the lake say, its practically free.
In the Fur conservation block the line holders have a solid lock on the wolves. A hunter can’t touch them, That should change.
