Tree Of Woe

It’s pretty much an unwritten rule in trapping, if not so much an absolute official rule laid down for generations. Set on sign. Always a rule that I normally follow throughout the course of a season, but sometimes for some strange reason I float outside of that sacred method of thinking.

Most hardcore, traditional trappers would surely turn up their nose at setting spots where they’ve never seen or observed sign of their target animal. I was forced to do so during the 2016-17 season.

I had vacation the opening week of trapping season. I decided to take full advantage of the time and decided I was going to lay out a huge line. Well, huge by my standards anyways. I had sprawled out 75 dog proof coon traps, a half dozen cages and about sixteen coil spring canine sets.

Four days into the season things weren’t going according to plan. The area I was trapping has always been a highly productive area for me in the past and was especially known for its high raccoon population.

Up until this point I had caught just  four possums, a pair of skunks and one medium sized raccoon. Trail cam videos in the area proved to me that there was a solid amount of raccoon in this specific tract of ground, but they were surely giving me the slip. I later found there was a couple others trapping in the area, which could have contributed to my slump, but they were having the same issues I was having. Warm weather also may have contributed.

Regardless of the reason, I knew it was time to move on to another location. It was time to pull the line.

I decided to scout out and set a small farm that was close to a little village about three miles from home. This property I did well in the past calling coyotes and foxes at night, so I knew it held fur. Despite my calling success here, I never saw a raccoon there. I’ve never even seen tracks or scat for that matter.

When I arrived at the property I began scouring over the landscape. I noticed a few small game trails that didn’t appear to have much raccoon activity, but I set the DPs along several trails and crossing points. After setting about a half dozen traps in the upper field, I noticed the lower field began to get a little swampy in places.

And then I saw it.

At the middle of the tree line in the lower portion of the field was a small 50-yard wide clearing with a lone tree right in the middle of the clearing. The “Tree of Woe” as I’d soon began to call this tree.

Without even second guessing myself, I cabled a DP to that tree. I began to feel pretty optimistic about this tree and this spot. Trails came into the small clearing in all directions, so I decided to throw down a couple coil spring dirt hole sets on the edges of the opening just in case a gray fox or two would be traveling through.

I remember the first night that the anticipation of the morning check was driving me absolutely crazy. After struggling on raccoons for the first week of the season I was ready to break this curse. Little did I know that the “Tree of Woe” would shatter this early season curse into oblivion.

I pulled up to the property just as the sun began to creep above the frosty valley and right away I noticed something as soon as I got out of my truck. My first dirt hole set was disturbed. Upon investigating closer, I saw a clear signature of the raccoon.

My trap was flipped, but never fired and the dirt hole was dug out. I quickly remade the set and walked to the “Tree of Woe” and sure enough there was a coon. A huge boar coon became the first of many victims of this single tree. After dispatching the coon, I weighed it in at 22 pounds. Not a bad size raccoon for these parts.

Two days had past, and I caught a couple more raccoon and some possums at some of my other DPs on the property, but the tree remained empty until that following Friday.

That Friday when I got out of the truck I could clearly hear the sound of a chain rattling from the direction of the “Tree of Woe”. When I got to the set there was another twenty-plus pound bobtail boar coon in the DP. Saturday and Sunday the tree had more fur action.

A couple good sized females around 15 pounds each fell victim to the tree that weekend as well. The next week more of the same at that very tree. In total I ended up getting ten raccoons off that single DP set at the “Tree of Woe” and 14 coons off of that property total.

The best part about all of this is that as I sit here in May writing this article, my trail cams are picking up more and more raccoons on this property. Sows with plenty of babies have been spotted there as well, so I know where I’ll be setting come opening day!

This just goes to show you that once in a while that thinking outside the box and taking a gamble can pay off. Even if the place is known to you and you’re not really sure about what kind of fur an area holds, always take a gamble.