President — Tom Peterson, phone: 918-241-2677
Vice President — Shannon Sheffert, 1301 Old Bumpy Rd., Stillwater, OK 74074; cell phone: 405-742-7884; e-mail: ssheffert@odot.org
Secretary — John Weygandt, 4720 S. 26th W. Ave., Tulsa, OK 74107; phone: 918-645-5667;
e-mail: j.weygandt@maccor.com
Treasurer — Vivian Scott, P.O. Box 179, Alderson, OK 74522; phone: 918-426-6918;
e-mail: littlerockmeme@msn.com
FTA Director — Terry Thornton, Rt. 2 Box 71, Hartshorne, OK 74547; phone: 918-297-2073
NTA Director — Leo Farmer, phone: 918-616-7662
Membership Options:
• 1-year membership including subscription to Trapper & Predator Caller — $20
• Family membership with subscription to Trapper & Predator Caller — $25
• Lifetime (Over 70) with subscription to Trapper & Predator Caller — $150
• Lifetime with subscription to Trapper & Predator Caller — $300
• Youth membership — $10
Complete membership application on first page of association section and send dues to:
OFBA, Treasurer
Vivian Scott
P.O. Box 179, Alderson, OK 74522
918-426-6918; littlerockmeme@msn.com
http://oktrapper.com
VICE PRESIDENT’S REPORT
By the time you read this, trapping season will be in full swing. We will be hosting the Youth Trappers Camp at Cookson Dec. 27 through Dec. 31 again. Please try to come over and help for a day or two, helping the kids set traps, skin critters or just come have fun. Please contact John Weygandt for directions.
I started the season out with an odd combination. I caught a muskrat in a beaver set (not too unusual), but then I caught a beaver in a muskrat set! These two sets were about 6 feet apart so this is kind of a “double.” The beaver was caught in a #11 on a slide wire and he was only about twice as big as the muskrat. Anyway, my fur trapping season is off to a start. I am 11 beavers behind on my skinning.
Let’s see, it takes me about 45 minutes or an hour per beaver to skin, flesh and stretch each so I have a full day’s work ahead of me and the reward according to the fur market report should be about $15-$25. Let’s not figure that out per hour. Hopefully I can find a market for the meat, the skulls and castor. Maybe I will get up to $35 for that day’s work. Also, now that trapping season is open, I can pick up some roadkill ’possums on the way home and really start to make some money!
On a different note, I have had the pleasure of working with a young lady on some skunk research. Kelly Smith is an undergraduate student at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond. She is doing genetic research on skunks across the country as it relates to different populations and rabies.
She has come up to my place a couple times to learn to skin skunks and collect samples from the skunks that I catch around Payne County. Her research requires that she get as many specimens of skunks from across Oklahoma and the United States as possible. She has asked for my help to get the word out to you trappers to save her some striped skunk specimens that she can use in her studies.
If possible, please save the skull from any and all of your skunks, try to put down a little info on where the skunk was caught (at least the county of capture) and any other information that might be important. If you shoot the skunks, a hole through the skull is OK as long as the skull is not destroyed.
If you are not skinning the skunks, please just cut the head off and save it in a plastic bag and place in freezer. The genetic research requires at least a dime-sized sample of tissue so if you cannot save the skulls, a paw cut off above the ankle will also work, but she is trying to build a collection of skulls for later use in research.
Please sack up the skulls or other samples with the location description and contact her for more details. Kelly’s phone number is 405-664-3544 and her e-mail address is kellysmith_skunks@hotmail.com. She will make arrangements for pickup later this winter or you can bring them to the fur sales. All regions of the state and country are needed for her research. This request applies to all of you trappers across the country who read this newsletter. Please help her.
Remember our fur Sales this winter. Hopefully by the time the sales are held, the recession will be over, fur coats will be selling well from the stores and the fur market will be booming again. Right… Anyway, we are still going to hold the fur sales, Feb. 6, 2010, at Okemah and at El Reno on Feb. 27. Watch the Web site for more details. Be sure to work up the furs like we have seen in demos at our meetings and you will receive the most possible for your furs.
One last thing to remember is the Trap Tag board that Tom Peterson is making for our members. If you have not already done so, and many of you have, please send to Tom or me three of your trap tags for this fundraising project and you might just win one of these memory boards. If you will remember, you can bring the trap tags to the fur sales where Tom will have the partial completed board on display.
Your help is needed to make this project worthwhile. Also, try to contact some of our older trappers who might have some old traps in the barn and just cut off a couple tags for this project.
Thanks and good luck this season. Take a kid along and let them experience the fun we are having.
— Shannon Sheffert