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By James Lockhart
Several years ago back when I was a government trapper I had a new guy with me that I was supposed to be training. He was kind of a short, fat guy with a beer belly and fat, round face. He kind of reminded me of Chris Farley, the comedian. He was a state representative’s nephew and he just couldn’t ever quite be on time. Needless to say, he wasn’t much of a worker unless it was something he thought was cool.
He showed up late and that really aggravated me because the babysitter we used would charge the dickens out of me and my wife if we weren’t there to pick up our daughter by 5. Him being late I figured was going to cost me $20.
Anyway, we got headed off running conibears and snares for beavers. I had a trapline that was over a hundred mile loop of driving. I had to work fairly fast to make it through before 5pm and get my daughter.
The worst place I had involved going through about 6 gates and some really, really washed out pasture roads.
The beavers were damming up a creek that caused a road to flood on this big ranch. The ranch hands couldn’t get through there to check their cows and put out hay, so I was called in to catch the beavers and break the dams to let the water off the road.
I had a box of brand new 330 conibears in the back of my truck. This new guy proceeded to get one out and he was using the setting tool to mash the springs down. He wouldn’t listen and just like that the setting tool slipped and mashed his fingers. I thought he was going to start bawling. I’ve seen a hand slip off the setting tool and it come back and bloody a guys nose. (So keep that in mind if you use one!!)
He finally gets the trap set and he waded out into about knee deep water to set the trap. He only had on hip waders, which I hated in cold weather, because I somehow always ended up wet when I wore them. He took the safety dogs off the springs and was fiddling around with the trap. Those new traps are greased from the factory and will go off if a mouse farts on them. Just like that, whack the conibear went off in his hands. When the jaws slammed shut they caught his entire beer belly and tore his shirt off from the shirt pockets down, exposing his belly. It immediately turned a deep reddish purple color.
His eyes watered up again and, once I seen that he didn’t have any broken arms or fingers I couldn’t help but laugh at him. I had told and told him to be careful with that trap.
On the way back out of the ranch he would get out of the truck and open the gates. It was sure funny to see his bruised beer belly every time he got out to open a gate. He didn’t bring a coat to wear that day and the wind was blowing pretty good.
I’ll never forget getting home about 4:30 that day and having just enough time to go get the baby from the sitter. I giggled all the way home.
James Lockhart lives near the Kiamichi mountains in southeast Oklahoma. He writes cowboy stories and fools with cows and horses.
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