Post by tofan on Feb 13, 2022 12:08:13 GMT -5
For anybody who may not be registered and is reading this forum from the LTA page, this is for you.
Tanya Sturman, Jennifer-Hogue Manual, and various LTA members were present volunteering their time to teach beginners a nice introduction to trapping, different trap types, sportsmanship and a few things of what to do vice not to do.
Tanya Sturman, Jennifer-Hogue Manual, and various LTA members were present volunteering their time to teach beginners a nice introduction to trapping, different trap types, sportsmanship and a few things of what to do vice not to do.
This course was free, but there was/is a waiting list, so I highly recommend you sign up and stick to that class. My thoughts on the class going in having already been through trappers education in NY were not great I want to admit. However the other participants were more than friendly, and people were more than willing to engage on various topics including eating the things they trapped. This education class is for people who have been trapping, trying to trap, want to trap, interested to trap and for a whole host of other categories I'm sure a person could think of. I don't care if you are white, black, brown, yellow, girl, boy, young, old, there were a high VARIETY of people there, who come from all different walks of life, but join together in this wonderful world of trapping. The course was from about 9:00-3:00 depending on how long you stayed for the skinning portion of the course. There were multiple, numerous well qualified instructors there that were more than happy to answer 100 million questions, including ones that will never likely come up in the field. Lunch was provided, along with snacks, coffee, water and other various condiments that will keep you full during the course. There is small powerpoint portion that no matter what you are thinking(I'm not gonna sit in front of no computer listening to people talk, "I am stupid" wrong with them) it is critical to the course and is filled with some purposeful jokes and other not purposeful humor which made it go by really fast. This is mainly to get you accustomed to the different trap types, rules and regulations along with fur-bearers in the state of Louisiana, along with things to think about when you go to lay your first trap.
The outside and hands on portion consisted of beavers with footholds and conibears, coyotes with footholds and dirthole sets, raccoons with dog proof and blind sets. If I didn't say this before, the instructors were extremely professional, polite, knowledgeable and you could tell that they have a love for trapping that they want to share with others. This took up the majority of the time, and each instructor along with other participants were very helpful in engaging with different questions, answers, recommendations and other misc things that came up. There was a very nice presentation about the association, the differing reasons why joining is recommended and some of the different benefits of other random things. Lastly there was an excellent demonstration of skinning some animals, what to do, what not to do, and tips on how to best prepare the animal if you wanted to eat the meat, or sell the fur.
In conclusion I want to say that I did not capture every single detail of the course, and I purposefully omitted several key factors so that I do not take away from the usefulness of the course. It is not a requirement by law, but as a trapper you should attend no matter how much experience you might have, I can almost guarantee you will learn if not one thing, multiple things. The things that they did not focus on heavily was tanning hides and lure formulation, although to be fair they would be hard pressed to fit into the schedule. I highly recommend for everybody, it is great, wonderful and was surprisingly pleasant.
Matt
The outside and hands on portion consisted of beavers with footholds and conibears, coyotes with footholds and dirthole sets, raccoons with dog proof and blind sets. If I didn't say this before, the instructors were extremely professional, polite, knowledgeable and you could tell that they have a love for trapping that they want to share with others. This took up the majority of the time, and each instructor along with other participants were very helpful in engaging with different questions, answers, recommendations and other misc things that came up. There was a very nice presentation about the association, the differing reasons why joining is recommended and some of the different benefits of other random things. Lastly there was an excellent demonstration of skinning some animals, what to do, what not to do, and tips on how to best prepare the animal if you wanted to eat the meat, or sell the fur.
In conclusion I want to say that I did not capture every single detail of the course, and I purposefully omitted several key factors so that I do not take away from the usefulness of the course. It is not a requirement by law, but as a trapper you should attend no matter how much experience you might have, I can almost guarantee you will learn if not one thing, multiple things. The things that they did not focus on heavily was tanning hides and lure formulation, although to be fair they would be hard pressed to fit into the schedule. I highly recommend for everybody, it is great, wonderful and was surprisingly pleasant.
Matt
