HH,

I asked Dad the same question. I can remember in the mid to late 70's following Dad around on the fox lines. He could catch reds and grays like it was nothing. One of the things I remember most was him always hollering at me to step in his boot prints and NOT make more tracks when we walked out on a set. Back then, I wasn't very old, and had a hard time keeping stride with him. I got to carry the broom, which served as the "fox whacker", and Dad always broomed out our tracks when backing off a set. I swear, he could just throw a trap out in the snow, and have a red the next day! From what he said there was no fur market value for foxes back then. However, there was a bounty on them. He said they made more on bounty money than what the fur was worth. He would take them into the courthouse. Its hard for people to imagine these days, but I believe crows, hawks, and owls were on a bounty also! Mid to late 70's, when the fur market picked up on foxes, he wore them out. Coyotes didn't come into the picture in our area until the late 70's and early 80's. By the 90's, the red foxes were rare, and the gray foxes were nonexistent here. The red foxes we catch now are incidental, and not intentional.