Ann’s parents were up to attend a school program and watch the kids on a day off school, and we happened to mention that the close of rabbit season was one week away, and we were three rabbits shy.
Right after I went to work, Ann’s Dad sprang into action, converting a few old scrap shelves that had been cluttering my garage for a year into rabbit traps, per instructions on the MDC website. I was giving word of this construction, which was to be my birthday gift, halfway through the day. My first question was, “When is trapping season?”
A quick consultation of the MDC website showed me that rabbit trapping season ended January 31, so no dice on the traps. But then I read on. Elsewhere it said that rabbits and squirrels could be trapped anytime during their hunting season, the traps were to be considered a hunting method.
So did I need to purchase a trapping permit? Apparently not, because I wasn’t trapping, I was just hunting with traps.
Armed with this knowledge, and some apples for bait, we immediately put the traps into action. Gerard had built them well, they seemed to trigger perfectly. I checked with the city of Columbia to see if I could place the traps in a city park (the one in my neighborhood), but they said no. So we went to the next closest public ground that does allow trapping and hunting, the conservation area around Ann’s office off of old 63.
Behind the buildings there is a field of tall grass, surrounded by briars and woods. It looked like a good place to find a rabbit. We placed the three traps and hoped for the best.
The next day we checked the traps, but they were unsprung and still baited. Henry and Oliver adjusted the placement a little, and we tried again. But again, the next day they were still unsprung and fully baited. So we gathered them up and prepared to head to my family’s farm, to make one last hunting/trapping stand against our first real Woods-To-Food deadline.
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