Longtime deer and turkey hunting buddies Tony Williams, 57, a retired engineer, and Mark Wenke, 72, a retired forester, decided a few years ago to get back to their trapping roots. Both Cuba, N.Y., natives worked traplines in their teens and 20s to pick up a few extra bucks. Nowadays, they’re more focused on post-deer season winter recreation and predator control to help the area’s turkey population, which has been under the gun in recent years.
The pair run an 80-mile trapline in western New York, and according to state regulations, they must check their 50-plus traps daily. Unlike in the romanticized days of trapping’s past, when outdoorsmen would strap on their snowshoes and trudge out into the woods, modern-day trapping is more of a pickup truck-based venture involving burning a…
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Game & Fish East (Digital) - 1 Issue, December/January 2024-25