Thread: The Oldies possum trapping again

Originally Posted by BeeMan

Fruits of the day. Attachment 93222 And cleaning up. Attachment 93223

Looks like the rain held off

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Originally Posted by BeeMan

Fruits of the day. Attachment 93222 And cleaning up. Attachment 93223

You two are perfectionists !!
Love your style and result

Good work,joey in the black bugger.Two days blank on the pines.Might have to relocate my traps here but the councils poison ain't helping with the numbers.

Bloody good thread, well written and great photos, love these kind of topics. Well done.

Agree, i enjoy these stories as well

I have recently got involved in pest control at Puketoki Reserve - a 100 acre block of bush that is surrounded by farmland - the team have around 70 possum traps and rat cafes - the traps are Warriors and Possum Masters - the Possum Masters are blue - but a few recently delivered are black - the supplier says possums are color blind so black is as good as any other color - so that stuffs up my theories about putting a blaze of flour and icing sugar up the tree - I understood that white was an attractant and they liked the look and smell of flour and icing sugar
Another local group at the Blade in the Kaimais are running large numbers of Warrior traps and they are all mounted on a white backing board as an attractant
The team at Puketoki have been doing it for 15 years and still get about 25 possums each year - likely most are invaders from the Kaimais and surrounding farmland - my interest has been to get them into rat trapping rather than just rat poison - the birdlife is pretty amazing with Black Robins and Kereru being the stars
Any thoughts on possums being color blind, whether white is an attractant and whether a Possum Master is better to be blue or black?

Encouraging comments. @Mooseman and I have 45 years professional pest control under our belts. We were and still are passionate about animal control, methods, techniques and hardware, we are still learning. Even today as depicted in this thread if we are not trapping possums we are hunting or fishing, for us enjoying life to the fullest.

We each have 50 years hunting experience throughout New Zealand and Mooseman a Canada experience.

We are not shy to help and encourage others into the wonders of the wild.
@Mooseman has written a book that I'm sure with some encouragement from this forum may help him publish it.

@Mooseman Can I preorder a copy of your book, reckon it will be a good read
@time out I'm not sure about possums being colorblind but there is heaps of evidence out there that they are attracted to white.

Pretty sure thats the reason for the white shroud on the sentinel. Or the trapinator being made from white plastic.

As for the Possum master, i have had one for 18mths. It has caught two possums but failed to kill either of them. In both cases the the rope noose caught them by the leg just above the foot.



I also noticed when i first started using it that the apple kept disappearing but the trap not going off. A camera showed that rats were eating it, so just feeding them really!

Thus i have only found this trap to be moderately successful. I understand some people use them on cats ?!

Good to hear you are getting involved with more community trapping your knowledge will be greatly valuable to them

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Originally Posted by BeeMan

Encouraging comments. @Mooseman and I have 45 years professional pest control under our belts. We were and still are passionate about animal control, methods, techniques and hardware, we are still learning. Even today as depicted in this thread if we are not trapping possums we are hunting or fishing, for us enjoying life to the fullest.

We each have 50 years hunting experience throughout New Zealand and Mooseman a Canada experience.

We are not shy to help and encourage others into the wonders of the wild.
@Mooseman has written a book that I'm sure with some encouragement from this forum may help him publish it.

Glad to hear you guys are enjoying the thread @BeeMan is always clicking away with his phone, but like he says it pays to take plenty so you have lasting memories. It certainly has been a great life living and doing what you love to do, long may it last.

Originally Posted by Mooseman

Glad to hear you guys are enjoying the thread @BeeMan is always clicking away with his phone, but like he says it pays to take plenty so you have lasting memories. It certainly has been a great life living and doing what you love to do, long may it last.

So.....when can we expect the book to be out ?

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Tried to get it published several years back after I wrote it but they didn't want another hunters life story at that time. I had Graham Marshall ( wrote several books and columns in Rod and Rifle) do the editing when I finished it and he liked the contents. Not to sure when it will happen but one day I will try and find a publisher and get onto it.

I got 10 off my main possum line this morning.

This one was a bit different and you don't often see ones with white patches in my area.

Its reasonably common throughout central north island @akaroa1. Part tail is more common but we see the odd white foot and white spots around the haunch area. I have shot a couple of white possums over the years, not albinos.

The world is a weird and wonderful place if you are out there doing things and have your eyes open.

Mostly I like possuming because I'm walking around in the bush late in the afternoon and early in the morning seeing things !!!

@Mrs Beeman and I finally had enough fine weather to set traps for 3 Nights. @Mooseman couldn't come with us so the first night we just set 50 to test the area - caught 34 so put another 10 traps out. We caught 48 the second night and certainly felt the pain in our fingers after not plucking for so long and then we still had to go home and gut etc. Third day we expected rain so started early. Apart from a small shower around 11am while we had lunch we managed to finish without getting wet and caught 36 plus 3 rats and a hedgehog. Pulled all the traps and was pleasantly surprised with 9kgs of fur so totally worth it. All 3 of us will be out again next week so will try and put out 100 traps in a new area.

can't get good staff these days !! having a nap before morning tea
one business making money, the other not

Reba giving it the evil eye
3 rats on the last day and one hedgehog