LOWER ALLOWAYS CREEK, N.J. - He surveys the steel traps set meticulously the day before, trudging through knee-deep mud and 12-foot-high grass on the marsh. Evidence in the land and the water suggests he should have been successful.
But on this day, at this moment, the muskrats have outsmarted Steve Fisher. And that matters. Because Fisher, 39, doesn't work 12-hour days trapping and skinning simply for fun: During the winter, this is how he provides for his wife and three sons.
"Two rats out of a dozen and a half [traps] ain't good," he says, pulling traps from the narrowest parts of small streams and in holes where they burrow. He suspects a mink, a predator, might have scared the muskrats away. "Ain't good at all."
Just minutes later, though, Fisher turns up eight muskrats in the 18 traps a few hundred feet away.
"That's how it should be," he says with a grin.
Even though Fisher has been trapping since he was 7, the job is still a world of constant uncertainty, an exercise in humility.In this town of 1,770, hundreds of people used to trap to pay the bills. Now, only a handful of people do - the younger generations aren't up for the hard work, trappers say - making Fisher something of an endangered species.(Andrew Seidman)
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/new_jersey/20130310_A_dying_N_J__tradition_.html
But on this day, at this moment, the muskrats have outsmarted Steve Fisher. And that matters. Because Fisher, 39, doesn't work 12-hour days trapping and skinning simply for fun: During the winter, this is how he provides for his wife and three sons.
"Two rats out of a dozen and a half [traps] ain't good," he says, pulling traps from the narrowest parts of small streams and in holes where they burrow. He suspects a mink, a predator, might have scared the muskrats away. "Ain't good at all."
Just minutes later, though, Fisher turns up eight muskrats in the 18 traps a few hundred feet away.
"That's how it should be," he says with a grin.
Even though Fisher has been trapping since he was 7, the job is still a world of constant uncertainty, an exercise in humility.In this town of 1,770, hundreds of people used to trap to pay the bills. Now, only a handful of people do - the younger generations aren't up for the hard work, trappers say - making Fisher something of an endangered species.(Andrew Seidman)
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/new_jersey/20130310_A_dying_N_J__tradition_.html
