Cody Bergman, 14, Phoenix, Ariz.
Young trapper caught a ’coon while on family hunting trip in Texas
My name is Cody Bergman, and I want to tell you about the first time I went trapping at age 12.
On our spring break, my dad, my two brothers and I went on a hunting trip to Texas to go shoot some feral hogs and some raccoons on our friend’s ranch. We got to his house and spent the night there.
The next morning, we ate breakfast, packed the horse trailer and on the road we went. We stopped to eat lunch about halfway there. It was a delicious grilled sausage and coleslaw. After lunch, we finished the drive to the hunting lease and set up camp.
It was almost getting dusk, so Mike, my friend and I went to a different blind than my two brothers and my dad. At our hunting blind, we saw a buck with no antlers and a few does. We sat in the blind watching the deer and the ducks. Once the sky was near dark, we headed back to camp. On the way back, we saw a porcupine and some raccoons. We ate dinner at camp and went to bed in the tents.
The next day, we got up around 4 a.m. and went to our blind. We saw the ducks fly in and heard hogs rooting. Once it was a decent time to come out, we went to the ranch to round up the bull, so it could get a vet check. Since it was fine, we took it to an auction. We went to the store to buy some deer feed to put in the feeder on a different hunting lease.
Before it hit dusk, Mike and I left a little early. He set out two traps for coyotes and I set the only trap for a raccoon. We didn’t see anything come into the blind, except for the ducks that were on the pond. On our way back, we tried to stay on the other side of the trail, away from the traps. When we got back to camp, we ate dinner and went to bed.
The next day was our last day on the lease, so we got up and went to the blind that we were in for the past few days. As we hiked to go to the blind, we checked the traps and found the first two empty.
As we got closer to the trap that I had set up, Mike saw a set of eyes, but I didn’t see anything. When we got up closer to the trap and Mike put the light on it, I saw the eyes too. I was excited to see that there was a raccoon in my trap. I actually caught a raccoon my first time trapping! I shot a second raccoon with my rifle from my hunting blind.
