West Virginia Wildlife from Eyewitness News

Woman Trapper

Meet the Jeremiah Johnson of the Mountain State

February 27, 2008
Reporter: Patrick McMurtry
Videographer: Brad Rice

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"Usually if it's a good location, it's a good location for a while. So a good location's worth its weight in gold? Yeah, a good location's worth its weight in gold."

There's money in them thar hills....Lots of it. Janet hodges has made a living for the better part of thirty years trapping the rivers and streams of west virginia.

It looks hard...And it is.

Janet Hodges/Trapper says:
"You're looking for tracks, see where they are feeding. A lot of times muskrats like to use the bathroom on rocks and logs and stuff, so we're looking for droppings or any kind of sign."

Like most trappers, janet got her start by literally following the footsteps of someone in her family. And like most, those footsteps started every morning well before the sun came up.

Janet Hodges/Trapper says:
"I used to follow my brother on his trapline when I was 12 and he had a muskrat line and we would run it before school with a flashlight. I just thought it was the greatest thing in the world and I just never stopped. He moved up to fox and bobcat, but I just loved the water and I stayed with the water."

Janet's trap line is empty today, but she still has to get in the cold water, check it and make sure it's ready for tonight when the critters come out again. But that doesn't mean there's no work to do. Janet goes inside hawk mountain trading and gets to the grind. Right now she's working on a beaver pelt.

Janet Hodges/Trapper says:
"Usually the first thing we do is brush it out a little bit, they can get pretty nasty.

This is all the meat and the fat that has to come off.

All we're doing is taking the meat off.

That looks pretty easy, so i give it a try.

The object is not to put a hole in the beaver.

Uh, thanks janet, no pressure.

"Press down and go to the side-there, you're moving some.

You're hired! Tastes pretty good!"

That's a little taste into the life of a trapper, a life that's full of hard work and a love of the wild. For west virginia wildlife, i'm patrick mcmurtry, eyewitness news.

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W. Va. DNR

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