Fur Trapping - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

Fur Trapping

95 year old, Elmer Rutschilling, from Yorkshire, passed away recently and reading his obituary brought back some wonderful memories as a kid when I, along with my uncle Bob, would visit Elmer’s wild game fur pelt business each spring to sell the fur from the muskrats and raccoons we trapped and hunted over the winter. Uncle Bob was a much better wheeler-dealer than me (and a heck of a lot better hunter), so it was fun to watch Elmer and Bob going at it to bargain a better price, always with a little humor and a ton of sarcasm, especially since they knew I was watching their shenanigans!

Elmer's fur buying business was located on the same site as a sawmill he also ran, which as a budding engineer, always intrigued me to no end. The mechanisms feeding and sawing logs into boards were really interesting. Enjoy this video of an Ohio antique sawmill still operating in Athens County. Check the 1:30 & 11:40 minute marks for the sawmill as well as the other operating antique farm machinery shown in the video.

Dad always bought sawdust from Elmer to place around Mom’s strawberry patch for weed control each summer, which meant another fun visit to the sawmill, but spreading the itchy sawdust around the plants and later picking the strawberries, not so much! Eating them on the other hand was special and worth the effort! Strawberry shortcake was my favorite!

Ft. Loramie had a sawmill pictured above but it closed in the 1950’s, so the Rutschilling sawmill was the closest around. Ironically, the Loramie sawmill likely went into bankruptcy, as the land where the sawmill was located became a few years later the new site of the Loramie Bank; probably land acquired during the bankruptcy proceedings that the bank put to good use.

Trapping wild game was a challenge, because it meant checking all the traps early each winter morning before milking the cows and going to school. Any raccoon or muskrat that was trapped had to be skinned and the fur placed inside-out over a board to stretch and dry out the pelt. The boards were then hung in Bob's former smoke house to help preserve them during the winter until sold later in the spring. Although I never caught one, uncle Bob trapped several mink over the years, which were the most valuable skins. You could really tell a difference between the various pelts, with the muskrat fur courser and far less attractive color that the raccoon and especially mink furs.

The raccoons were typically hunted at night using coon dogs to catch the scent of a raccoon, chase it down and scare it up a tree. In order to see the treed raccoons, long flashlights with multiple batteries were used to spot and then shoot them. Occasionally a raccoon would get stuck in the tree, which meant someone had to climb it to retrieve the dead animal, usually me as the youngest and most agile. I can recall uncle Bob hoisting me up to the first branch then shining the light along the tree as I climbed up to the spot where the dead animal was lodged.

Rest in peace, Old Elmer, and thanks for the wonderful memories.

PS: What a game Saturday! It was like the Buckeyes were in Wolverine uniforms. because everything sure looked in reverse. Ditto for the Russia - Loramie Boys basketball game the night before. Congrats Wolverines and Raiders. The rivalries are alive!

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