An Outdoorsman‛s Journal
Beaver Trapping with Musky Joe
Hello friends: I have been running around with and writing about Joe Flater, also known as “Musky Joe,” for about 20 years now. Joe is the owner of Flater’s Resort, which is a family-owned resort and tavern that has been around for about 80 years and is located where the Chippewa and Flambeau rivers meet.
Joe is an all-around go-for-it outdoorsman who guides on the Flambeau and Chippewa rivers for musky and does it by rowing down these rivers while his clients cast. In reality, what Joe Flater is is an all-around old-school, blue-collar outdoorsman. His outdoor activities all have to do with the season of the year and this week I spent a couple of days setting and checking beaver traps with Joe on some remote Rusk County public land. Monday, Jan. 18 High 26, low 17 The fur market has been decimated the last five years by low or nonexistent fur prices. My guess is that at least 50 percent of the people who were trapping five years ago are not laying steel anymore. Joe has come up with a simple solution that is not going to get him rich but at least his pelts are being sold and a small profit is being made. In his tavern he is selling hats and gloves from muskrat, beaver and other animals and this process requires a tanner and a hat maker.
Today there would be five of us on a beautiful day in the northwoods. Angie Mincoff is Joe’s girlfriend and these two are a very active team in the outdoor world. Also, Scott and Tina Litkowski, who are both in the airline industry and great friends of Joe’s, and they have a permanent campsite at Flater’s Resort.
Today we would travel into three remote and small bodies of water where beaver are spending the winter under the ice and in their lodges.
All three ponds had water that was at least four feet deep around the houses and this can make it very tough predicting where to put the 330 body-grip trap.
In my opinion, the beaver is one of the most interesting animals in North America. They purposely build dams with mud, sticks, and logs to hold back water so they have more habitat. They build their homes with the same and spend their non-swimming, non-logging, non-dam-building hours in a cavern in their lodge with visitors such as otter and muskrat.
Most trappers use the body-grip trap, which has springs that you open, the beaver swims through, trips a trigger and is killed somewhat like a rat trap. On that note I have never heard of a person setting the 330 by hand. Everyone who I know including myself uses a tool that is still a challenge but doable. Joe uses his hands, which requires so much strength it is almost impossible to comprehend.
The five of us spent a great day chopping holes looking for runs where the beaver swim and laughing a lot. When day became night, we had 12 sets made and then had a heck of a good time at Flater’s tavern. Tuesday, Jan. 19 High 16, low 10 It’s a good thing it has cooled off as a warm winter can make for some touchy situations on the ice. Crazy as it seems, the snowmobile trails are still closed in Rusk County on this date due to a lack of snow. Where beaver swim and feed under the ice, the ice can be very thin and that was a constant situation over this 2-day period as near the lodges the ice was only about a half-inch thick and if you were not thinking you would be very cold.
On our first set, Musky Joe pulled up a beautiful 35-pound beaver that will make a very warm hat for someone, and then we had another at our third set. Again, I cannot stress how kind of crazy this is because of deep water and thin ice and very lethal traps. Six years ago, I was setting a 330 on a 1-mile hike from my truck and I had the misfortune of the trap going off on my left hand. That incident and a wood splitter accident the year before has made this lefty rather uncoordinated in that area.
We ended our adventure with three beaver and, as always, a ton of laughs. Everyone in Flaterville knows that the tavern is not a tavern, it’s a home for happy people and everyone who knows Musky Joe is well aware that they broke the mold after his parents saw what they gave birth to.
Stay active, it works. Sunset
