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Well, I have got a few of `em too, and otters have been a part of the “action” in several of them.    </b></div> <bR> <div> <B>Story #1 starts when my brother Steve and me were just beginning to trap.  I was 17, and Steve was 15.  We didn't know nothing about trapping, except what we had read in Fur-Fish-Game magazine. We had managed to catch a few `possums, a coon or two and maybe even a m'rat, but we sure weren't “knocking `em dead”. </b></div> <bR> <div> <B>One day I did manage to catch a fine boar mink in a blind set on an old sycamore log.  (I could still show ya'll that log on Hurricane Creek in Saline Co. Arkansas.)  I thought I was hot stuff!  A week later, I caught another boar mink on another log set in a gravel pit pond. Little brother was right behind me wading up the slough as I pulled up the drowned mink. I proceeded to tell him all about the way to catch a mink.  I re-set the trap, and we were off to check the rest of our line.  </b></div> <bR> <div> <B>Next set was Steve's trap, a #11 longspring set in a trickle of water, flowing from one pond to another. Coon tracks were everywhere up and down the branch. We came slogging along the edge of the pond to the mouth of the branch, and it was real brushy here with button willows, cattails and such. When we got to the set, there sat one very mad otter, first otter we had ever seen. He was caught across the pad of his left front foot in the #11 that was tied off to a willow root.  So I tell little brother, “wade in there with this stick and club him!”  And he says, “Your crazy, you do it!”  </b></div> <bR> <div> <B>So, we decide to both tackle him. Now, this otter is rolling around in the water, snapping his teeth, and just raising all kinds of hell.  Steve whacks him with the club, and I try to stomp on him to drown him.  Well, the otter thinks different, and we fuss and fight around `til the otter rips up my hip boots and gets us all soaking wet.  We finally get the otter dispatched and carried to the truck.  </b></div> <bR> <div> <B>This was a whole lot more exciting than catching `possums! I bet Steve showed that otter to half the folks in town before we skinned him. Little did I realize how much of an impact this incident would have on me and what direction it would lead me down life's path. </b></div> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B><IMG SRC="06a49600.gif" border=0 width="73" height="96" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">                    <IMG SRC="06b60600.gif" border=0 width="96" height="96" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0">            </b><B><IMG SRC="06d60600.gif" border=0 width="96" height="96" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></b><B>    </b><B>     </b></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B><IMG SRC="08fc8fc0.jpg" border=0 width="200" height="252" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></b></div> <div> <B>"Life With Mike: The Turd Hunter"</b></div> <div> <B>by Virgie Fischer</b></div> <bR> <div> <B>It was just another day in a “Life with Mike”.  It's funny the things you do for love.  I received a phone call on February 28</b><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#663300" FACE="Arial" ><B>th</b></FONT><B> from Dave Hamilton, Fur Bearer Research Biologist out of Missouri.  He wanted to know when Mike was coming back to work for him on an ongoing otter research project that he had helped him with last fall.  I told him that Mike would be driving up on March the first, and that he would be ready to go to work the next day. </b></div> <bR> <div> <B>During our conversation, Dave told me that Cary Kohut, the other trapper that worked on the project last year, would not be coming back this spring.  So, like a fool, I said, “So, do you want me to come?  I've been helping Mike all winter.”  I had met Dave last fall while I was visiting Mike. So, he knew that I was a capable trapper's helper, and that I had been helping Mike with his trap line for the past 22 years of our marriage. So, Dave said, “Sure come on up.”   Now, you have to remember that Mike had started trapping full-time this fall after leaving a job with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission. So, you know what that meant.  Mike and I had been joined at the hip for the last 4 months. We trapped together everyday.  I was looking forward to a short break. You know, send him back to Missouri for a week or two or six (ha, ha), then go up for a weekend visit.</b></div> <bR> <div> <B>Well, after opening my big mouth to Dave Hamilton, I too am now employed as a Wildlife Research Technician for the state of Missouri.  Mike and I were to travel to Missouri on March 1</b><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#663300" FACE="Arial" ><B>st</b></FONT><B>.  When we arrived, I was to go to the hospital to take my drug test, being from Arkansas, I had to study for this test all the way up there (ha, ha). Well, I passed the test with flying colors.  It's a good thing that I studied!</b></div> <bR> <div> <B>The next day we met up with Nathan Roberts for our instructions from Dave.  Nathan is another technician on the otter project.  He is a really nice guy, but I don't know if you want him for a canoe partner or not.  More on that subject later. </b></div> <bR> <div> <B>Nathan told us that our job for the next few days would be to get in a canoe and paddle down ten miles of river.  Well, that would not be too bad, except that I am 42 years old and in no shape to paddle a canoe for ten miles everyday.  But I figured, hey, I'm pretty tough.  I can handle this.  After all, I'm married to a trapper. Oh, I forgot to tell you one important thing. Along the way down the river at randomly selected ¼ mile stretches, Mike and I were to stop the canoe and fill our pockets full of zip-lock bags.  Then Mike was to take one side of the river, and I was to take the other and gather up otter droppings.  That's right, we are getting paid to pick up otter droppings and put them in bags.  This gave me a real good laugh, at first.  Mike thought that he had died and gone to heaven.  He told Nathan “Hell man, this is what I do for fun.  Somebody pinch me.”  At this point, I was happy to oblige.  Really hard!</b></div> <bR> <div> <B>The next day was not to bad.  Nathan met us at our hotel room at 7:00am.  I took him and Mike to the place that we were to put the canoe in the river.  Nathan gave me my instructions for the rest of the day and told me where and when I was to pick him and Mike up.  I thought, “This is going to be all right.”  Maybe someone should pinch me.</b></div> <bR> <div> <B>I arrived at the pick up place an hour early just in case they got finished.  I did not want them to have to wait on me.  Besides, I was kind of excited to scout for otter sign in new territory.  So, I was walking up the riverbank, and I found some otter sign.  I returned to the truck and in just a little while, here came Nathan and Mike.  </b></div> <bR> <div> <B>Well, it didn't take long to see that they were wet and cold.  It was a beautiful day, but we were in Missouri in March.  There was still plenty of ice on the water.  They were trying to be tough, but I could tell that they both needed a hot bath and a warm fire.  After a short trip to Wal-mart to replace some things that they had lost, they got just that.</b></div> <bR> <div> <B>The next day was pretty much the same, except when I picked the guys up, Nathan was the only one that was wet.  Then, on Sunday, we located different bridge sights that were to be on the project.  We would each take a bridge sight and walk both banks, locate, bag and label otter droppings.  There was a lot of walking involved, but it was not too bad.  We were finished by noon, then Mike and I took Nathan back to his in-laws about one hour away.  We had a nice lunch, then returned to our motel.  We had a nice quiet evening, and then it was Monday.  By the end of the day, I was so tired.  I had found and bagged so much otter s**t (by now it is no longer </b><I><B>droppings</b></I><B> its just plain old s**t), that I sat down at one toilet station and just started crying.  I waited for Mike to come back up the river, and I told him, “You might as well bring that canoe over here.  I don't have near enough bags.  Can we please just shovel it in the canoe?”</b></div> <bR> <div> <B>We finished out the day and went back to the motel.  I fixed Mike some supper then I took a hot bath and went straight to bed.  The next morning, I was thinking of how nice it would be to take a shower, fix my hair put on my make-up, and feel like a girl.  So I took a shower fixed my hair, put on my make-up then I put on my coveralls, pulled on my hip boots, grabbed my coffee thermos.  And I stopped and thanked God for another day of my life with Mike.</b></div> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B><IMG SRC="096af0c0.jpg" border=0 width="175" height="268" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></b></div> <div> <B>"Life with Mike: Mother Goose's"</b></div> <div> <B>by Virgie Fischer</b></div> <bR> <div> <B>March 8, 2001, I drove home to Lonsdale, Arkansas. I sure am thankful to be at home for a few days.  On Sunday I will drive back to Sumner, Missouri to begin phase two of the otter project. </b></div> <div> <B>     </b></div> <div> <B>We set traps today, and with Mike this always means from daylight till dead dark. This part of the otter project is on Swan Lake Refuge. It is a beautiful place. There is hardly a day that goes by that we do not see ducks by the thousands (I'm not kiddin').  Canada geese, bald eagles, lots of deer, and so many turkey that I cannot count them all.   We saw beaver, muskrat, otter, and coon on a regular basis. Sounds like Heaven, doesn't it?  Well it was...for the first few days.</b></div> <bR> <div> <B>For the first three days, we set up our trap line. Things were looking pretty good. We found a lot of otter sign. Then wouldn't you know it, just like at home, it started to rain. In this country it only takes a teacup full of rain to get the creeks out of their banks, or "up on a horse", as Mike likes to say. I never have understood what that means, but then again Mike uses a lot of terms that I do not understand. He speaks a language all of his own.</b></div> <bR> <div> <B>On Friday March 16, 2001, it snowed 5 inches here at Sumner, Missouri. We watched 3 otter playing or fishing or something, in a ditch on the Swan Lake Refuge.  This is a place that we had our traps set. It was now under a great deal of water and melting snow.  The Grand River rose up to 34 feet. We knew that our trap line was done in for.  So we made sure that all of our traps were sprung and out of commission, and we headed back to our lovely house at Sumner.</b></div> <div> <B>   </b></div> <div> <B>This is a story all by it's self. This house is about 50 years old, and it has been flooded God only knows how many times. It floods whenever the Grand River reaches about 40 feet. Remember, I said it was already at 34 feet. The floors swag first one way then the other.  It is a one-bedroom house with a fold out couch in the living room, and the strangest bathroom that you have ever seen. We like to refer to this house as “Mother Gooses” because it is at Sumner, Missouri, the Wild Goose Capitol of the World.  Mike and I share this house with Tom Gorman, the telemetry man from Maine, and his Labrador retriever puppy named River. Tom is a nice guy, easy to get along with, but he sure does talk funny. Talk about two cultures colliding--a guy from Maine, who is originally from Massachusetts, meets a guy from Arkansas who speaks his own language.      </b></div> <bR> <div> <B>Well all was not lost on account of the rain. We were invited to eat fish at the Lentz's, Marv & Ms. Georgia. These are the people that we rent “Mother Goose” from. It is worth a trip to Sumner just to meet them. </b></div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B><IMG SRC="0982ceb0.jpg" border=0 width="300" height="235" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></b></div> <bR> <div> <B>Marv is a lifetime member of the Missouri Show-Me Big Bucks Club, where he held the state record for a big buck scoring 183 & 4/8 points on the Boone & Crockett scale, for several years. Ms Georgia hunts and fishes. She has killed a few big bucks of her own. You can always find them out fishing together, or calling up a turkey for one another.  Sounds a whole lot like Mike & Virgie doesn't it? Maybe that is why we hit it off so well. </b></div> <bR> <div> <B>After dinner we were all sitting in the living room. By now we could see the water all around the house, and while I was looking out the front window we saw an otter cross by the railroad track. Tom ran back to “Mother Gooses” to get the telemetry gear. He checked and sees that it was not one of our otter. Since it was not one of our otter, we know that there is at least one more otter to tag.</b></div> <bR> <div> <B>Tomorrow, Mike and I will go to the Missouri Trappers Associations spring meeting.  It will be nice to see some of our old friends that we haven't seen in quite a while.  Like I don't get to hear enough trapping stories already.  What can I say I am just a fool for punishment!  Or maybe I just LOVE my “Life With Mike.”  </b></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>                        </b></div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>