Western porcupines

[mostinterestingmanintheworld]

I was reading the midwest muskrat post about the disappearing rats.

Our porcupines are all but gone in Western NV.

Coincidentally they left about the times we got overrun with lions.

Joel

[humptulips]

Joel, I'm not sure there is a connection. Here in western WA the cougar population has expanded to about maximum population. During the same time frame I am seeing more and more porcupine. When I was younger and the hound men were allowed to keep the cougar population at a reasonable level I can't remember ever seeing a porcupine. Maybe there is something else at work.

[Cal Taylor]

Joel,
Feel free to come to Wyoming for all the porkys you care to deal with. They are the absolute pits while cat trapping.

[lynxcat]

MUST be using a catnip or spearmint based lure...

[bobwendt]

you cat trappers, spoiled! a porky is pretty good gas money. I know a cat is a whole lot better gas money, but I do enjoy catching a few each year. tried to feed them to fox and they won`t eat a skinned one, a coyote will tho. very dark red and greasy as heck. stink like goats. kept some alive one year and they tame right down and love sweet potatoes and white ones too, and ear corn. had a decent live market but I flooded it and the guy never did recover. I`m getting my courage up to try eating one, but just not quite there yet. nice to see you post again cal. havn`t seen you posting for a long time now. tell steve hi for me if you cross trails. buddy of mine snuck a dead one back to indiana and put it in another buddys 220. never did tell anyone the truth and it made big news locally.

[3n]

kept some alive one year and they tame right down and love sweet potatoes and white ones too, and ear corn.

A friend of mine who worked for WS had a pet porcupine he called Rosie...Went over to his house one day and his daughter was sittin out on the deck with this porcupine on her lap petting it like it was a cat.

[mostinterestingmanintheworld]

I skinned one and cooked it over a campfire once.

Greasy and tough as I remember. Must have been because I've never cooked another one.

Joel

[Jeffrey]

Ok Bob, you hooked me, how can you get gas money from a porky?

[dj88ryr]

It all depends on how hungry you are, whether or not they taste good, Indians and Fisher love em, so they can't be all bad....

[Brad H]

Porky guard hairs can be plucked and sold by the ounce. There's a guy here in town that gives $5 plus or minus for dead ones. He bleaches and sells the skulls too, so I try not to shoot'em in the head.

Brad

[bobwendt]

about 12 bucks each if you market the hair and quills. ut`s a ready market and appears un floodable.

[Bubber]

We still have plenty of porkys around here despite the lions. Get around rims rocky spots they will bumble into our cat set.

I just pull the guard hair. I carry a gallon ziplock bag with me all the time trapping just for porky hair. The quills are a pain in the butt to harvest. To get clean quill with no hair in it is a painstaking process that is not worth the effort in my opinion. I also take the claws, they are only worth about $.03 apiec but are easy to take.

[cameron2]

Joel:

I thought this was a set up for you to tell the Wiley Carrol story about all the money you guys made picking up porkys on the wat to Colorado that year.

[mostinterestingmanintheworld]

I've told that story so many times I doubt that anybody hasn't heard it.

Can't remember if I ever told it on the internet however.

Caught my first cat today. I can see the rock I caught him on from my back door.

Nice Tom.

Joel

[gunny]

Our Porkys are all but gone too.

Haven't seen a freshly chewed tree in ages.

Ken Kiggins told me he never caught a lion that it didn't have quills in it. He said the lions would flip the porkys onto their back and eat through from the underside.

The coyotes clean up lion kills pretty quick, but I've never seen where a coyote cleaned up a lion-killed porky.

[bobwendt]

I havn`t heard the porky story joel. c`mon, tell it once more. like the indian told the Lt. after the buffalo hunt, wan jee, wan jee!

[mostinterestingmanintheworld]

Well Bob Wiley Carroll, Bill Ilchik and I got in the habit of going to the Colorado TA rendevous and the NTA rendevous back in the 70's.

Old Wiley was one to pinch a buck so he made us pull over for every dead porky from Nevada to Colorado and pull the guard hairs.

I mean we were out dodging traffic on the freeway pulling squashed porkies off the highway.

When we'd get to the rendevous Wiley would find someone to buy the stuff and then he'd bring Bill and I our share of the profits.

I remember one Rondy on Tincup creek at the top of the Rockies where it was so cold we camped in the trailer that they hauled the shithouses in.

Another one I remember was staying in a horse stall at the Monte Vista fairgrounds.

Back in the days of living rough.

Old Wiley could do that. I heard lots of stories about him staying out for a week or more hunting lions with a horse and a blanket.

He was quite the old Wiley.

Joel

[cameron2]

The best part of that story is that after risking their lives dodging semi's and motor homes on the freeway for this valuable porky guard hair, Wiley would come to share the profits -- all $2 of it, split three ways of course.

Trapping cats from your bedroom window, huh? That's not fair.

[bobwendt]

actually I heard the story, but I knew I`d hear another with it, like the camping in the crapper trailor, or the week out with a blanket. wiley carrol was my wifes idol when she was a young girl. ( lol, and she got stuck with me) she was a horse nut and you know wiley wrote for the western horsman magazine. she still has a lot, maybe all , of his stories. we are talking 30-50 years ago.

[mostinterestingmanintheworld]

Two bucks was more money then than it is now. Some guys are trapping coyote for $20 and making less than we made on Porky hair then.

I've got an old crossbuck saddle Wiley gave me 30 some years ago.

My wife has it up on the plant shelf in the kitchen for a decoration.

Joel