COLUMN ONE : Trappers’ Trade Is the Latest Kill : The animal rights movement has reduced their ranks, but some Californians persist in trapping wildlife. ‘Love watching ‘em . . . trying to outthink ‘em,’ says a woodsman of his prey.

The man has a hunch about this spot. So he sets his trap at the edge of an old logging road, in the dirt between a manzanita bush and a clump of scruffy grass. Sure enough, a gray fox trots by, gets a whiff of the bait and takes a step he won’t live long to regret.

“Looks like we got ourselves a critter,” Reid Aiton says the next morning, out at first light to check the 24 traps he has hidden in the soggy Humboldt County hills. “A male, I’d say, pretty good-sized.”

The fox--silver, with orange belly and pointy snout--is in a real fix, and knows it. His left front paw is caught in a padded steel jaw. He twirls, thrashes and lunges as the trapper draws near. He tries a growl, flicks his tail. No luck.

Then he freezes, brown eyes locked on the rifle. There’s a hollow pop, a puff of smoke, some blood. With a single spasm, the fox dies. This is the way it goes out here in the woods.

Used to be that trapping was a noble trade. Our first explorers and settlers were trappers. Remember Daniel Boone? Davy Crockett and his coonskin cap? What men these were! Hardy, courageous. Romantic, even.

But many Americans feel differently now. Trappers are murderers, the animal rights activists say, anachronistic brutes whose ways maim pets and subject wildlife to horrific suffering. Wearing fur is seen as a sin, and has become socially hazardous: You might get a lecture; you might get sprayed with red paint.

That attitude steams Aiton, a woodsman for most of his 51 years in North Coast redwood country. “We don’t tell them how to live,” he says, “so why don’t they stop stepping on my rights?”

Ten years ago, there were 3,540 trappers like Aiton still plying their ancient skill in California’s wild lands. This season, only 350 coughed up $60 for the license required by the Department of Fish and Game.

Tumbling demand and the success of fur farms mean there’s just no money in pelts anymore. In 1985, a fine bobcat could fetch $500. This year, that same fur might get you 60 bucks.

It’s also getting mighty crowded in California. A population of 30 million means a lot of pet owners worried that their cat or collie might get snared by a trap. And two years back, the state forced all trappers to buy new traps--the kind with rubber on the jaws, said to be gentler on the animals’ legs. That drove a bunch of trappers under.

“It hit them real hard, right in the wallet,” says Warren Duke, a state game warden for 26 years. “For a lot of guys, it’s just not worth the trouble anymore.”

Sure, times have changed, but not Reid Aiton. He set his first trap at age 13. That’s 38 winters--a lot of time on the trap line, a lot of fox, coyote, bobcat and raccoon through the skinning shed.

This isn’t a full-time deal for him. His day job is in the timber business, has been since 1960. Trapping just helps fill the winter larder. More than that, it’s a way of life he loves.

Aiton taught three sons the secrets of the traps before their teens. The children sold $1,000 in pelts a season during the mid-1980s, remembered by trappers as the glory years for fur prices. The boys had a tradition back then: After their first hides were sold each winter, they took Mom out to dinner.

His sons are grown now, and so Aiton traps alone, as most trappers do. Country music and Rush Limbaugh provide whatever company he needs. A thermos of black coffee and his chestnut-colored dog, Bobby, go along in the Ford pickup.

This winter, Aiton is running a short line--two dozen traps, or “sets,” on gravel roads that loop maybe 30 miles through the damp forests of the Coast Range. State law requires trappers to check their sets once every 24 hours. Aiton visits some on the way to work, the rest on the way back to his home on Murphy Ridge, a remote clearing in the fir trees 35 miles northeast of Eureka.

It’s a tricky business, trapping. Think of it. The animal has acres of land to roam and the trapper’s job is to get its paw on a piece of metal the size of a small sand dollar. Pretty tough odds.

To succeed, trappers must know their prey--its diet, preferred terrain, tracks, hunting habits. They must know, as Aiton does, that the coyote is a wary breed, able to spot any trap that is not blended in just so. They must know that the fox is curious, and that the raccoon is cautious, but not too hard to catch if the bait is tantalizing enough.

Trappers must also be patient. “It’s a hit-or-miss deal,” Aiton warns. “If you’re gonna get upset every time you come up empty, then you’d better find yourself something else to do.”

Aiton has the right sun-will-surely-rise-again-tomorrow attitude. Even so, he hates coming up empty--especially when his target was in the neighborhood.

Such is the case on this frosty morning, when he finds a coon print in the mud an inch from his trap. “One inch!” Aiton shakes his head glumly. “When they don’t come by, that’s nobody’s fault,” he explains. “But when they stop and you miss ‘em, well, the trapper gets the blame.”

Shrugging off his disappointment, he climbs back in the truck and moves on, winding through a maze of redwood stumps--the remnants of a clear-cutting. The next trap is a hit--another gray fox, twisting and snarling as he fights to escape. Aiton is pleased, but modest: “Even a blind dog finds a bone now and then.”

But there’s a problem: This gray fox has a broken leg. Aiton is visibly upset: “This isn’t supposed to happen. It doesn’t happen, I tell you.” Seems the trap wasn’t chained short enough, giving the animal too much leash as he lunged to get away. Humbled, Aiton quickly shoots the animal between the eyes and tosses it in the bed of his truck.

Not all trappers use a gun. Some prefer a club to the head--less blood and no shot to spook nearby animals. “Personally, I don’t like to thump ‘em,” Aiton says. “That method’s fine, but I respect the animal and I like to dispatch them as quick as possible.”

His field methods are meticulous. To guard against foreign scents that might scare his prey, he wears rubber boots and gloves. He scouts his location thoroughly--looking for an intersection of animal trails, say, or telltale scat.

Once he has found his spot, Aiton scoops a small depression in the earth and pokes a deeper hole in the ground behind it. He pours in a bit of lure--foul-smelling stuff with names such as “Trails End” and “Widow Maker” that he bought through the mail. Aiton also makes some of these potions himself, grinding animal glands in the blender, adding a bit of fox urine and other secret ingredients. Lined up in an old ammunition box, they look like jars of gourmet mustard.

The trap Aiton uses on this day is a No. 2--about the size of a shoe you might put on a draft horse. He tucks the trap in its nest and covers it with pre-sifted dirt--a mixture free of rocks that could block the jaws. Aiton then smoothes the earth with a finger, carefully, the way a child might sculpt a sandcastle.

A north wind kicks up as he brushes dirt off his gloves and considers a question: Why trap?

“I’m an outdoors person, first off, and I have an appreciation of wildlife--love watching ‘em, learning their habits, trying to outthink ‘em. . . . If I could retire today, and had my choice, this is what I’d do.”

His rounds complete, Aiton drives home with five foxes. That means 25% of his sets paid off--a good haul. Most trappers feel happy if they hit 10% or 15% on any given day.

Dusk approaches, but there is work to be done. Catching animals is only part of the game; skinning and fleshing are still to come.

Aiton’s skinning shed is in a cold and drafty barn. He hangs a fox carcass from a post, nose down, and unfolds his pocket knife with the two-inch blade. Starting at a hind paw, he slits straight and true--down one leg, up the other, then out along the tail. He is quiet, concentrating. One slip and the pelt is no good.

His cuts complete, the trapper pulls the hide down toward the head, each hard tug making a snapping sound. Two minutes and he is done. His hands are slick with blood.

Fleshing is next, and this is tedious work. As he scrapes gobs of fat from the glistening hide, Aiton sounds off--about new laws, accusations that trapping is inhumane, and the groups aiming to make sure that his is a breed with no future.

Every day, it seems, a new celebrity sheds her mink coat and antes up for the cause. That and the recession have hurt the trapping fraternity badly: Fur sales have dropped by about 75% since 1986.

The animal rights activists say the traps kill and cripple pets; Aiton says he’s “never, ever injured one in all my years.” Activists say wildlife populations are best left alone, but Aiton says trapping is a useful management tool, an argument he makes to state officials when they try to impose new rules.

Foes of trapping foes say the practice is cruel, offering examples such as the fox with the broken leg. But Aiton retorts--hotly now--that most folks do not realize how cruel nature itself can be: “People have no idea! It’s not some kind of Walt Disney movie out there.”

Aiton rests his case with the basic notion that predation is a fact of life, and that humans are the predators at the top of the heap.

“Go back to the original book of instruction, the Bible, and you’ll see. It says, ‘Man shall have dominion over the animals.’ ”

By nightfall, the foxes have been skinned, fleshed, stretched and hung to dry. While Aiton washes up and combs his hair, his wife, Margaret, gets dinner on the table. Venison--shot by her husband--is the centerpiece, with green beans from the garden and home-canned applesauce on the side.

“We try to be as self-sufficient as we can,” she says. The couple grow or catch 90% of what they eat, and Margaret even makes bathing soap from the fat of bears her husband kills.

It is easy, as she talks and cooks on a wood stove that is half a century old, to forget this is California, 1993. Feels a bit like the American frontier.

With two deer heads, a bear skin and a stuffed fox for decor, the home resembles a small hunting lodge. Along with the Bible, there are photos of the kids displaying their pelts and trapping magazines that advertise a how-to coyote skinning video ($34.95) and, “for the ladies,” bra liners made of beaver fur.

Margaret is waiting for something more substantial--a hip-length fur coat. Her husband has donated 21 foxes for the project so far; she hopes the day’s catch will give her a few more.

Those pelts not reserved for the coat will go with Reid Aiton over the mountains to Red Bluff, where California’s only remaining fur market is held twice a year at the fairgrounds. Time was, these were well-attended affairs--80 or 90 trappers in plaid wool shirts, joking and talking and drinking coffee while a dozen buyers bid on their wares.

But the glory days are gone, and last month’s sale was a vivid sign that the trapping trade is in trouble. There were just three buyers and 20 trappers. Prices were so lousy a lot of guys got disgusted, bundled up their pelts and refused to sell.

Dinner is done, and Aiton finally rests, sitting beside a comforting fire. The day lasted 12 hours, counting the skinning and fleshing: “Five foxes, at eight bucks apiece--looks like I made $40 today.” Deduct gasoline and other costs, and it’s a pittance.

“That’s not even minimum wage,” Aiton says, not looking too concerned. “Good thing I’m not in this to get rich.”

Trappers: A Declining Breed

Battered by a recession, a fur glut and the animal rights movement, fur trappers in California are becoming rare. In 1982, there were 3,540 trappers in the state. This winter, 350 trappers are pursuing the trade.

The numbers: In the 1991-92 season, 16,255 animals were trapped. Muskrats accounted for the majority--61%.

The law: Trappers must pay $60 and pass a test to receive a license. They must check their traps once every 24 hours and file a report of their take with the state each year.

The animals: Thirteen species--badger, beaver, gray fox, mink, muskrat, raccoon, bobcat, coyote, opossum, spotted skunk, striped skunk, long-tailed weasel and ermine--may be trapped in California. Some may be taken any time of year, others during varied seasons between October and March. Trapping of bobcats is limited to 14,400 per year.

The method: The most common type of trap, the steel leg-hold trap, restrains the animal until the trapper returns and kills it, usually by gunshot or a club to the head. In 1991, the state required rubber padding on the jaws of the leg-hold trap and other changes believed to reduce possible suffering.

The logic: The state Department of Fish and Game says the number of animals harvested annually is far exceeded by the number added to populations through reproduction.

The controversy: Animal rights activists believe that trapping is cruel and that traps endanger pets. Trappers say that their methods are humane and that pets are rarely injured.