Edwin Argroves and Waddell Discuss How the Lord Called him to be a Trapper
DENVER (October 21, 2026) – Join Host Michael Waddell as he sits down with 84-year-old Edwin Argroves, distant relative, hunter, fisherman, trapper, practitioner of old-timey living and simple country wisdom, and a local legend from the vicinity of Booger Bottom in Meriwether County, Georgia. Born and raised in the Peach State’s western hill country during the meager years of the Second World War, Argroves’ family lived a subsistence lifestyle growing and raising everything that they needed. The product of hard work and simple living, he learned the value of self-reliance, self-respect, and earned trust, and while he admittedly isn’t a man of wealth or higher education, he is a wealth of knowledge, experience and common sense. Without a doubt, over his many years of country living, hunting, fishing and trapping – animal control became his vocation – Argroves developed keen powers of observation, and he has been eyewitness to animal and wildlife behaviors and natural occurrences that few people have ever seen. Gifted with an upbringing that demanded practical solutions, Argroves learned the art of deduction, and he discovered early on that he had a natural interest and aptitude for tracking and trapping.
He was just a small child when he determined to trap mice between the house and the summer kitchen using a gunny sack and sticks. That first success led him to develop expertise in all forms of trapping, including live trapping, and he became a master tapper not only of furbearers but all sorts of predators and problematic animals from coyotes to snapping turtles, and he’s our special guest on this episode of The Michael Waddell Podcast, presented by REMAX OUTDOORS. Young Edwin Argrove knew that he had a knack for trapping. From gunny sacks and sticks he moved on to trapping farmyard vermin with a borrowed wash basin filled with water, buried to the rim in the ground and covered with cottonseed. He caught so many rats with that clever trap that folks started playfully calling young Edwin “Rat Man.” Soon he realized, ‘The Good Lord called me to trap when I was little,’” said Argrove. “I trapped before I had any traps,” referencing his uncanny ability to fabricate a working set from items he found around the farmhouse. That all changed once Argrove earned some money to order traps from the Sears, Roebuck and Co. Catalog.
“I don’t care what it is in life; learn all you can about it,” began Argroves. “Around the clock, day in [and day out], year-round, learn all you can.” In reference to trying to outwit an animal you’re trying to trap, Argroves said, “Learn his strong points and weak points and use both against him. I read a piece years back, around ’50, when you bought a trap from Sears and Roebuck Catalog, there was a little pamphlet [that came with it] about how to catch things. It said that the secret to trapping is to learn a lot of little things and those little things amount to a lot of big things. It said, ‘Remove all suspicion and let a great temptation.’ That will catch anything from a chigger to a man. Anything. What’s your temptation in life? Yours might be women. Another fellow’s might be dope. But everybody’s got something they want. That’s the bait!”
When asked about making the transition from trapping around the farm to running a trapline, Argrove said, “I caught my first mink in 1949, just before I started school. Sears and Roebuck was buying it [the pelt]. I didn’t know how to clean it, but I had a friend, kin to me, and he came over [and helped me] and you know how much that mink brought? Fifty-two dollars! …You could buy a mink coat, and a Cadillac cost the same thing. Minks were high,” Argrove continued. “I remember this old fellow named Graham Malone, he was the same age as my Daddy, same age as my Momma. He quit farming. I forget what year it was, but he made more money trapping mink than he did on crops. Everybody was saying, ‘Look at him, he’s sorry, he’s not worth a cuss, he won’t work,’ but he was making more money than they were and having a good time! Catching mink, in every river, creek, and branch. Nowadays the otters have done away with the mink. It’s very seldom that you see a mink. Back then there were plenty of mink. When the otters came in here, they annihilated the mink. They annihilated them. Then, same way with the coyotes. When they came in, they done away with all your red fox. It’s like I said, ‘When you get something new, you got to give up something old.’ I’d rather have the old myself on some things. I don’t have no use for a coyote. I’d like to do away with all of them if I could. They might be fine out west somewhere, but they don’t have any business over here in Georgia.”
“I’ve heard a heap of tales,” Argroves continued, talking about coyotes. “…Our coyotes, I don’t know where they’ve come from. They just, boom, all of a sudden. Over four, five, six, seven years they were scattered out pretty thick. Some people claim they brought them in big box pens and turned them loose. But they couldn’t have spread that fast. Same with the armadillos. When they first came there were just a few, and after a little while they were everywhere. But one thing – they’ve got no enemies much. …I don’t know, after a coyote gets grown, the only thing [that might get them would be] maybe a disease, distemper or mange or something, but as far as an enemy to him, they don’t have an enemy but for humans or the highway. That’s it. They don’t have an enemy. But I’ll say this for a coyote – he’s a survivor. He’s easily adapted. He’ll adapt to most any place you put him. He’s easy to adapt to something. Someone like me, isn’t going to change. But they will. They will change. They’ll live in town just as good as they will in the country. They are a survivor.”
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Years of working in the outdoors and observing nature has taught Argroves many lessons: “Everything you learn in life, there’s a knack to it,” he explained. “Little things you learn. Just little things. You see how something makes a track. You look at the stride, how long the stride is. How far apart. I’ve watched things for hours and hours, for days in and days out. Animals change. With the seasons, they change with the weather, they change with what they’ve got to eat, different times of year they feed on different things. They can be headed somewhere, and something will distract them and they’ll go over here (motioning with his hands). There’s no telling how many times I’ve caught a coyote on a teaspoon full of something, and he’ll lay down a rabbit in his mouth, or a rat, and go over there and get caught. That’s called greed. Greed is a bad thing. Jealousy and greed are two bad things…”
“I’ve seen people work all their lives and come into a little money,” Argroves continued, “and instead of folks saying, ‘I’m proud for you,’ they say, ‘Well, I reckon he stole it, making liquor or something like that.’ They don’t want to help him none. They want to mash him down. I don’t know why. I told my children when they were little, ‘When you’re climbing that ladder, don’ be poking that man above you and mashing with your feet the fingers of the man below you, climbing the ladder. Wherever you get on that ladder, stop every once in a while, and sit down and enjoy what you made. Enjoy something.”
“An old man told me something once,” Argroves interjected. “He said, ‘You’ve got to get old before you learn how to live.’ That’s sad, but it’s true. You’re too old to do anything.”
Argroves went straight into another story about trapping beavers for a homeowner’s association in a large, well-to-do subdivision that had been carved out of the wetlands, creating many small ponds. “I went up to see this woman [about trapping the beavers that had been causing damage to expensive trees and shrubs in the neighborhood] and she said, ‘I don’t want these beavers hurt now, can you catch them live? I said, ‘Yes, Ma’am, I can, but that’s a job, Lord Gawd that’s a job. Got to tote them. Don’t stick your fingers in the pen if you want to keep them, they’ll cut them off slick! Got to tote them out of the swamp. I don’t charge that much, I’m probably the cheapest one in Georgia, but it’s going to cost about three times as much.’ I won’t ever forget it. She said, ‘Money is no object.’ I said, ‘You’re the kind of woman I love [to work for].’”
“The next morning,” Argroves continued, “she called me early, and the woman said to come up there but bring my regular traps. I figured they had a meeting and didn’t want to pay for it [live trapping]. I got up there, and that old woman was flat-footed jumping this high [holding his hand up]. She said, ‘I want them SOBs dead! I want to see them, I want to ram them, I want to kick them.’ I said, ‘Where’s the woman I was talking to yesterday? Where’d she go?’ She said, ‘Come around here.’ We went around, and I’ll never forget it, she had these foreign trees, I don’t know what they were, [the beavers] done cut them down and tore up some of her shrubbery, just tore it up and ate the roots. She said, ‘Just look right here! Just look right here! I want them dead! I want them dead! I want to ram them and stomp them!’ I said, ‘You know, as long as they were eating somebody else’s shrubbery you wanted to catch them live, but [once they’re] coming here and eating your stuff, you want to kill them.’ Your attitude changes so quick. When it belongs to somebody else you look at it different. When it’s yours, you look at it totally different then. That’s the way life is. It’s just not about beavers; it’s about everything else. But I’ll never forget. I caught them and said, ‘Do you want to check them?” and she said, ‘No, they’re already dead.’ But I was going to give her the chance…”
“I really appreciate Mr. Argroves’ stopping by. He’s a true legend in this part of Georgia and I would love to have him show me some of his trapping know-how. There’s likely no critter in this part of the country that he hasn’t shot, caught, or trapped. We could have talked for hours, and I love to hear his stories of the old days and old ways, and it never ceases to amaze me how much he knows about this area’s woods and wetlands, and he is truly full to the brim with backwoods wisdom.
The Michael Waddell Podcast releases new episodes every other week.
Waddell’s story began in the backwoods of Booger Bottom, Georgia, where he grew up surrounded by nature, family, and a love for the outdoors. A self-proclaimed “rowdy redneck,” his passion for hunting and storytelling led him to win a Realtree turkey-calling contest, which launched his career in the outdoor industry. From guiding and filming hunts to creating hit shows like Realtree Road Trips and Bone Collector, Waddell has become a beloved figure in the outdoor world.
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