MUSKEGON, MI (December 13, 2023) – All-around outdoorsman, Bryce Cronk, his brother Myles, their dad, and extended family reside in the northern portion of the lower peninsula of Michigan, an ideal playground for anyone who loves to fish, hunt, and trap.
For Bryce and his family, besides hunting and fishing, they’re on their 19th year of coyote-trapping camp about three hours northeast of ScentLok and Blocker Outdoors headquarters in Muskegon, Michigan. Like deer camp or spring walleye opener, setting miles and miles of late-season coyote trap lines is a tradition the brood repeats year after year.
An Early Start
Bryce got his start trapping at age 10 with muskrats, which he sold for a little bit of spending money. His passion for the activity soon evolved from “rats”— the “easiest and simplest” animals to trap, according to Bryce.
“I kept learning more and reaching out year after year through junior high. Then, when I got my driver’s license at 16, my dad let me run fox and coyote lines and from there I was really hooked.”
Bryce says it didn’t take long before his dad took notice and they crew came up with the idea of running a coyote camp.
“Like the origins of any family deer camp, after that first trip it started getting bigger and more involved year after year. Those first couple years we caught a few coyotes and then we wanted more. So every year we’d buy more traps and it continued to grow,” adds Bryce.
“Now, almost 20 years into coyote camp, I can say we’ve gotten to the point where we’ve grown it as far as it can really go and it’s really about the camaraderie, the cooking, and extracurricular activities. We still run our lines, catch some coyotes, and enjoy that, but it’s really about carrying on the family tradition and enjoying our time together.”
The Cronk crew spends a week to a week and a half at coyote camp during the transition from fall to winter, running 60 to 70 mile lines of as many as 50 traps, catching anywhere from 12 to 20 coyotes, a few fox, and maybe a badger or two.
That means there’s a fair amount of time spent skinning, but Bryce says there’s not much money in fur these days, so they take their bounty to local tanners who prepare them for display and sale in a family member’s hardware store, and some to be made into hats and other apparel.
