Opinion & Comment

Trapper T.C. Dawson traveled with pet bobcat in his truck

APPALACHIAN NOTEBOOK - Steve Oden

The late T.C. Dawson, nicknamed “Possum” by those who knew and admired him, carved a wide and colorful swath from the swamps of the Deep South to the hills and mountains of Appalachia. Someone who trapped beavers and coyotes for a living and drove around in an old truck with a pet bobcat on the seat beside him was hard to forget.

Eric Shipman, a fellow beaver trapper, often cut Dawson’s tracks when they worked for large landowners and timber companies in Alabama. Shipman recalls Dawson’s reputation as one of the most knowledgeable and experienced modern-era trappers.

Dawson was a larger-than-life character, someone who would have been at home in the pioneer wilderness 200 years ago, according to Shipman.

“He knew more about beaver trapping than anyone I’d ever met,” said Shipman.

Stephen May, a registered forester and chief of the Alabama Forestry Commission’s Fire Division, knew Dawson well. While working in the private sector, May employed Dawson to trap beavers in flood-prone hardwood bottom land along the Black Warrior River.

“He was an honest-to-goodness character! They threw away the mold when Possum Dawson was made,” May said.

Dawson wore Carhartt-brand brown overalls and hip waders. He sported a thick white beard. The weapon he used to dispatch critters, a Smith & Wesson .22 pistol, was carried in the front bib pocket of his overalls. The barrel of the gun stuck out through a hole it had worn in the tough fabric.

What many people didn’t realize about Dawson, according to May, was his life before trapping: “He was a submariner during World War II. He had plenty of adventures and lived a rich life.”

Dawson’s was a mobile existence. His life was trapping, and he slept and ate close to his lines. He had camps in South Alabama, but he also kept a residence in the extreme southern Appalachian foothills of North Alabama along the Tennessee River.

“He’d come driving up to my office in that truck with the bobcat in it,” May laughed. “I mean, it was a full-grown bobcat, and a big one, too. The inside of his truck smelled to high heaven because of that ‘cat.”

They’d frequently ride together in Dawson’s truck to look at tracts where beavers had caused flooding.

“His bobcat would be all over the inside of the truck. It would make you very uneasy. One time, it got between my legs. I looked at T.C. and whispered, ‘What should I do?’ T.C. just laughed. He advised me to ‘just let the bobcat have its way…’ and I did!”

The area where Dawson trapped for May was unique because it had always been habitat for whitetail deer and wild turkeys. Turkeys, in particular, had never disappeared. When turkey numbers started to resurge in the 1980s, the population exploded in West Alabama.

“T.C. was fascinated by wild turkeys. He’d come in off the trap line, all excited because he’d seen a flock and jabbering about the big gobblers. One day, I told him I was tired of constantly hearing about turkeys and for him not to mention them any more. Well, the next day, he came to my office and hollered, ‘Dad-dammit, you ought to have been with me. I just saw another huge flock of those certain unmentionable critters…’ He knew just how to get my goat!”

Dawson’s skill as a trapper was exceeded only by his knowledge of the habits and behavior of wild animals.

“We used him to trap beavers, wild hogs, and coyotes. He was probably the best trapper I ever knew. He was a great woodsman. For example, he taught me that you can handle a coyote. Once you touch them, they’ll cow right down. Most folks would say that’s crazy, but it is a fact. T.C. Dawson had knowledge of animals in the wild that few men can claim today,” said May.

[To be continued in two weeks with T.C. Dawson, Part II: “A Trapper’s Trapper.”]