Meet the Crew

Chip Davis, owner

Hello, and welcome to Expand-A-Pan.  I’m Chip Davis, part owner along with my son, of Expand-A-Pan, and most importantly, a trapper just like you!  I am from the hill section of North Mississippi and was exposed to trapping as a teenager in the mid-1980’s by a trapper who asked permission to trap on our family farm.  My dad gave Mr. James permission, but as a condition he ask Mr. James if I could ride along with him and try to learn.  After my 1st trip, I was hooked!  I learned the basic sets of fur trapping from Mr. James, running traps before school and leaving critters in my truck parked in front of the school for Mr. James to collect and skin later in the day.  (Boy, I sure wish I had someone to skin all my critters after the catch today!)  I was so intrigued by what Mr. James taught me that first year, that I took 100% of my share of the fur money and began to buy my own traps, and I never looked back from there.  I trapped the rest of the way through high school and college, but curtailed my efforts after the “fur crash” in the early 1990’s. 

A few years later, with my traps sitting idle in the barn, my oldest son had over-heard  me talking about my trapping days, and told me, “Dad, I’d like to try that trapping”, and that Christmas I gave him a half dozen traps of his own.  We began trapping afresh, and continued to slowly learn tricks of the trade until we stumbled upon a guy online named Clint Locklear that had tons of extremely informative information on the internet, his website WolferNation.com, and his weekly podcast Trapper Radio.  Clint challenged our thought processes in both trapping, and life in general.  Our first idea for Expand-A-Pan actually came after hearing Clint voice concerns about the same problems we were facing with animals not firing the trap, and how he had developed solutions for that.  We learned a lot from his online content, and even volumes more after ordering most of his videos and eventually spending time with him and taking a little instruction!  Clint, behind Mr. James, became my second trapping mentor and his help has been greatly appreciated over the years!  Recently, with fur markets being a little weaker than recent years, we decided that we wanted to learn coyotes.  Not just learn to catch a couple here and there, but really learn what happens inside a coyote’s head and how to read and react to that to consistently catch them.  It was at this point that we found an organizational genius named Mr. David, who has caught hundreds and hundreds of coyotes, put together a group of live market coyote trappers and developed a co-op of sorts where members are free to share information, tips, and tricks.  Mr. David and the co-op became our third trapping mentors, teaching us more about coyotes than we could have learned in a lifetime on our own, how to set for them, how to catch them, how to sell them, and how to react to what they are doing, and we will be forever grateful and indebted to the knowledge that these fine, Godly men have given to us!  We learn something new each and every time we set a trap, catch (or don’t catch) an animal, and that is what drives us and makes what we are doing so much fun!  We are thankful that God allows us to be in His Creation on most mornings during trapping season and enjoy His beauty!  We love to trap, and we love helping other trappers catch more fur!  We love to think, figure problems out, and learn…and after all, isn’t that what trapping, even life, is all about?  

Bailey Davis, owner

Hello, I’m Bailey Davis, and I started trapping with my dad in 2010.  I have learned a lot about trapping in the last 5 years, and I still have a lot to learn.  I think that I pick up something new and useful every time I set or run our trap line.  I’ve learned how to let the animals teach me how they move and why they do this or that, and I think it is that part, learning from what the animals are teaching me, that makes trapping so much fun for me and keeps it so interesting.  

Because of my love of trapping, I had to be involved when my dad began to look for ways to modify our traps.  I spent hours and hours learning how and why we were modifying our equipment, and when we bought a computerized plasma cutter, I devoted the time to learn how to program and run the machine.  It became natural to me to use this equipment, and now both Dad and I draw, design, cut, clean, stamp, and package our pans and other products that we sell.  Usually, when you buy a dozen Expand-A-Pans, I am the person who actually cuts them for you.  Thanks for using our products, and let us know if we can help you! 

Thanks again,

Bailey Davis