No, I caught a wolverine in a box that was completely buried the night before. 2-3 feet of hardened snow and I thought I would dig it out the next morning.

The meat before giving some out to family.


1st wooly of 16-17 thawing out.



Short bushy horns is how I was taught to ID old dry cows. Once they stop having calves the energy is put towards to horn growth and fattening up.


My pup.




My girl when she was 1 year old living in the bush. She emptied the cupboard everyday.





Now she's one of my main partners.






Some older ones.



Never give up!

At least you did not have 5 45 drums like your Uncle Stephen.

That pic was the last load in 2011. About 3 or 4 days later the river was dried right up. We just rocked the boat until water went underneath and inched it to deeper water about 4 feet to the right.

I tried hunting yesterday but they were too far back for me. Got MO and Tuesday off might head out to the new camp try and set up that seismic up the hill towards Bear Creek. Start going hard for King of the Swamp.

Nice pis! Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for the pictures. Always enjoy posts of your trapping and hunting.

Picked up a couple martin and a couple lynx last night. The same wolf trap was snapped again and on closer inspection I found that the trigger was bent and wasn't working properly!! Missed 3 good chance because of that so I set a couple more at that spot, hopefully I didn't educate the pack of mostly pups. Not much so far for wolverine sign, only seen 2 different sized tracks all season and the bigger of the two was not on my line. On the way home I seen fresh tracks on my fresh trails, less than 4 hours old, so I sped up and followed until I spotted 3 wolves running up into the trees in the moonlight! Too bad I didn't catch them in the open but I'll get my chances yet this season. There is one 330 box out of commission from over flow, should've moved last trip when I thought to do so. Town traps with Morgan and Bobby tonight.

I can sure understand why some guys enjoy martin trapping so much. I found an area with some martin and have been picking up 2-3 every trip this year. I pulled up to a spot where last week I interrupted a martin just starting to eat another frozen martin in a trap so I reset the box and moved another box directly across the creek for 2 in one spot. Pulling up to the spot last trip out I could immediately see a bushy martin tail sticking out of the first box and the second trap was missing. The missing trap ended up being behind the box with the second half of my first martin double covered in a fresh skiff of snow! I'm hooked! Now to try my hand at some otters! The lynx on my line can breath a sigh of relief for now because my mind is focusing on learning some new critters habits. I would love to have more martin in my trapping area, and I can't wait to explore my new trails I made in September. I also set a new line with 10 #3, 5 120s and 2 330 boxes. If any of those 120s hold martin then that area will be set up with more martin sets. It took awhile but my motivation has finally kicked in, and I still have 3 solid months of season left.

Hard to beat marten trapping Ryan,easy to catch,easy and quick to skin,no fleshing,easy to carry can pile up quite a few in a small area, and bring good money.Just have to be careful not to overharvest.Keep an eye on the adult female to juvenile ratio.

Just before the marten crash here there was abundant numbers of marten. We had a good pull and had 5 eaten. I have never had that many in 1 trip. The next year was the crash! I think that the food source that winter contributed to the crash.

Happened here too around 2006.When you start to see marten all over the place even after catching big numbers,that is a bad sign.Over 80% adults.This is marten abandoning home ranges due to a small mammal crash.The refugia method of management doesn't work in those years.
Trapping hard during the home range abandonment can cause the recovery to be prolonged,but if you don't trap at all,much of the resource is wasted.Maintaining bait piles on my trapline well into april that year helped the marten recovery. The next year I was one of the few trappers that had a harvestable number of juveniles on my line.

I agree with you Boco that large bait piles placed in the spring really helped the marten population for the next season as well as provided opportunities for other furbearers used to frequent said bait piles.

I skinned 9 martin the other night with my Daughter and they were all pretty fat so they are eating good. There were 5 large adult males, and 2 each male/female juvies. No adult females so I'm not sure what that says about the population in the martin crick. My time off starts today so I'll be busy trapping for a couple weeks. I'll be sure to take some good pictures. Hoping to make some time for a caribou/fur hunting trip on the coast. Merry Christmas everyone!

I went out to set a line yesterday. Crazy Beaver same Red Mountain Creek and flooded my trail. Spent all day cutting willows across the trail.

Hello fellers! How goes the battle? I've been busy during my time off and have had some decent luck in trapping with the usual highlights and lowlights, with lowlights being no worst than missing animals because traps were snowed over, none of that stuck in overflow for 3 hours BS. Just today I set 6 #3 and 14 120s in a new creek that I accessed by one of the portages I cut in September.

Some pictures:



I've been having fun trapping martin lately and I have some good little helpers that are eager to learn. Ive skinned martin a couple times with my grandpa and caught a bunch in lynx traps but Ive never really had a good population to work with. This year I'm into a new chain lake with lots of thick timber and there seems to be a few more martin than there is around my camp. Addictive stuff...



Heres a set Ive caught lots of lynx from in the past few years. The first lynx was picked up on the way to my cabin for an overnight stay and the second lynx was picked up on the way home next day.I don't mind having to reset every time I catch something here because it doesn't really take that long and there is a lot of lynx activity here.






Classic trapping when tracks get you all exciting and hoping for...



This otter was 1 of 3 that I seen one day whilst breaking trail through a creek I leave until around Christmas due to thin ice. I shot this big fella with my first shot and the second shot went "thlick" not "click" but "thlick" and right away I knew something wasn't right with my gun while 2 otters sat and watched there buddy use his last kicks to go under the ice and disappear. I took my gun apart and seen that my trigger assembly was cracked. Simple fix with new parts (2-4 weeks) but still disappointing to put my 22 magnum on the injured list.
I ended up smashing the ice immediately downstream of the hole the otter went down in and couldn't find anything for about 45 minutes or so. I almost gave up but decided just for the heck of it to check upstream in the slow moving creek and with a final push of my awesome ice smasher/mover, which was really just a stout chunk of spruce, up popped the otter and the fish and muskrats of the lake breathed a collective sigh of relief as this big bugger is the biggest Ive ever killed and surely had an appetite to match.





Lucky night two night ago when I picked up this young male wolverine in a cubby set #3 baited with a loche head and ukruk on a stick. Seen him from quite aways across the lake in my headlights and being just recently caught he was pretty lively. 3 years ago I bent the magazine on my trusted 22 Remington 572 and it sat until Christmas day when I replaced the magazine with a new one that acquired in a trade with a fellow member a couple months ago (Thanks Buddy!). Believe it or not my 22's comeback first shot was a wolverine kill shot further elevating that, older than me, 22 to super natural status. It's been around since before I was born and what I've shot more animals with than all my other guns combined. Happy to have it back anyways. I skinned the wolverine for parka trim and as soon as I got to town I gave it to Fiona's Grandmother, who just that morning mentioned that she wanted to make a parka. She asked how much I would charge for a wolverine and I told her I wouldn't expect her to pay and that I would rather give them away to family to keep the luck going. That very night I caught this prime gulo! Coincidence??



Finally a shot of the start of my new line where I finally made it to the creek after a couple years of scouting and cutting trail.
I'll be sure to have all the animal travel routes figured out by the time my Daughter Morgan pictured here is old enough to run her own lines. Lots of exploring options is the reward for hand cutting trails through thick brush. That and untouched animal populations. Can't wait to check all my traps again real soon.

Nice, thanks for sharing!

Nice catches,Ryan,nice looking fur.

Nice catch on the wolverine!

Thanks for sharing! Looks like your having FUN!!!! I like the before and after shot of the kitty set with tracks I only wish it panned out like that every time