Been a busy week! Had some out of town business at work, that went well...but worried the whole time about this warm weather and sets and catches.
Picked up a few more Yotes, a nice Female Fisher, got my first Otter of the season, turned out to be a double...Checking East line this evening again, along with a couple local baits.
Prepping fur for the FHA shipment tomorrow AM (will be sad to see it all go). I will likely drop off some NAFA pelts while I am there, and completely clean out the fur shed.
Then checking the North line, and setting it hard for Lynx and Otter. I will be pulling all of my boxes here, and I will have hit my quota for Fisher this check.
A nice Female Fisher.



Very Nice female Yote caught in a Ram on a trail the escapee cows made...now that this trail is froze, I bet I will get a dozen Coyotes in this set.



The set remade.


Otter double, I reset, as this was a female and kit. Looks like there were a few more big otter around, early for them to group up like that.

100 beaver put up? Ah! I just started taking beaver out of the freezer to get started. I don't have near that many. I was starting to feel sorry for myself. Not anymore.

Ended up getting Fisher Quota on both lines. First shipment sent off to FHA (Beavers, Castor and Weasels), NAFA (Mink, Skunk, Otter, Fisher, Coyote, Squirrel, Marten). I ended up with about 10lbs of castor, hopefully that sells as well as everyone thinks it will. Didn't end up getting as many Lynx sets in as I would of liked, but I will get that all put before Christmas on both the East and North lines. I have one more Coyote bait to get in this week close to home, then all baits are up and running. It slowed down a bit with the warmer weather, but I still produced a fair bit of fur last week. Cold weather starting tonight! Hopefully todays lunch time check goes well. A few pics from the weekend.

First fox of the season in a Ram.


Nice Coyote in a wolfmaster on the East line.


One of my favourite sets, big male yote on duck under downed tree.


The last of my Fishers, 2 big almost twin males.

Nice haul Spruce.I will ship my marten to Helsinki this year.Last year the trappers around here did about a $15 better avg at FHA than those that shipped marten to NAFA.

That's a great well rounded catch Spruce. I see you still have a bit of snow. This warm alberta weather sucks

Nice work! I sure need to get on trapping/snaring yotes more effectively. Thanks for taking the time to post!

Nice work, love the variety of furs. Thanks for taking us along.

Are you on a registered line, spruce. Curious just where you are in Ab. that you get both Fisher and marten. Bushman never talks about Fisher I believe.
mt

Nice catches and pictures.

Nice catch. Congratulations

I am currently trapping 2 registered lines, and also do a lot of resident trapping on private and crown lands. I am in the East Central part of AB, around Bonnyville.
Marten are not overly common, however we are over run with Fisher. I sure wish they would drop our quota system for them.

Spruce

Fisher are fun to trap.My favorite

Been a while since I updated...however not a whole bunch going on. NAFA's notice for Coyotes came at a good time, I have picked up another 25 over the Christmas break so far.
It has been 1-4 per bait per check since the temps dipped below -30 C. Wolves are still hiding, and the Otter typically don't move in these low temps. No problem, I'll stack up the K9's. My goal is to have 30 lynx pens in by the end of the weekend as well.
Stay warm!


Nice days catch, minus one I had already skinned and a mangy one.


Here is a nice big male from a set I have previously shown pictures of. This guy broke the support willow, so I have to move the set a little ways down the trail.


This coyote decided to die right on the bush ice and froze in nicely. I tried warm water, that didn't do anything.


The ice spud did the trick, nice looking year old female. $$

Nice catch of fur

Hope you do well at the auction Spruce.Its better to bring home a few pounds of ice than leave plucked fur in the bush.

Nice!!! Got a bit of skinning there to do!

Spruce told you that ice spud would work. When I'm on the skidoo I have a nice axe I can use. Nice catches!

Beautiful fisher, my mama used to sew with them when I was growing up.

Looks like your having a good season so far.

Happy New year trappers! Had a good finish to the break, caught another mess of Coyotes, had an odd catch as well. Put in a bunch of Lynx pens last weekend, started a new bait, and set some wolves as well. I have one resident bait that needs to go in this week, and I will start my river bait on the East line as well. A bit of a warm up here this week, but not + temps like before, a respectable -10 for lows. Don't have to worry so much about the birds cleaning out a bait in one day.

Morning coffee view from the cabin on North Line. Was quick that day, was -34 C.



Finally caught a nice healthy Coyote on the North Line.


Just another Power Ram Coyote catch. I did notice my free hanger snare catch spiked this week, I was a true 50/50 catch between them and Rams.


This guy fooled me, though He was quite dead...until I grabbed His leg and He tried to bite me! I must have chased Him into the snare, first one I have ever seen live in a ram.
He was froze exactly in the position I left Him the next day, didn't move.


Here was my surprise catch...nothing to different being a Fisher. Caught this little female under an ice shelf in a Mink box though. The fisher came into the trap from under the ice, that's what surprised me. Was not really planning on catching any more Fisher on the North line this season, I have harvested enough.