My name is Sissy and I am from a small northwest village on the Norton Sound in Alaska. I have a bachelors in mathematics and grew up on an old reindeer herding farm 13 miles north of the village I currently live in. My dad used to trap out of there when I was a little human. I started trapping with my trapping partner, Gregg, in 2011 when I moved back to the village after graduating from college. We have a line up the Little North, the North River, the main river, and have set traps up the Egavik River.

Welcome Sissy. Look forward to your Journal What animal are you trapping?

My trapping partner, Gregg, and I were finally able to get out on Monday to break trail and get some sets in. The weather out here hasn't been cooperative for rivers and creeks to freeze and the snow was late in coming.

I left town as the sky was starting to get light. As soon as I started to leave my headlights went out. I patted my pocket to make sure my head lamp was there, turned off my hand and thumb warmers, and took off. The light was flat and it was windy. I kept putting my goggles on and off, trying not to hit drifts and jar my insides.

As the morning grew lighter, my drive got easier. The mouth and lower part of the river were open less than a week ago, so I went overland. There was bunny sign everywhere along my drive up to my trapping partner's cabin. He was still cooking breakfast, so I took most of my gear off and curled up with dogs vying for my attention.

After he finished breakfast, we geared up and headed down a river bend and up across the tundra towards our line. The wind was blowing the snow sideways. We got to the first creek and stopped to hike through the willows to see what the wall of snow looked like on the other side. It was doable. One after another, we both slammed into the wall and flopped down on top of the drift. The next creek was easier and then we picked our way through the trees finding our trail from previous years. We crossed a lynx track, a marten track, and a lot of bunny track.

In the flat light my trapping partner hit a drift sideways and almost tipped over, but recovered enough to make it through a line of trees, gunning it into the snow. I followed and slipped into the soft snow he had created and dug right down and settled in. I leaned and wiggled and dug down a bit more before stopping. I hopped off, gave a little throttle, and pushed. I moved two inches forward and then my track started digging in.

My trapping partner walked back, grabbed a ski and pulled while I dug my feet down and pushed. A little throttle, a lot of effort and the handlebars were out of my hands and I was crawling out of powder. We repeated the process once more and I was able to scramble onto the running board and flop onto my machine and out of the powder.

We gulped a little air and then sought out our trail once more. We saw the first pole set and fell into the rhythm of setting. He knocked snow off the pole, I baited the newspaper carrier. He hammered the carrier in place, I wired the trap to the pole. He set the trap, while I smudged the stink. We packed up and left. Drive, repeat, drive, repeat.



We catch up as we go. Talking about daily lives, goals for the season, yummy things we’ve eaten, stories we’re not quite sure we haven’t shared. There are moments of silence. We work together in a way that we don’t need to say what we’re doing.

I paused at a troublesome creek to watch my trapping partner cross. He hit a wall and started skidding. Off went my gun and I started walking towards him as he’s still wiggling in the snow. He climbed off and unhooked the sled. I grabbed it from the rope loops and pulled it out of the creek, back up the little hill on the other side of the creek. My trapping partner had been stomping and clearing snow. I got down on my knees and got ready to push, he looked at me and then started giving it a little throttle. His machine chugged up the other side and I kept pushing crawling forward, right onto a small broken off tree, shooting sharp pain onto my right knee.

The machine made it onto the bank and Gregg started digging out rope. I flopped onto my butt and gave my knee a rub. I crawled back up the other side of the creek and pulled the sled down. Gregg tossed me the other end of the rope and I looped it through and tossed it back to him. I grabbed the saw and cut down a little tree on the side of trail that his ski almost got tangled up in, while Gregg pulled the sled up and rehooked it to his machine.



After I tossed the little tree aside, I hiked back up to my machine and fired it up. I looked down at the mess we’d made and shook my head. This was gonna be a crapshoot. I started down the bank, slid off the trail a bit slammed into the other side too far to the right and hooked a tree on my ski. The back of my machine dug in. Gregg started walking back down and we grabbed the saw and cut down the tree I was hooked on. We lifted my track out of the hole it had dug itself in. Gregg pulled a ski, I pushed and gave it a little throttle. We rocked it out and up the other side of the creek.

We paused to put ourselves back together. The wind wasn’t so bad back in the trees and the sun was trying to peek out from the grey skies. A couple sips of water, and we were back on track, twisting and winding through the trees. We fell back into our rhythm and rocked getting our sets in. The tree had been knocked off the pole on one of our sets. I cut down a new pole and then started building a cubby with the branches while my trapping partner reset the marten pole. I baited the cubby, wired the 330 to a tree, set the conibear, and then filled in the front of the cubby.



Two more sets and we were out of boxes. We were at the last set before the trail drops down onto the part of the creek we travel on. It was the perfect spot to end our day. After bundling up we wound our way back on our trail out to the blustery tundra. After dropping straight down and through the last creek, Gregg pulled over and I pulled up next to him. We looked and felt a little worse for the wear, but had big smiles on our faces. He planned to come to town tomorrow and I said I’d come by the shop so we could pack up more gear for Wednesday.

We parted ways. He picked his way across the tundra towards his cabin, and I followed the creek, where there was a bit more snow, back to the road and then headed back to town, already anxious to be back out on Wednesday.

Wow that sounds like quite the trapline run. I hope your knee is well and you all have a productive season.

Thank you. We trap marten, mink, fox, lynx, wolverine, wolf, beaver, and river otter.

It was a bit of a rough trail breaking day, but so good to be out. My knee is black and blue but working good.

I always admire the colors of my bruises. ;0) Great writing and thanks for sharing such and in depth report. Anxious to see some fur.

Good job on your journal Sissy! Look forward to following your adventures and seeing your catch's!

Enjoyed your trapping adventure.
Keep us posted..

Good Luck on your season Sissy! Thanks for sharing and welcome to the group!

Wednesday morning rolled around and I woke up congested, snotty, and coughing but still had energy. The weather and forecast looked good. So I took some Dayquil and waited for daylight. I geared up, fired up my machine, and headed off for the hills. Today was a day to get more sets in. On the way out of town I drove by a bunny that someone had driven over in town. I'd never seen road kill in the village before. I turned around kicked him off the road and brought him along for bait.

A machine turned onto the trail near town in front of me. I followed them up and over musk ox hill and then turned onto the road towards North River bridge, as they kept on following the musk ox trail. The road had drifted with crooked steep snow banks. I turned off and drove alongside the road until it mellowed out. I made it to my trapping partner’s cabin without incident, stopping to take a picture of the river lodge, which is how I ended up here. My mama came up here 40+ years ago to cook for the crew that was building the lodge and ended up staying and making this her home.



Gregg was ready to go today and tromped down the steps all decked out in his gear, toting his new .17 wsm. We headed out down the river and across the tundra. We stopped where we cross the road to talk about setting fox snares and a set by the road. We both pointed to the tundra on the other side of the road, then took off after a fox that paused to look at us and then take off as fast as his little feet could take him towards the trees. My trapping partner always pulls the sled, his machine is built better for it, so I sped around him and cut the fox off before it could get to the trees. It started running back towards the road, so we both stopped and took sight. Gregg pulled his trigger seconds before I was about to pull mine and mister fox went down. My face burst into a huge smile. Fur. And my favorite to practice the first skin of the season on. He pulled up, excited that it was his first shot at a critter with his new gun.



I emptied out 220’s and buckets out of the fur bag, as Gregg took care of the fox. Since we’d already crossed the tundra, we picked our way along the trees and creek. The creek still had open water in places. Neither of us felt comfortable driving our machines to where we set, so we pulled what we needed and hiked into the beaver house. There was lynx and mink sign. It was a beautiful day. We put our sets in and naturally I almost slipped and fell on the walk out.



We saw more lynx tracks along another creek and put in a cubby and snare set. After we’d taken off towards our trail from Monday, I realized that I no longer had my goggles. I’d take off my hat and one neck warmer at the last set, so I figured we’d stop back by on our way out. I mentioned it to Gregg as we put in new marten sets before the beginning of our line.

The trail had set up beautifully. We cruised through the line, picking up two marten in our traps along the way. There was one corner that we felt needed a marten pole, so we put one in. One small section of the trail had fallen into a creek but we were able to make a trail around it. A fox had been sniffing the bait in two of our marten sets, so we put in a set for him. We reached the part of our line that drops down onto the creek but after seeing all of the open water earlier, we decided to hike through the willows to take a look. And what do you know, there was a big hole right where we drive onto the creek. We checked the time and decided to call it a day. It was the perfect time for us to head back, in order for me to get to town before dark. I really need to get a new voltage regulator.

Thank you.

Very nice.
Also those marten are getting too far in before firing your 120's. That is something that can be fixed. Do you have pictures of your marten sets?

Hi Sissy, I used to live in Unk! Sure miss trapping there, tho weather always seemed to make it difficult. The trail from town to Shak was good for lynx and wolverine. Always wondered about up Egavik. Any marten up there? Also did good on lynx along the base of the hills to the south. Every brushy cr. that came out of the hills had lynx.
I was in Unk for Wades wedding last Aug. Good to see all my old buddies and co workers. Wade said there are too many fox around town. Invited me to come help out, haha. Maybe some opportunity there for you.
Your mom gave me one of the first sled dogs I ever owned a loooooonnnnnnggggg time ago. Was my leader for several years. Don't own sled dogs anymore tho.
Enjoying your posts and pics. Looking forward to more.
mt

I know. I hate it when poop gets smushed out. My trapping partner covered this with me that day. And laughed at me because of my ickiness towards poop.

Hey MT, yes, the weather out here isn't always cooperative for getting out in the country. I guess some people tried to get to Shak yesterday and had a rough go of it. They turned back around Blueberry I think. The creeks haven't froze yet this year. There are marten up the Egavik river, but you can't travel on the river, it's never safe. We typically travel up on the North side. We generally put sets in up rabbit creek and the creek east of it, making a big loop and then heading up to Sauyak (sp?) on the Iditarod trail.
There are a lot of fox around town and right up the road, in the new houses. You can't trap em in town though. Too many dog's running around.
May I ask what you name is? Mama was curious when I mentioned she gave you a sled dog. She ran dogs a long time ago.
Thanks for reading!

Yes, and if using standard wire triggers I would say your traps need tuning. From the pictures I note you are using pan triggers.
In this situation I would suspect you are setting your traps to far away from the bait. When using a horizontal or inclined trap box be it with standard wire or pan trigger, if it is set too far away from the bait the animal sometimes moves through the wire trigger or jumps over the pan and fires the trap with it’s body or hind feet, resulting in a hip catch. With a 120 trap set within 4-6 inches of the bait, you will get a neck or neck and thorax quick kill zone strike virtually every time. This occurs because the animal is stable at the bait, not moving through, and centered towards the trap when it is triggered.





Also, do not place the trap springs against the spring slot ends as when the trap is sprung, with the spring against the slot end, it will jump out over the animal and not always get the best humane catch. The solution is to set your trap spring an inch to 1 1/2 inch before the end of the slot, which greatly reduces the propelling of the trap by the spring. When the trap is fired the springs will still hit the end of the slots, without losing significant striking power or jumping over the animal, yet with enough force to help propel the trap and animal out of the box especially with an inclined box facing downward.

We've picked up three more marten and missed a kitty. I've been bonding with the marten at the shop.

Careful, sometimes those things have fleas!!

Sent you a PM.

This guy's friend only had two. The fox that I did a few days before had wayyyy too many.