That ribbon seal is awesome. Do you eat the meat of them too as well as making seal oil and utilizing the hides? I'd guess they would make great bait. Do you ever use snares for your beaver? Glad to see you got the young ones out giving you a hand. Keep it up and be safe.

AKHowler. I cut the blubber up to make seal oil but not long later asked my Native brothers from Mekoryuk about that and they said they only keep the skins on those ribbon seals. Blubber and meat too strong for humans. Give them to the dog team. So, that’s what I’m going to do.

It makes sense. Anything with real dark meat has a lot of iron in it. Iron as an element is an oxygen grabber. Animals like pronghorn antelope, ptarmigan, and these ribbon seals need to get away very quickly and dive deeper than the other seals, so they need lots of iron to store that oxygen. Even jack rabbits have lots o& iron, and river otter need it for diving.

As for snares on beaver I found it to be quite a hassle in our very cold temps and thick ice. To set those snares on a pole you need to be pretty much gloves off...which is kind of impossible up here. Also, when snared the beavers float to the bottom of the ice. That’s not good to finally find out that you connected after so many snares were tripped...and that thing is super stuck in the ice. Now you gotta chop a huge hole, only to find out that you actually chopped some holes in the hide....you know the story. Nope. Ain’t messin with that. Just use a couple 330’s ain’t the run at the lodge entrance and maybe a couple more at the bank den and kill em at the bottom.

Back to seal, I don’t use it for bait very much. If an animal gets a hold of the meat or find a glob of oil, they’ll roll around in that stuff and there ain’t no soap in the. World that can get that stuff out very thoroughly. Beaver bait is the best I’ve found for marten, gulos, fox, and lynx.

Thanks for sharing and the reply. I hear ya on the smell of the seals for bait.

I used seal oil on marten poles years ago and did quite well with it. Only on the pole tho. You could tell it lasted as the poles would have other animal hair on them when I came back in the fall.
mt

Good doings, I hope you pass your 50 mark!

Was able to get 7more since the last post. Including one hog. Then it got cold. -15. Slowed down and picked up 2 more. My daughter came in from college. Saved her 15 lodges. We’lol see what happens during Christmas break now that it’s going to warm up to zero degrees.

Any ideas on recipes? I think I’ll try a young one in the pressure cooker. Also I may tan the small ones on call “toilet seat covers” with the Trubond 1000B. Any tips for that?
The first pic is of an otter set on a hillside above the first beaver lodge on our peninsula 20 years ago. I set it upside down and hollow out a spot directly under the dog so it has freedom to move. I also set the connibear o two short dead sticks to keep it from freezing to the snow. Caught an otter in that set last week.

Next pic is of the ocean seven miles down the coast at Sdie Creek. Who’da thought we’d still have open ocean in mid December above the Arctic Circle?

I think the next one is of a couple pastor friends of mine from ChangePoint Church in Anchorage. This was the day we caught 5. Only have seven traps under water.

Next pic might be of the big dark beaver I got from a lodge a few miles behind town. First time I got a naturally dark beaver back here. Hopefully it’s genes will pass on as I have left the others live in that house

Last one is the pile I still have to skin. It’s like Night of the Living Dead on my steps.

A few more pics. First one is of the castors drying on my stairwell. Keeps the boys who wanna date my daughters afraid...if you know what I mean. Just point to those with a little buck knife and say that’s what happened to the boys who didn’t bring them back in time. 😎👌

Next one is of the hog I got. Haven’t weighed him yet but it’s gotta be over 55.
Next is on of me, Charlie from Tanana, and my lovely wife. He was standing for salmon at AFN. I was standing for Alaska.

Can’t remember what the fourth pic is of as it won’t let me see them. But the last pic is of a commercial fishing boat coming in to sell with a load.

Ok. That fourth pic was of an old ice block saw our first missionary to Kotzebue created. His name was Robert Samms. He and Carrie came up around 1889. Pre-beaver time, the lakes behind town were safe to drink from and get ice. It was a major chore in the winter, and even became a job for some. WTH this home made ice block machine, one can make some good cents. Got this pic from a friend who also was a pastor back in the 50’s. The pic below is of Mr. Samms. He was very creative and had a lot of ingenuity.

Looks like you are staying busy with all those beavers! That ice cutter is a neat contraption and looks like it would work well. It always amazes me to see what creations people can come up with in remote locations.

Good luck keeping the boys away from your girls! If those drying beaver castors dont do the trick I am not sure what will.

Muskrat 411, I have a good dozen old seal oil buckets that I've been saving up for qavviks. Gonna notch them and put wire on the bottom to hold beaver bait.

Ryan, yes. The beaver have moved through Kotzebue and way up north now. Kivalina, Pt. Hope, way up in the mountains towards Utqiagvik now too. Way up in the sheep mountains. Boy I would love to live up there, alright. Jeremiah Johnson country up there! Eagle nests on the cottonwood trees, sheep grazing on the south-facing slopes during the day. Wolf packs roaming, qavviks going from creek to creek, whistling marmots in the spring big as a badger. Now there's lodges up there in those grand valleys that no human sees except for pilots.

I will save some lodges for re-population, but what happens is the beaver are so abundant south of us that they come up this way each spring with the melt. They swim along the peninsula banks until they find a valley. Once they do they populate our peninsula like ants. I wonder sometimes though about these lodges that I did trap out with the full feed piles. I wonder if it's too much work to remove the stale willows that no beaver ate. I notice that some move into those lodges, but not for long, they make a new one nearby with its own feed pile. I try to trap the bank dens for just mom and dad if I can, but finding them is quite tricky. Otters help me find them. Wherever they make holes in the bank, that's where there's a bank den. Too bad I didn't have a pet otter!

Have a Merry Christmas, everyone! As of today the sunlight is gaining! We're on the sunny side of the year.

Cool stuff!

Not a recipe, but an observation......My wife uses the same pot for Beaver cooking. You'll get a rime on the sides that is not easy to remove, and can 'add flavor' to the next meal cooked in it.


You more like the guy I know with that shaved face....I was totally wondering who you were when we bumped into each other in Barrow.....LOL!!

Good to see your doings.

Blessings ,thanks for pictures

Well. Got three more beaver today with my youngest son. Going out tomorrow to set more lodges with my daughter who’s come home from college.

A few days ago my youngest son Tyler saw a weasel down by my beaver carcasses downstairs. He wanted to try to shoot it with a BB gun but I told him,You’ll shoot your eye out, kid!” 😁. Couldn’t help it. Anyway. We found an old 110 connibear and I made a set out of a mandarin orange can. Used some tin snips to cut some flaps to hold the inside jaws. We put some smelt chunks in the can for bait. We also put some small chunks of prime rib on the triggers. I told Ty I didn’t think we would catch him, seeing as he has about 200 pounds of beaver carcasses on the floor to eat. But he kept checking it with enthusiasm. One night he couldn’t sleep he was thinking about his set so much. I told him now he knows how I feel with all my traps out there.

Sure enough just before we went out today he checked his trap and he caught that little marauder! He was so excited! I knew that he was hooked on trapping for sure. We skinned it out tonight. Gonna tan it up with some Trubond 1000B.

Awesome!!!!!

I think the beaver will not use the old houses as they are infested with flees from the previous tenants. So it is easier to build a new one then clean the fleas out

You mentioned smelt for bait in the ermine set (BTW, tell your son congrats), I'm just curious if your smelt smell like cucumbers? There seem to be several different kinds of smelt, I really like the "cucumber fish" variety, don't care so much for the mushy, hooligan type.

Congrats on the weasel. Pretty cool set just like a mini wolverine bucket. The cucumber fish are rainbow smelt

Yes, Waggler. Cucumber smell. Very good eating, especially fried. We get them right in front of the house. Gotta be right place at the right time with those things though.

Yes, Ryan. I learned to use these Food Service cans from a marten trapper in a nearby village. When school is going on, I check the menu my kids bring home. When there's good fruit cans, I go to the dumpster and pick up the empty Food Service cans. Bring them home (they're usually in boxes of 6). I finish taking off the lids to all, give the cans a good rinse, then I take two cans, cut the bottom off of one of them, make some slats on the lip of the bottom one and join the two cans. Then put a couple self-tapping screws in the slats.

For marten you have to pretty much use two cans connected together in this way. One can is too short, IMO. Once the cans are joined, I place the joined can facing up on a table and place a set 110 conibear on it, mark it with a magic marker where the coni jaws touch the can. Then I take the coni off and cut the slits with tin snips. I usually leave one big flap on the left side where I'm going to screw the can set to a tree. Then when I get out into the trees, I scrape a bit of bark with a hatchet, nail or screw the can onto the tree with at least two nails or screws. I have it facing up just a bit so the bait could stay way at the back. Then I put some beaver or lynx chunks in the can, put the trap on, secure it with the flaps, wire the 110 to a branch, put a little bit of Gusto on the branch above, tie a flagging on the tree and do the next set. Sometimes I cut a small, thin tree and attach it to the tree so a marten can climb it and go right into the can. Make it a little easier.