Mike I think I have to face reality here. Len tells me that there isn't really enough fur here where we live to turn a profit. There are a handful of wolves and wolverine. The only numerous thing I have come across are coyotes. And I can't do a full time trap line either. So it becomes a hobby and a bucket list kind of thing. Time in the wilderness. Learning. Exercise. It is all just really good for me. And yes, there is something inside me that is always pursuing growth and excellence. I feel I have something here I can really build on. Next season I will be looking for two or three of each, and I think that is realistic. Some day when I grow up, I might even take a winter and go up north somewhere and find a niche, and really do it up right!

Good Job nice to see your dreams all come together

My first wolf skull. Quite a set of chompers! Tooth and fang! I am gonna get this guy beetled for my collection. Just like the predator - yeah.



Not that I need a record, but gun guys have Boone and Crocket. Bow hunters have Pope and Young. What do trappers have, huh? I think we all get a charge out of getting something really big. We love the anomalies. I like this guy no matter what, cuz he is my first. But I like to know how he stacks up too :-)

I will always be looking for unique specimens no matter what. I will admire them no matter what the size. It's all about the entire experience.

I like your attitude WH.
You will go far Pilgrim

Congrats on your wolf, nice when the plan comes together! Too bad about the lice, is there any way to salvage some of it? Shoulder mount?

Pretty rough shape in the neck and ears too. I'm going for a better one, and ok with that! My wife was going bananas having it around. She was fearful that our three mutts were gonna catch the lice, ya know. I was not living in fear that way, but it was probably smart to minimize the impact around here. Mostly with the wife, if you know what I mean. It was easier to just be done with it fast and I am cool with my decision.

Nice work Tim and congrats. Too bad about the fur but at least he won't be eating anymore moose, deer or goats. Persistence pays off..

As for the trapper's record books, your pics and name are all over T-man. What else do ya need. We are the behind the scenes, step-children, predator control specialists that make it possible for the folks of the B&C, P&Y, Safari club and others to harvest their trophies, pay their money and put their names in the record books. Make sure to join your local trappers association, participate, and be proud of what we do.

Be safe and enjoy the rest of your season..

Mostly I was just funning.

Hey guys - the good news is my ears (mostly) stopped ringing after putting a wolf down with the .454 Toklat. I never want to do that again.From now on, it is either target practice with hearing protection, or doing battle with a bear, and if that's the case, I don't think I will notice or care anymore.

I went yesterday and did a few "tweaks" on my line. Adjusted some snares and leg holds as the snow decreases and the ground melts. One week left and I pull out. It can still happen.
It was a beautiful day to be outdoors. I see many posting end of the year pics and comments. It has been a wild ride and part of me can't wait for November. Hate to hurry life along as it is already flying by too fast, but...

Well - I would say that the end of the trapping season was rather "anti-climactic" - if it weren't for the absolutely perfect day yesterday!

Yes - I pulled all of my traps yesterday. The wolves had just been through the previous week, and I wasn't really expecting much. Everything looked about the same. Snow is gone, so no tracks, but for coyote tracks on the sand bars, in-between rock, in the mud, and so on. One coyote stepped mere inches from one of my leg-holds - his lucky day. Coyotes are the most numerous predator in my area, and perhaps I will "get after them" a little more next season.

Other than the boat ride, I was in my T-Shirt all day! The water was calm, and so turquoise/blue. The sun shone all day - brilliantly, lighting up the snowy peaks which contrast with the dark green sidehills. No more struggling with deep snow - but just easy walking on a ground which is still mostly hard. Rivers and waterfalls are starting to get cooking. New birds migrating in and out.

Feels a little bittersweet to be done, but I'm excited for the next season, and my planning for that. I'm satisfied with having met all of my primary goals.

You won't see me on here as much as summers get crazy busy with work - but I will get on T-man from time to time and post some adventure stuff, salmon, halibut, wildlife photos, stories, and the like. Things will get cooking again in September when I draw the line in the sand and say "enough work for awhile - time to play!" I plan to play the vast majority of the month of September. October too. Currently researching a DIY Caribou/Moose hunt of some kind - yet to be determined. Also gonna hit the duck hunting pretty hard this fall.

You did well, WH. Congratulations on a hard-won victory.
Thanks for the ride-along.

This place gets pretty quiet during the summer, so won't miss much. You'll probably do pretty well next year.

Headed down to MN for a visit. Some of my favorite spring activities are hunting wild turkey, and bow fishing. Nephews are texting me every day, chomping at the bit. Pals are getting the carp boat ready. It will be time for a little carnage. Stay tuned. I will try and share a few photos as it happens but this is typical for what we do.



That's my boy!!!

Also helping my elderly momma get her summer place in order - yard work and gardens and gutters and the like.

Some work too.

That looks like a good time.

Hi Folks! It's been awhile - but time for me to pick up where I left off. Many of you helped, and followed me on my first trapping season in Alaska. My quest was for my first wolverine; secondarily, I wanted to catch a wolf. Surprisingly, the wolverine came quickly - in the first two weeks. I managed to catch a 33# male in a #330 conibear/cubby set. The wolf took longer. I had some close calls, and a couple bite out of snares, before I finally caught one in a leg hold with the help of Len, Family Trapper. At his suggestion, I baited a downed spruce in a shallow running stream, and low and behold, it worked. For those stories - you will have to look back a ways - but here I am with the results. I have photos of a full, live mount wolverine that I just hung with permission from the wifey. She got a new mantle. I got to hang the wolverine above it. Unfortunately, the wolf itself was very mangy - but I have the skulls from both as "treasure" of my great memories trapping in AK. Hope you enjoy the photos of the treasure. Many of you were in on this with me. Next? Well - I've been waiting for this since I arrived in 2013. Low and behold, they are going to have a limited Lynx trapping season on the KP, and just like the wolverine and the wolf, I've never caught one before. And just like before, I will do what it takes to be successful. It is awesome to have something like this to look forward to.

Looks good.

Thought I might share some of the other activities I have been up to as "catch up" - for a lot has happened since I was last here. Some pretty severe sickness. Some having to travel out to get well again. Some down time for recovery. Some time spent on the comeback trail.

The biggest comeback I made - which I am most proud of, is that I drew a Mountain Goat tag for the Kenai Mountains - across the bay from me. I think draw odds were 3% or less. I think success rate was under 1% based on harvest stats. And upon closer inspection - I could see why. The Halibut Cove district that I drew are some of the steepest, most daunting mountains over there. There are so many areas where you simply couldn't shoot and recover a goat - even if you saw it. It more became a waiting and watching game - biding my time until they came to a spot where I could get at them.

I began climbing the mountains as training during the summer. I was glassing from below, climbing to familiarize myself with the country, and just plain trying to get my body prepared and in shape. I took a lot of pictures during four separate hunts up the mountain. And while most people don't have the luxury - the good thing for me is that I live just across the bay, I have a "long weekend" every weekend, and when the weather permitted for visibility - I could shoot across and hunt. I went up twice alone, unsuccessfully for the goat, but successful as I was always learning. Two friends came from Minnesota to help me. We went up with no goats in sight, got into bad weather, lost our visibility, and came down with a bear instead. Then we hunted more black bears, fished halibut, and worked on my gun build. Before long, my friends had to go home.

Eventually, things settled down at our house, which is a B and B, and the weather improved. I invited John - aka "HFTAK" from Trapperman, to come down and help me get the goat IF the goats revealed themselves and the weather was decent. If not, we were going to help him get some bear. John took me up on the offer, and we hit the ground running. I can't recall how it all went down - but I do know that, because the goats weren't anywhere in my wheelhouse, we went to strictly bear hunting, and John took 3 in 24 hours - including one really good one that was 300-350#, well above average for our area. Then we hunted ducks, and though it wasn't spectacular (early season locals) - we did manage to get John a "bucket list" drake Harlequin while floating into a cove in 3 foot rollers. We trapped the birds, and they had to fly by to get out of the cove. With the boat heaving up and down, John made a great shot. Retrieving the duck was iffy amidst the crashing waves and rocks, but we got er done.

With bear tags full and the waterfowl itch satisfied, John and I spent the next day staining a huge section of our house. I'm super grateful for the help, and my wife was ecstatic about what we accomplished. Later that night while relaxing on the deck, I decided to go get my spotting scope, and just for fun, see if we could spot goats across the bay. Mind you, we were looking for goats 15 miles away - so I wasn't expecting much. Well, we looked, and saw nothing. I moved toward taking a shower. John kept looking. When I emerged in my bath towel, John was pretty excited. "There's goats come into your basin! We gotta be bold on this one. Lets go get the first thing in the morning!"

I wasn't so sure. I knew better than John what we were getting into. And I had only one day left before I had to go to work. But if he was game, I was game. Good help is hard to come by.

We hit the beach at daybreak the next morning. By 1pm, we had reached the summit. We had goats in sight, and I began my stock. I was cliffed out and couldn't get any closer than 450 yards. The first shot hit high, and the target goat ran toward me. When it stopped at 330 yards, I was able to connect with a good heart shot. The goat disappeared amongst the rocks below the knife ridge, and I really wasn't sure what had transpired. I just knew that I had hit it solid.

John had been waiting above me, watching the whole thing happen. When I left him, I had put on my white suit, and stalked 300 yards closer in plain sight of the goats. Now I climbed back up to John. We moved away from the goat, and around the bowl - to a place where it was safe enough to slide down the steep hill on our behinds. I figure we dropped about 600-700 feet elevation in 5-10 minutes. From the bottom, I looked up toward where I thought the goat would be, but there was something in front of me way at the bottom, and in my binoculars - it looked like it could be a goat wedged up against a great big boulder. I made for it, and sure enough, there was my goat. It had bounced and tumbled the same 600-700 feet we had, only though knife ridges of rocks and boulder piles. Unfortunately, both horns were completely broken off. The lower jaw broken; the lower lip pulled away. The face was tremendously scarred up. I've watched most goat hunting videos on youtube, and I had never seen one damaged quite like this. But the meat was ok for the most part, and I was cool with that. Now, time for the work to start.

John and I make a pretty good butchering team. We had already done three bears together. Now we set to the work of skinning the goat, and getting all the edible meat, skin, and skull into packs.
Once that was done, we had to climb back up the mountain in front of us, from the basin we were in - and then several miles downhill to where the boat was moored. We hit alder line at about dark, and put our headlamps on. We slid down a third of the way, fast! But when sliding became no longer advantageous, we carefully made our way down. Since this was my deal, I had the heavier pack. John, with his military training, became my encourager. I think I may have gotten a taste of what it felt like for Jesus to carry the cross, and if it weren't for John, I would have just gone to sleep on the mountain after one of my two dozen collapses.

When we made it to the beach, we were exhausted, out of water and food, and desperate to get to the boat. But the tide had been coming up, and we were several hours later than what I had anticipated, and therefore we were again "cliffed out" - but this time, having to wade in waste-deep water for a third of a mile to get to the boat. Waiting six hours for the tide to go back up and down did not seem worthwhile. We wanted water, food, hot showers, and a comfortable bed. By the time we made it back to Homer - it was between 1-2 am. The whole thing wound up being a 20-hour Iron Man fest.

Now I sit here a grateful man. Another thing to scratch off the bucket list. Glad for the health and comeback. Glad for the help. Glad for the experience and the meat - but not necessarily feeling like I need to do that again. Perhaps I will stick with things closer to flat ground for awhile. Feeling pretty content here. I'm going to tack on a bunch of pictures from the hunt. Any recording of the event stopped when the butchering began. We were in no mood for wasting time; this was a race against time, and for two older farts, a person only has so much energy.

Hope you enjoyed the story. Enjoy the pics.

Got through all of that and realized that I hadn't downloaded my few goat photos from my phone to my computer, where I am posting this.
You were probably all like, where are the goat pics? Why the bear pics?
Well, the bear I picked up on a previous trip. The bear presented itself. There were no goats around. I had help. Can't look a gift horse in the mouth.
Now here's a few shots of me with the goat. The goat tumbled from the knife ridge right above my head in the first picture.

Great pics, they bring back alot of memories. We lived in Homer for 17 years. I met wife there and both of our boys were born there. Plan to come up this summer, maybe we can get together. BTW is that a Gordon setter in the front of your canoe?

Yes Sir. That is my boy Sam Elliott. He is a bird hunting and retrieving fool. Rather OCD
Yeah look us up at Majestic View Bed and Breakfast

We have a 7 month old Gordon. "Rather OCD" is an apt description.