Another windy day. It was very gray with the clouds and wind blowing snow everywhere. The moose kill is pretty much cleaned up by the ravens, but the wolves came around the area just not back to the kill. They are able to walk on the crust and avoided the snares. I did put another trap out on my trail. With the moose pretty much picked clean the ravens moved back to my carcass pile. (I guess ravens prefer fresh moose meat to a frozen wolf carcass if they have a choice.) I think the ravens, their commotion, and probably even their smell really helps to bring in the wolves. It peaks their curiosity and gets their attention in their search for food.
After each snare catch I have been replace the snare on the trail about 10-20 feet from where the other one was. It worked out for me for connecting with another about 20 ft from where I caught #7.

Wolf #11 90 lb Female



Checked my beaver houses and only had one bait taken. At the last house, as I was walking up, I could see some fur that looked to be a small beaver, but was an otter. I wouldn't mind catching otters in my beaver sets if they didn't always make such a mess of things. After I got it all chopped out I didn't have more bait handy as I thought I had left some there. Between the lack of handy bait and the mess the otter made I decided to wait to remake it.

Good sized otter




On the way home, I was making trail behind a beaver house that I haven't set yet and switched the machine from eco to sport mode, dropped my sled, and took off. Well I was standing while driving and didn't even see the rock solid drift that went 3 feet straight up. Ouch! A little whip lash and my nose came down on the top edge of my windshield. Glad nothing broke! I plan to set the house up when it isn't so windy.

Good to hear nothing broke on you or the sled Congrats on the fur!

You should make a dvd of your trapping adventures. You got it goin on young man. I look forward to your stories and pics. Glad to hear you are o,k,

Dumb question. If you did get seriously hurt out on the Trapline, how to you get help to come to you?

-Randy-

Yeah, I'm not sure what fix would have been more expensive!



A DVD probably not. I have taken some very short videos of each catch this year and at some point want to compile them for a 5 to 15 minute video, but I haven't edited footage before and don't have a you tube channel.

My trapline is about 25 miles round trip from home. If I go further than that from the village I often have another person with their own machine with me. For safety I always let someone know where I am going and approximate time of return (99% of the time it is my wife) and my wife tracks me on my InReach. The InReach also has an SOS button that I hope I never have to use.

Funny story. . . The day I set up the area where the wolves killed the moose. I called a buddy to come and pick me up as my machine wouldn't start. When I got to the basic location of the kill I took my snares out of my bag and hung them on my handle bars. This way I don't have to go back and forth between the machine and my sled and therefore spend less time on location leaving scent. At one spot I grabbed two snares and had to untangle thing from some of the wiring on the machine. No big deal. I set it up and came back to my machine. Lifted the kill switch and pressed the power button on my 3 year old Skandic widetrack 600 ACE. The dash lights came on but that was it. I tried again and same thing. I flipped the kill switch off and on again and tried again. Still just dash lights. I then lifted the back seat to make sure the battery was as it should be. It looked fine, but i retightened everything anyway. Same results. At this point I messaged my wife and a buddy and told them the situation. My friend answered almost immediately that he was on his way. I was glad because I didn't feel like walking. In the mean time I considered that maybe the starter went out and that if I tapped it while hitting the start switch maybe it would turn over the machine. So never seeing it actually done I tried this many different ways. Same results. By now I was spending way too long (IMO) in the location of the just set wolf snares, but not much I could do. After a bit I walked back to the main trail. Before I got there I could already see my ride. He picked me up and we went to the snow machine to check it out again. He looked at the battery. He looked and tapped on the starter. We were closing up the side panels when he says, "Oh, here!" I looked up as he was putting the key (I think it has a chip in it or something) back in place. I probably haven't touched that key but once in the three years owning the machine, so it never crossed my mind. The machine started right up! Boy, I felt dumb! I also felt relieved to not have to walk back or spend money for a fix.

I then followed him to check some of his wolf snares and sure enough, he had snagged a good sized male. Sure is good to have friends and a wife who cares. My wife also was going to send help, but it was unnecessary as it was already on its way. Moral of the story- When hanging snares on your handle bars make sure they don't pull your key out so you don't have to spend a lot of time in a prime wolf snaring location. The wolves haven't been back on that trail since.

It's the simple things that often foul you up. I remember a friend once whose fourwheeler died while trying to load it on the trailer where he parked his truck. He had been trying to start it for about an hour and did everything he could think of, including changing the spark plug. No fire. Hefinally got ahold of me on the cb. I showed up and in the process of helping him load it on the trailer by hand to take home and work on there I happened to notice that he had somehow managed to hit the kill switch while driving and switch it to the off position!