Good luck the the northern MN guys today. Keep your boots dry because it is COLD out today. I have 17 degrees this morning and can’t wait to go play in the water.

Be Safe Brother!

Ice chisels A-HOY
Good luck

What do you plan to target? Mink, rats, otter, or under ice beaver? I am in the tropical zone and have to wait another week for water trapping so most likely everything but the creeks will be iced over.

We put out 32 sets for rats and mink before I ran out of enthusiasm. I guess we did put out 1 beaver set in case there is a traveling beaver cruising by. There were NO fresh tracks that we saw today. If we have 10 rats tomorrow I will be happy.

Update on success (or lack of)? Any pics or stories? Tough conditions for sure. I hope you guys had some fun and excitement anyway.

Conditions are about as tough as they get and the critters don’t appear to be moving. I haven’t seen a coon track in a week. I have never had to use a chisel to make a beaver set on opener. One main creek I set hard the landowner tore out a beaver dam Saturday mid day. Everything upstream of the dam was 2 feet above water yesterday and everything downstream was under 2 feet of water. 2 day check total is a whopping 9 rats. Pretty bleak!

I'll sure give you guys lots of credit for being out there under those conditions. Land trapping can't be any better. I do see some coon tracks, however, in my yard from last night by my bird feeder.

we're headed for a warm up though into the low 50s possibly.

I'm only helping landowners and going to Trap for otter and fisher in their seasons.

just set out some dryland traps yesterday, from the snow that was coming down we will see if they will produce their first night though the rest of the week it should be warming help which will help with movement

First time in almost 50 years I skipped opener. Tough weather conditions make you appreciate the good ones, but really, there all good.

We are using the terrible conditions and even worse fur prices to play with bottom edge sets and blind sets more. It seems like a good year to “practice” new things or at least try to get better at them.

And there you go. I have around 150 sets still hanging on the shed walls, another 150 of Rally’s snares on another wall, and there all staying right there. The cage traps may go out when cat season opens, we’ll see. Don’t need the exercise, don’t need anymore experience. Well, the experience part may be a stretch...

Osky

I managed to get right around 100 sets put it over the weekend. Mostly pockets and bottom Edge sets on rivers. A decent amount of them were already iced up today when I checked them. Ended up with one otter, a beaver, and three rats. Lots of miles for a little pile of fur.

Looks like there are some rats on the Miss. river this year, so I will be out there after them. The good news is the weather is going to moderate for a week or so with no ice.

It is going to “moderate” here too but not enough to thaw. I can ALMOST walk on the ice in shallow water. I did stay on top at one spot and walked up and on a beaver house and that is moving water!

I can't trap any more. I am going to sell most of what I have eventually. The staff assault in 2018 has had too many complications.

Huh?

We scratched out 1 mink and an otter in a beaver set today. Not very good. I like to wait another month for otter but Belisles are pretty unforgiving.

Belisles are unforgiving!

Great photos!