Robert what do you do with your off coloured cats and the titty bellied females?
Hats or dress them?

I grade the cats,send the good belly cats to the auction and send the off colored or early ones to tanner.
I sell them tanned to people who want a wallhanger and also make hats,also use lynx for fashon hood trim on capes and trim on otterskin mitts.

Boco, was that your thread I found in the archives about how to deal with cat teats? If so, it was pretty slick!

Boco, you’re the man!

Just got caught up on the last few pages of your thread, you’re the best at fur handling I’ve seen.

Wicked job on those wolves! That pile of Marten and Lynx look awesome!!

Thanks JP.
Wish you were closer I would give you some buisness like shakey.

No that wasnt my thread,but I knew about cutting out the stained fur around teats on the nursing female cats as long as the stain isnt too big.

you go an amazing job handling fur. i really enjoyed your tanning thread. Do you make and sell mittens? otter skin mitt with lynx trim would be awesome.

-38 here today. Probably gets some sets out for lynx in the next week or so.

Snared wolf number 9 today-number 4 from this particular pack.
Good sized Tawney male.

nice!

Boco what are you putting in ears when you’re skin side out on them lynx to prop them ears up? Cardboard insert?

The head looks huge in that second picture. Amazing to me how big they are.

Yea a piece of cut out cardboard to keep them up to dry.
Then I Dampen the cartilage and work it a bit to soften it for turning when I turn the skin.

Yea they got a big noggen on them.And big feet.

Man I'm envious! I got about 100 snares scattered about and can't catch nothing!

Snaring is like trapping.
When trapping you have to place the pan where the animal is going to put its foot.
In snareing you have to hang the loop where the animal is going to stick his head.

Nice wuff! You're really getting them this season. Typical year or better than normal?

I usually set for a few each year,but from the sign and talking with other trappers they are overpopulated this winter,which is not healthy for the line.
So I decided to target two packs,one on my sons line and one on my north line.
I normally take 2 or 3 each year.when trapping hard in my younger years i took more since I covered a lot more country back then.My best year was 13 from one trapline.There used to be more trappers snaring wolves back in the day.Seems like some today find them too hard to catch and skin,that is their excuse anyway,then they wonder why their lines dont produce good numbers of fur,lol.One wolfpack will cover several traplines,and one trapline can have 2 or 3 packs using different parts of a trapline.There are 2 packs that use my sons line and 3 packs that I know of that use the two lines I trap up north.
There are still a few good wolfers in Cochrane Kap and Hearst,some young guys too.And a few who take one or two every year to help keep their lines healthy.
I learned most of my methods from Ovila Sylvain,Yvon Arseneault and Arthur Dussault.

Good explanation. Do you have an idea how many wolves in each pack? Do you ever try to eliminate a pack or just thin it down?

Most packs are 5 -7.They rarely get bigger than that here.
Some years they get 8-12 not often though.In those years you see large packs all over where you would see normal smaller packs.This is one of those years here.
I have not noticed the actual number of packs go up just the numbers in each pack.
Pack boundaries are pretty well defined when the packs are mature and healthy.You dont have to kill all the wolves in a pack to wipe it out.Once you decimate the pack especially if you get the two Adults along with one or two two year olds or a pup or two that pack is done.If an adult is left it may strike out on its own into poor country where it has less of a chance to cross another pack where it would be killed.Any young wolves left will be killed by an adjacent pack that will move into the weakened packs territory.Packs are always testing each other at the marking spots that are maintained in certain spots.These spots are easy to see in the fall and winter with the large amount of sign left there on a regular basis.It is similar to a beaver territorial castor mound where one colony will cover up the other colonys scent then add their own.Why these mounds get so big.Once you wipe out one colony of beaver the other beaver will know that they can expand their boundary from the lack of activity at the territorial castor mound.Wolves mark their territory in a very similar way-Its how they communicate.As soon as wolves detect a weakness they move in.
Loner wolves are easy to catch in winter if you come across one,as they take big risk to get food,since they are almost always starving and in rough shape.Sometimes an old wolf will be on its own for no reason other than leaving the pack or being displaced.