Hello all, welcome to my thread. This will be my main thread to post updates and pictures of my outdoors adventures. A little about myself, I have lived in the village for most of my life and enjoy living a subsistence lifestyle. My family and I work very hard to gather and put away food throughout the year such as: moose, caribou, birds, seal, beluga, berries, greens and many others. I've also been a commercial fisherman for most of my life. Salmon is a very important resource for rural Alaska whether you're a commercial fisherman getting a dollar amount for your product or a subsistence fisherman putting away a food that will feed and provide nourishment to your family for the winter. As for trapping, I will admit I have a lot to learn. I've made a few small "lines" in recent years that have resulted in some success, but I strive to become a better trapper and will take all the advice I can on this website. To start, here are a few pictures to introduce you to my Norton Sound adventures.





















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Awesome pics. Trying my best to guess which village you’re in. Checked out your previous posts. Figured it out. I lived there in 2000-2003. Miss trapping around there.

You should be very familiar with this village Mike.

BB I sure thank you for those pictures .Doubtfull that i will ever get to see that country in this life so you filled the gap !!

Great pictures and welcome aboard Bunbun! Looking forward to seeing more of your adventures and life out there.

How far do you have to go for caribou and burbot? What fish are you catching through the ice?

Thanks bronco.

Caribou don’t travel down to our village anymore so we have to travel a ways to hunt them. I think about 260 mile roundtrip is what we were doing last year. We have some burbot in our river here but you only see them in the late fall. The bigger fish we catch through the ice are dollies and the smaller ones we fish for right by town are tomcod and smelt.

Good update this morning.

On the board for fur this year with 2 marten from last nights check. I use mostly bridger 155's for marten with wood boxes. I've been experimenting, setting them different ways and looks like they all work.

Looks like you are set for winter with that variety of meat! Congrats on being on the board! Look forward to reading about your adventures and thank you for sharing!

Is that huge animal, (with the woman in the picture working on it), a walrus?

Welcome BunBun.

Will be fun tagging along with you here.

Nice catches

That would be a bearded seal. That picture is up in Kotzebue when I went hunting with my brother and some buddies. Up there bearded seals are gutted then put back in the boat and then processed at home. Where I'm from I like to break down most of the breaking down and cleaning on the ice. Just an example of how different regions and villages do some things differently.

Thanks. Those Bearded Seals look huge. Don't have those in southeast.

Will be fun to watch your adventures. I spend a lot of time on the lower Yukon area. Buying antlers and trapping again this year.

Update time.

I pulled some gear that I had set for a quick early season soak. Got a marten and a couple beaver from that area. I started to expand my other line that picked up another marten. I've got some high hopes for my next check, saw some promising sign.

I think I will be setting my boxes with the trap facing down from now on. I had a trap that was snapped that caught a marten last check in a trap facing up box. It looked like there was short marten hair from the head pinched in the corner of my 155. I've never had that happen with the trap facing down sets.

Your boxes look good. Are they stackable?

Perhaps you should use some footholds.

Thanks milkcrate. Yeah they stack. I'm making another batch of boxes with my new and improved design. Like the username btw, milk crates are one of my go-to wolverine sets.

Nice marten

I started out using footholds and there's no doubt they do the job. I favor the coni's though because they're so efficient and easy to set. Also, I was getting a lot of bycatch with the foothold even though I had my bait under the pole and trap in the right location.

Thanks Bruce. I've seen a wide variety in our marten color out here, I prefer the darker ones for sure. I will have to find a picture of one of my first marten. It was very pale and just a monster!

Would like to see that

I would like to see some pictures of your new and improved design. Maybe you could post a few?

Great stuff, love it!

Did you ever have trouble with birds with boxes facing up?

You got it milkcrate. Should be done with them some time this week. Waiting for some hardware cloth in the mail. Mail to rural Alaska is painfully slow.

It was my first time setting them that way this season and nothing yet. I’ve gotten birds in 330 cubbies/crates, down facing marten boxes, but mostly marten pole sets.

Good stuff

Great pics.

Who is this? I don't recognize her.

Here is the western Akaska version of the white 17 snare pole set. Try it only with a decent spruce tree.

Update time.

Ran the gear yesterday, I don't have much out right now only about 16 marten sets. We had some negative temps a few days ago followed by high winds and freezing rain, and when I checked yesterday it was 34 and raining. I got soaked after driving through wet brush and rebaiting and adding more lure to my sets. Most of the sets are protected from the weather, the one that weren't I wiped down and hopefully they all function after it freezes. I pulled 4 marten out, which was a pleasant surprise. I haven't seen sign of bigger furbearers moving around too much yet but I'll start setting for those soon. I've relocated from my normal trapping country this year so I'm still trying to put in some trail so I can get more sets going. It's still very bumpy out there, there's some snow but not enough to cover all of the rough tundra and brush yet. All in all I feel like it was a good day out in the country. I'm a working man with a young family so I don't have as much time as I want but I make do. I'm hoping as it gets smoother, trips will be faster and I can bring the family on some trips.

I've conducted a little experiment last weekend while setting some gear. I set my coni boxes next to some proven pole sets with footholds. Same bait, and lure smack in the middle of them. Here's the results

Little hard to see the pole in this one but its back there. That one was was set by the original set maker, Clarence Jr.

This one had a beaver foot with good meat on the bone on the pole and the box had a little chunk of beaver meat with fur.

Both sets are still set with fresh bait, I'll keep you guys informed.

As promised. My first marten I got when I was in high school. Hanging on the wall in my mother's house.

That is a super pale marten! Interesting your boxes seem to be attracting the marten more than the pole sets are. They must be some curious critters.

Does that crab trap you posted with the wide entry fish well?

It does well. I like it better than a regular circle shaped pot with just a 16 inch round entry.

Very nice.Love having the feet left on them.

Here's my new and improved design. Pretty much the same as my last ones but I made one side of the box longer so that it's easier to put screws in it onto a tree. I used 18 ga. staples this time too compared to finish nails and glue. They should be a lot sturdier.



I use these on the inside to hold my bait in. Holds well and quick to change bait.

My 155 fits nice in there it'll fit a belisle 120 also and regular 120s. I could've made it a little narrower but better to be on the safe side so my springs wont jam in there.

Nice, those look good. I build mine to fit a 155 with a little wiggle room also, 120's work good in them too. It does bug me that there's a gap when I use a 120, but I don't want 2 different size boxes. I started making mine with a long side for fastening purposes too, way easier than trying to put in screws or especially nails inside a box.

Looking good.

Thank you. Those look great. Is the wire screen just held in by pressure?

Is there room for the trigger to lift and fire? Picture looks like it is tight to the lid.

Those are nice looking boxes that you built. Well thought out with the fitment of multiple trap sizes and bait retention.

Not to redirect your thread, but I have an aversion to driving nails or screws into live trees. Reason being is the amount of sap that they will weep is crazy, and I go out of my way to keep pitch off of my fur at the sets.
Something to consider, drill two sets of four holes through the bottom of your boxes to wire them to the tree or pole. This also allows them to swivel a bit when bears smack them around during the off season.

Yeah it pretty much wedges in there, I bend the edges so it gives it a little bit of spring pushing against the box. I cut a hole in the middle to so I can put my finger inside and pull it out.

Hey viking, I know the picture doesn’t show it that good but there is room for the trigger to engage. I push the trap in til there’s a bit of room on one side and I’ll bend the springs up towards the trigger so the bottom jaws are touching but the top still has a gap.

Weekend update:

Still rough country out there so it's pretty slow travelling. I got some more sets out and picked up some more fur. Didn't seem like there was a whole lot of action with the warmer temps this week. I'm expecting more volume this week with the lows dipping into the negatives. I've been using a lure with a strong lingering sweet smell which seems to be doing a good job so far. I'd alternate using the sweet and then a skunky lures when I first set and found the sweet was doing better. My brother and Junie gave me company this trip and it was a good day out in the country.

An update on the experiment:
The boxes are still undefeated against the poles 3-0. The poles were nice and dry with no snow this time. There are 3 more sets that I added to the experiment. I think it's just a matter of time that we'll see out hanging off a pole. But so far the boxes are on a hot streak.

Nice marten

That is a pretty neat design you got for your boxes!

good eyes Viking
Field modifications; a little run with the chainsaw tip cuts a grove so that the dog can rise to overcome this problem

Overdue update:

I got a couple checks in since my last update. Both my best checks so far.
Wednesday I went out on a chilly below zero day. I had plans to fill some gaps between sets and brought more boxes, but somewhere along the line when I was swapping traps with fur in them to empty traps I lost the bit for my impact driver. This was my very first ride with my brand new snowmachine and remembered I had the tool with a phillips head on it. I went to my next set that had a marten and went to use the tool to release the trap. The head on the tool snapped off the instant I applied torque to it. The day was getting longer and I figure I won't set any more boxes now that I'm out of tools drive screws in. I had to use the back of my axe to remove the washers holding my fur filled traps the rest of the trip.
Yesterday I went out and freshened up my sets with some lure and made sure the bait was still good. I was able to get a few more sets out also and it was just a gorgeous day.
Good news for all the traditionalist trappers keeping track of my body grip vs foothold experiment. There was one set that a marten had preferred the foothold over the box. On another set, the box had an unsprung trap dangling with no bait inside and next to it, a marten caught in a foothold. This week the boxes barely came out on top with a 3-2 record, making it 6-2 on the season.

An interesting set I made that paid off.

One of the double sets. You can see a marten had went up the pole and snapped a snow covered trap.

Beautiful sunset on the way home.


A great first ride on my new snowmachine. Love these 4-stroke widetracks. I got rid of my previous one, same exact model that I put 12,000 miles on.

Nice catch of marten

Good catches! Look at all those marten tracks under that double setup!

I am with you on the Expedition 4strokes. I have a wide track and a SWT both with the 900 ACE love them.

I've always told myself I'd buy a brand new sled someday, and then always end up putting money into my boat instead. Maybe next year...the old powder special is gonna have to carry me through another winter lol

10 marten in 1 check? How many traps you check? You need to get more traps out. Those 10 are something between 500-700 bucks. That will help pay for a new snogo!

Great catch. What do you need the impact for, as to switching out traps?
I had my coni's rigged with cable, and a snap/carabiner to the anchor on tree.

Those of us who earn our living on a power saw greatly appreciate you. I can't tell you how many beautifully ground chains I've annihilated because of a nail or a piece of wire left in a tree. And the trapper in me totally understands, the timber cutter in me wants to hit that guy with something heavy lol

So for now I've got a screw and washer securing my trap chain. I've got some swiveling clips on their way I'm going to start using. They're the same ones on the savageau's that clips right to the spring. As for the screws and nails in trees, you guys must understand I'm in an very remote area. I take my traps and boxes back after every season. Most of the timber I tap into are in a burn area so they are pretty dry.

I used to make boxes with a long end to put a screw through, which worked pretty good. But when I started making tapered boxes that nestled, I went to drilling a hole in the box a couple inches from the end. I just sink a screw halfway into the tree and then hang the box on it by the hole i have drilled, then drive a screw tight at the mouth of the box, this holds the box tight to the tree and the one it is hanging on through the hole keeps it from moving. Works great and is faster to put up, plus I can cut all pieces the same length when making the boxes and they nestle well without a long side.

That's a good idea bearcat, might have to try a few that way.

Update time:

Things have really slowed down for me this week after having such a good week before. There's hardly any sign anymore and there's just no action. It'll be interesting to see what happens after this weird warm storm were having now. High winds, almost 40 degree temps and rain. I'm hoping after it cools off again that the marten start to move around again. I got a few more sets out over the week but nothing crazy yet. No pictures this week, and no marten in the double sets for the experiment.

Well dang! Time to move and change your target species maybe! Probably losing snow, eh? South river?

Update time:

It's been awhile. I picked up a couple more marten but it's very slow going. I've been pretty busy around the village so I haven't been able to put in trail and get more sets out. It's also been blowing hard since Saturday. Constant winds around 30 and some peaks above 40 with gusts to 60. I found that the marten aren't hiding from the wind in my boxes because I picked up my first goose egg check on Sunday. There hasn't been crazy sign out there, like there was when I was getting good numbers. There are a couple wolves hanging around that I need to make some sets for. It has been pretty bleak on the trapping scene for me.

In other news, I started up a youtube channel. I have one video out about blackfish traps, it's a little rough but now I know where I need to improve. I also have a couple cool shorts of some hunting. I'll start doing some on my trapping also. So if you get some time, check it out! Here's the link.

Chiroskey Outdoors YouTube Channel