I'm sure that is partly it,a few years back they included the NWA in unit 12 that hurt 125 permits,175 to 200 would be nice,it doesn't have to go back to 350 permits,that was too high,125 is tooooo low.They manage the hunters not the population of the bears,the next few years are going to a real problem with bear conflicts so many sows had twins,triplets and a few with quads,yes all of the cubs won't make it to adult hood.I wish the DNR wildlife division would use more common sense.I'm in the field 50 to 80 a week working and have way too many conflicks with bears in my work,8 to 12 a year is too many,each waste well over a hour out of my day,plus it's dangerous.Like I said earlier have a great weekend on the last two days of our marten/fisher season.

Truth

Amen to that!!!!!

Daylight in the Swamp

Rick
When you say voted down, who is voting it down, the trappers association or has there actually been a bill that gets a vote in the legislature?
Thanks

Kansasace, good to see you taking advantage of the lifetime licenses!! We just got my youngest her lifetime Sportsman and Firearm Deer licenses the week before she turned 4! Now both kids have em and hopefully one or both of them have some interest to utilize them!

No critters here but I’m planning to set for cats after we get back from Xmas. Everyone here’s been sick so I ended up not getting any fisher sets out. Haven’t been seeing much fisher sign the last couple years and the porkies are everywhere which seem to coincide. Happy trapping! ScottW

Between the DNR or legislature has been run through or put on the back burner because of the fight for 220 use every year,Steve would know for sure or your district leader.I know most of the DNR are against it,but they should remember they are working for us,most have forgotten that.

Well I was wrong never saw a fresh marten track today,I did see one really nice big Tom track today about 250 yards east of a cat location set up with a cubby a rub set and a trail set,he was heading that direction.Might see him in person tomorrow???? Saw one fresh smaller wolf track,it came up to the rub set,about 6' and turned around and headed north,I'm glad he didn't check it out closer,there's a Jake hiding under the dry leaves.One more check,hope the martens move tonight.I will keep a couple cat sets out till Christmas if the weather holds and the other spot till the 1st of the year.I'm not sure of the date to head out west,sometime around the 6,7,8 maybe as late as the 9th of Jan.

See fresh fisher tracks today around my bobcat set but did not commit.Animals don't seem very hungry right now

Nothings been voted down on a 3 day check, at least not in recent years. With the makeup of the legislature the last few years, we've just been lucky we havent lost anything trapping related. With republicans now controlling the House, theres a safety net now so theres a possibility of getting some new things passed without the danger of bad things being amended to a bill

Timmy will veto

Nothing in our traps today. Tomorrow is another day. We did see a great gray owl
always fun to see.

Checked our line today with empty traps, had a great day though with sunny skies and not much wind. Temp was really nice at 9. Were able to take advantage of the nice weather and had lunch on the line. Tomorrow is going to be a long day, hate the last day and pulling everything. Wish we had more days!

Nice catches..Awesome bobcat.

Lots of owls here along the border,many greys see 6 to 7 along the shorter line this year.A few snowy owls are showing up as well.K9 man I know you guys had a real late start this season,but still nice your family got out for a few days.Good luck tomorrow,I sure wish they would extend the 9 day season back to 16 days and increase the limit back to 5 or at least 4.I notice when we get these heavy wet snows that hang on everything and bend trees and branches over the marten don't move much.When we set our 8 boxes out they were all on fresh tracks,only one track has been back and that adult male was caught.Hopefully 3 will show back up by tomorrows check and pull.If not it's still been fun running a short line even though we've had 13" of wet heavy snow,made some of the locations hard to get back into.

A few pics from the line

trying again

Fresh snow and cat tracks but not where my sets are but in the same area. Even a couple of fisher tracks, one more night for them guys. I did manage catching one of the highly valuable critters today though.

Nice catch

Goldy has it right. I'm not aware of there ever being a vote for extended checks for snares.

Talking to other trappers, success has varied. We did well.

If anyone is motivated to get non resident trapping passed my suggestion is to go to the capitol at least once a week to lobby to get it done. Go to each and every natural resource committee meeting and be prepared to do it for a couple years maybe more.

Spend the day in the woods chasing the elusive partridge. Today's score partridge zero, Steve 1.

Dark in the swamp for another 3 hours,we'll find out if the martens were on the hunt around our few boxes that we have out.Good luck trapper's.25 for the high today,but no sun again,going to get out and fish a time or two after Christmas and hopefully catching 1 or 2 more bobcats,one should be back through before Christmas....