Is everyone done for the holidays? I been living my trapping vicariously following you guys.

Mac

I've just got a few otter sets out. The weather has been making it tough for me to find the motivation to get any coyote sets out after gun season. Maybe over the holiday break, I'll get some out.

With the snow levels going down, I was able to reset some of my ermine boxes that I had to pull earlier. Hopefully they'll produce. I only have eight so far. I normally catch around 20. The heavy snow ruined a lot of the cover where I usually find sign. I think I'll have to pull them if I don't do better this week. Time to set some bottom edges. Good luck all and have a merry Christmas.

I've been catching a few ermine with the kids. Less sign this year, as someone said a few weeks back. no mice, voles, moles or shrews though. Last year I caught over 60 rodents. ill try and get a few otter sets back out if the weather and time cooperate!

Good Luck, have fun and Merry Christmas

Planning on finally remaking my sets today and putting in a few more. Hoping this warm weather will have the coons & possum moving. I think the ermine that was in the shed flew the coop. No sign of him since I set for him

Hung 4 CRs today.

Muskrat no.3 from this BE set. Been checking two cage traps i put out for fisher a week ago with nothing yet.
Even the coon and possum haven't bothered them. It's been a strange season so far.

A lot of old timers wired their traps to rocks. Take a masons hammer and chisel a notch in the corners of the rock so the wire will not slip off the rock.
I make my own "rocks" where drags and stakes wont work.





Others have talked about wiring traps to cinderblocks, brake rotors or other heavy iron objects.
Good luck.

good idea on the rock, hoping to get some weasel boxes out

I caught 2 ermine, 10 mice and 3 shrews Tuesday out of 29 boxes and had some spung as well. The weather is making it tough. The snow is melting but today the roads are black ice and it's supposed to rain tomorrow. Tough year on the ermine line.

Tagged #2 for the year. Bottom edge set, Belisle 220.

Congrats K.S. You must be feeding them good. Looks like another chunky one!

Nice work KS. I haven't even started trying to catch them yet. I had 3 more ermine today so that made me happy. Also had 8 mice and 3 shrews. I had one box totally flipped over and no bait left. I guessing coon but couldn't see any tracks.

I picked up most of the few traps i had out ahead of the storm. Got these rats in BE sets. Looks like I might be ice fishing more than trapping this winter.

Way to go, Walt!

Moosetrot

Nice rats Walt. I just set 33 bottom edge sets yesterday and had 3 rats and a buck mink today. I had to pull half of those traps today because they are way back on the farms and I'm not walking them. I was thinking about ice fishing since the winter hasn't been good to us trying to trap. Good luck fishing.

I had a strange occurrence yesterday checking traps after 8" of new snow. Coyotes are neophobic and steered clear of all my stakes until the one in a small spring run had a rat in the trap. The coyotes circled around the set and finally bounced on the rat for an easy meal. After that, the coyotes travelled to every stake along the swamp edge, checking for another free meal.

Conditioned response.

I lost 4 traps today to coons. Pull the trap over the top of a short stake. Found 2 back. Coon are moving and hungry but this snow will slow them down.

I had 17 bottom edge sets to check today. The snow must have had them moving.