Finally connected on the fresh scratch. The cat was very skinny and had worms in its very runny stool with lots of grass. The good news about that is the scratch had a very solid turd so that should mean there is another cat in the area. Definitely not a good belly at all, but you cant choose the belly on the cats you catch.

Another location had cat tracks in my boot track form my mid week check, but it went up a small finger ridge instead of following the wash to my set. We put a few more sets in the area so hopefully that doesn't happen again.

Just had a vasectomy on Monday and so I took Tuesday off. Ended up not being as bad as I thought so it gave me more time on Tuesday for my mid week trap check. Drove the quad down a very rocky road and up a rough wash to check out a good looking cat area. Didn't see enough sign to justify the long rough ride so I ended up not setting it. I then checked all my sets with nothing to show for it and still had some daylight so I checked another area. Found a few random cat turds which didn't have me excited, then found this cat track. I followed it a ways to confirm it was a cat, and that got me excited enough to put a couple sets in. On Saturday I'll get the area set better. With the quad working great, hopefully I can get some cats before I pull everything and move to a different range after New Years.

That cat that walked in my boot track came back to give, and got caught in the new set I put in. The best early christmas present ever. A lot better belly than the first cat. Bad news is the ATV crapped out again so now I have to rethink my trapping plan.

nice cat!

trade that pos Polaris for something better

Nice bobcat

Amen. I'm going to replace the stator then sell it and buy a Honda.

now your talking!

Went to a new area that I can get to with my 2wd truck and we weren't disappointment. It seemed like everywhere we looked had fresh turds. One was so fresh it was still attracting flies.

Got the big zero today. I'm sure not like this 2wd vehicle trapping. Definitely limits how much country you can cover. Only have 8 traps out because we can only reach one small area. I need to work on getting the stator replaced in the quad and hopefully it can hold us over till the season ends. The area I'm in has a ton of promise, but I need to cover more ground.

Even with the big zero today, I got to use it as a learning lesson for my youngest son. It's his first trap check that we haven't caught anything. There was a bit of tears at the last trap and a "I did all that hiking today for nothing". That got me a little upset so the mile hike back to the truck, I explained to him why we trap. I explained that catching stuff is just part of it. We get to spend half a day to a day in the mountains every week for 4 months with each other. We get to see God's beautiful creations with no distractions. Whether we catch something or not, we are blessed to do what we do. His attitude quickly changed after that.

Yep, just being out there enjoying the woods and our trapping heritage is what it is all about.

This will be a quick journal. The boys just finished with Football, then start saturday basketball games beginning of January. That leaves us with only December to trap and can only be out half the day on saturday because of practice. I'm still in the 2wd truck. I sold the Polaris from last season because its a polaris and sucks, but people still want to buy them so it wasn't too hard to find a buyer. Ended up buying a dirtbike for me and my son with the plan to sell them before trapping to get a side by side or ATV. Haha but we decided we dont want to give those up, so we are stuck with the 2wd truck for another trapping season. Since we only have a month, it will be fine.

Got out to a spot we let rest last season and I was surprised that we didn't see any sign of other trappers. With high prices on cats last season, I thought for sure the fair weather trappers would be out. I heard from a game warden friend that some areas are over ran with trappers who are causing problems with each other. So I was shocked when I didn't see any obvious trapper sign. Since we only have a small area to trap, we decided to do more hiking and checked some areas that look good on a map, but would take too much time when we do longer lines. We were very excited to see this cats sign......



There is spot we catch a cat most season, but also get sticks put in our traps. I've learned over the years that traps that get sticks in them are normally from people who have dogs with them (for some odd reason it is now legal to do in nevada if you feel you or your pet are in danger). Stolen traps or big rocks dropped on the trap tend to be anti trappers. So I decided to put a cage there with the hopes that dog people wont feel threatened. I have 3 cages but dont get them out as often as I would like so it was nice having a reason to do it.


On the way out I told my 10 year old that if the road was wider, I would let him drive. He told me he still has 6 years before he needs to learn. I grew up on a farm so to me, he should already know how. Then I thought "what the heck" stopped the truck and told him he was driving. He was nervous but realized its not that hard