Along with cold temps what odd/unusual experiences have you had on the trapline?
In 80/81, the same season I had the 50 below day, I was trapping out of a cabin about 20 miles up the Nowitna. The cabin was on an oxbow lake that still had a connection to the river. I only had a dog team in those days. Some days I would leave the oxbow and head down the main river to check a line I had on the other side of the river. Each time I went this way and about 3 miles from the cabin, there would be fox tracks going to the same spot. The fox would dig a little in the snow at that spot. This went on into late Feb. or March when I decided to stop the team and see why this spot was so interesting to the fox.
I kicked snow away and found some moose hair sticking out of the ice. I got my axe out of the sled and kicked more snow away. After some chopping in the ice I found more moose hair and chopping into the hair was meat. I kept working at the ice with the axe and discovered there was a whole moose frozen in there. I went back to the cabin and got my chainsaw, an ice spud, and some rope. I figured I could get that whole moose out of there with enough chipping the ice and using the team to pull on it.
I'm not sure how long I worked at it but eventually I had to be satisfied with about half of the animal. Just couldn't get the whole moose up and onto the ice.So half the moose I think, floated under the ice somewhere downriver. I won't go into detail about what I did with the half I got out, but it didn't go to waste.
The only explanation I could come up with was the moose tried to swim across, or walk across, the river at the wrong time and ended up drowning. It's head was under water so I think it died up river somewhere and where I found it was where the ice it was floating with ended up.

Mike hard to beat your story.

I had been passing this tree all season but when the February sun hit this tree I stopped and still can't figure out what went on. The tree trunk was void of branches almost to the top and the branches were all on the ground at the base of the tree in a pile. There were claw marks that indicated that a bear had did the limbing.

I would have loved to be in visual distance to witness the sound of what went on.

That would have been something to see Larry ! I wonder if a brownie chased a blackie up that tree ?


Mike: i have had two experiences similar to yours. The first one was at a beaver house in a slough I had never been to previously. There was a live bull moose thrashing in an open lead near the slough mouth. He couldn't get out because the ice kept breaking. Eventually he tired and went under except for one antler sticking up. He remained like that all winter.

The second was a cow moose that had come off a cut bank onto glare ice and dislocated both shoulders. Her front legs were at right angles to her body but her back feet were still under her. She could push with her back legs and scoot around a little with her nose on the ice. She looked like a cow catcher on a locomotive. I put a 22 LR behind her ear and ate her.

Found a moose that went through the ice once and there was a small patch exposed where the animals tunneled down inside and were essentially hollowing it out under the ice. Caught a marten once by the hind foot and it was hanging dead/ frozen. A shrew tunneled in through its butthole, the fur was fine. Had a marten squeeze through a trap ring once and had a heck of a time getting him back through it. There was a spot on one of our traplines where there was a mound of rocks and the snow would always melt off it and it would sometimes steam. Just a few off the top of my head

One spring boating up an interior river I seen a marten hanging by its front foot on a pole set. Same thing.....shrews tunneled in through the butt and it was mostly hollow with some freeze drying.
Was a nice conversation piece in my house for several years!

After 45 years of trapping, either I must have just “normal” experiences or my memory isn’t what it used to be.. probably the latter. Only one I can think of is I used to use 40#ish pound test fishing line to hang my wings at lynx sets and one day while pulling up to a set I could see my wing moving and a small blob on the string. I shut the machine off and sat and watched a small vole shimming back up the fishing line from the wing like we used to do in gym class climbing the rope. Was pretty entertaining. I did catch a muskrat once in a cubby that was up on a ridge line, no where near water that I was aware of..

I too have seen that shrew procedure. They are vile creatures !

I had the same thing happen to a beaver under the ice. I set the snares and then the temperature dropped to 50 below for about 8-10 days. Needless to say there was a lot of ice on that hole when I got back to it.
BUT....I had a very large beaver in a snare but something......either little fish or some other small organism had eaten that beaver from the inside. It looked like an old suit coat on a hanger when I pulled that snare up. Whatever did it never heard of clean skinning ! The hide was perfect though.

A couple more odd occurrences...... Early November one year i saw where a beaver was breaking ice at one of his slides and coming out for a few last bites of fresh bark. I set a 330 and the next morning I had a beaver..... he was pretty badly torn up. There was no snow to show tracks but i figured it was an otter since they used that same area.
I skinned what was left and staked the carcass in about three feet of water and reset that 330 just under ice edge ahead of the beaver.

Next morning I had a wolverine in that 330 completely submerged. Just the tip of his tail was floating.

Also had a beaver hit a 330 while I still had the springs in my hands.....setting it in front of his entrance.
That was like a lightning bolt going off in my hands !

I came upon a marten still soft 1/2 eaten so I remade the set and ran a side loop and when I came back I had the culprit bouncing around.

Couldn’t wait to check a pair of beaver sets that were a 15 minute snow shoe trip to. Arriving both sets were tore up it was dark and my thoughts were I had been robbed. No light but all of a sudden I heard something in the woods above the sets. I couldn’t see so the 15 minute walk back to the truck for a light. On arrival the light showed me 2 Blanket beaver alive all tangled in snare cables, visqueen and toggles. Oh no I left the pistol in the truck so back for it. Got the deed done and now 2 blanket beavers to the truck required a trip for each one! Mileage pay that night!

I apologize for the poor picture but taken years ago long before cell phones. It's a Lynx in a leaning pole set. By the back foot, LOL.



The fox is also in a leaning pole set. I had an employee and his son that were from Nebraska with me and he was a snare fox trapper and caught way into the hundreds of fox there. Him and his son kept standing looking with puzzled looks on their faces when a reply came out, " I guess we were trapping wrong" my reply was yah right! I have caught several in the leaning pile set though. Only 1 Lynx.



This picture of a wolf snare that I missed with. There was a big bait to the right in the picture and I think that the wolf was looking at the bait and the snare swiveled down the side of his head. Anyway I missed!

This wolf Sourdough and I caught in a trail set with a #9. As we came down the trail about a 1/2 mile from the catch site the pack had crossed our trail and headed to the river/creek where they often traveled staying off of the trail. This wolf had separated from the pack and traveled to where we caught it. When we arrived at the catch site the prettiest wolf was caught in trap.



Why this is an unusual story is that a trip later we caught these 3 black wolves. The melon head on the right had a collar. When we got back to town I hauled the collar to the fish and game office on College Road and met with a biologist (can't remember who) " That's not one of our collars" but as he looked it up on his computer "that's Gordon Haber Biol;ogist collar and he was hired by an animal rights group to track wolves. ( I believe that's correct) Long time ago. Anyway " I know that pack and they den a bunch of miles from the line and the pack is all black EXCEPT for the dominate wolf and it's a female and travels separate from the pack"



Over the 30 plus years I trapped that line I caught black wolves and I believe were dependents of the pack but not all wolves caught were black though. This wolf was pure black and I sold it for good money to someone that was waiting for a pure black. for a long time (right Al). The picture doesn't do the wolf justice though.

Thanks Mike for this thread. I have a life time of trapline pictures and they do no good just setting in my computer and phone so here is another oddity in the woods

There is an area that every winter it would heave up and I could drive over the humps. This year though something was different and it heaved up and broke the ice into chunks and deposited these ice chunks on the ice. This was the only time this happened. The force to break the ice into chunks is unbelievable and really odd.

Thanks for viewing.

I am tickled that you got one of "Gordon's wolves " ! Hope you kept the collar.

Your lynx on the pole reminds me of one of mine. The lynx had gone up the pole and got caught. then jumped down and started pulling. To get more leverage he grabbed the clump of alders nearby . He pulled out of the trap but his right front foot was wedged between three alder stems and he couldn't get it out !

Snap, those pop up ice cube flow colours are gorgeous. Glacial blues and turquoise are my favorite blue tones. I call those Ice cubes, just as they are popped out of a tray.

Decades ago, on a lake I lived on in North Idaho, the winter ice froze it almost solid. I was surprised to look down the slope into the lake away from shore a bit, to see a huge perfect triangled pie shaped slice of approx. three foot thick, ice sitting on the surface, next to the equally perfect shaped open water hole it popped out from. It was huge, a bit longer than a full sized truck . No person cut that . It was as if it was cut and popped straight up to land on the lake surface right next to the hole it came from.

I wish I had a photo of that. It was perfect triangle pie shape dimension. I would have loved to witness that in sight and sound .

Your photos reminded me of enjoying the textures and colours of the overflows with JR when we were traveling his line. After I was helped to overcome my fright of hearing overflows under me, I was quite transfixed by their amazing colours . Each has its own personality.

Thank you , Snap. Any more of those you capture, I would sure love seeing them.

Awesome story Oh Snap, love it! Great pics too.

caught this cat many years ago in a cubby. I made the traditional cubby with a no. 4 ls. But i had a wolverine in that area also. So i set a pair of 14 jumps 3 feet from the cubby in the shuffled trail. What i think happened was the cat came in just walked over the 14's and then sat down on a 14 and tom leaped into the air and over a branch and died there. Was not a good day to be a male.

Larry and all, how did a private citizen, Gordon Haber, get legal authority to capture wolves and put collars on them? Must have been during Tony Knowles days, eh? Oh, the Park Service?

isnarewolves, that is incredible!
martentrapper, yes to both, if I remember correctly. Gordon was not a friend of the trapping community in the North at all, and a particular nuisance for a well-known trapper just outside the park perimeter.

In spring of 81, same year I found the moose, I set up a spring camp on a slough off the Nowitna. Using the dog team, sled, and my 19 ft. Grumman, I hauled all the necessities to a high spot on this slough. A couple springs ago I had learned that spring camps need to be on high ground. (That might be another story). There were a good number of rat push ups in the lake/slough and no shortage of beaver. My goal was to acquire enough furs to be profitable.
I didn't go all the way to the top on the high spot. Set up the tent on some slightly slanted ground but it worked. The dogs, 8 I think, were tied on a gangline parallel to my tent. Had commercial dog food and of course the rat/beaver carcasses would go the dogs.
Once the ice melted enough to get around with the canoe, which I had a 15 HP motor for, I cruised around with the canoe. One day I spied a beaver on the edge of the long slough and shot it. Motored over and picked it up, put it in the canoe. Turned the canoe away from the bank and as I did I heard something up on the bank which was about 10 ft. above the water. Looked back and there is a small Blackie clinging to a tree not far above the ground. Bears were hide money, food for me, and food for the dogs. I had my dog food cooker at the camp so certain meas were cooked for the dogs. Turned the canoe around with the motor and shot the bear. Dragged it to the canoe and drove back to camp.
Once at camp I started in on the bear. My 30-06, which was the bear gun, was above me in the tent. In short time the whole gang of dogs started barking, even screaming. Looked up and at the top of this small hill I'm camped on and there is a very large black bear. No sign of fear in this one and he started to mosey down the hill parallel to the dogs and no more than 10 ft. from them. All 8 dogs were screaming with some pulling on their cable to get to the bear and some pulling to get away from the bear. The bear showed no interest in me or the dogs.
My Savage 110 30-06 had ocaisional problems with the firing pin not striking the primer hard enough. This was one of those times. I think I pulled the trigger 3 times with only getting a "click" each time. The bear was heading for the water it appeared. Ran to the tent and got 3 more rounds I think. Finally got one to go off and the bear collapsed at the waters edge. No sign of movement. I wasn't completely convinced it was dead but did not want to put more 06 holes in it either. I grabbed my Nylon 66 .22 and walked down to the bear. Still no movement so I walked up and put 2 shots into the top of it's skull. I was satisfied it was dead after that.
Got busy skinning the big guy. While skinning out the head I found that 2 .22 rounds fired point blank at the top of the skull didn't penetrate the grissel of the skull. That was surprising.
No more excitement that spring. Took me a couple trips to get all the stuff back to the river. I used the canoe as a sled to get the camp over the land areas. The big bear was around 7 ft. squared. Unfortunately I didn't keep the skull. Oh, I also learned that a 30-06 doesn't make a good beaver shooting gun!!

Great experiences .Now I might therapy as I never had 5% of this excitenent in my time . thanks

It was always fun talking to Coke about his experiences with Haber. I haven't talked with him in years: anyone know how he is doing?

Coke is doing fine. See him in Fairbanks a few times a year. Still guiding.

Well, I know what happened to the horse he rode in on!!!

Also had a beaver hit a 330 while I still had the springs in my hands.....setting it in front of his entrance.
That was like a lightning bolt going off in my hands ![/quote]

Happened to me also. The worse part is he went out into the pound and I hand to go in after it. Was cold!

Also had a beaver hit a 330 while I still had the springs in my hands.....setting it in front of his entrance.
That was like a lightning bolt going off in my hands ![/quote]

Happened to me also. The worse part is he went out into the pond and I hand to go in after it. Was cold!

I believe he was working for the park. The park has to apply for and receive a permit from the Division of Wildlife Conservation. Which has been done annually for all the years i know of. with no denials. I do not believe Gordy ever collared a wolf (but i could be mistaken), but he tracked them and observed them.

I recognize that green sweat shirt.

GREASY green sweatshirt!

Tatiana , keep up the good work on catching a nice variety of fur ! I enjoy reading your posts .

It was mid December and we had plenty of snow and cold temps I had a dead cow for a bait station with snares set all around it and had been catching a few coyotes on a regular basis as well as a bobcat as a bonus . I had walked into some rim rocks that had brush patches around it so I set some more snares on each side of a bobcat toilet .

When I returned to check them,it had snowed with even more snow in the forecast .

I got to one of the new sets leading to the bobcat toilet and the snare was stretched out towards a pile of snow that looked like a bobcat got caught !
I gave the snare cable a tug and out popped a cottontail head with the snare lock behind it's left ear and the rest of it was gone !

After resetting a snare I walked to the next snare and here was a big coyote with the snare lock behind it's left ear also and it had bunny on it's breath ! Ha ha

I also found a old wood stock tank in another coulee and as I walked down to it my foot slipped a bit and out popped a single bit axe head that at one time was used to chop ice off of the tank for the cows to get a drink !

What does that mean?

Sable-marten hybrid? Would be interested in more on that!

I stumbled on this thing on my main line in a big bay about 15 years ago. I hadn't seen it before, but a LOOONG time ago, there was a hard rock mine across the bay from my line and part of my line was used for timber at the mine. Guessing early 1900s.
Anyway, after I took this picture a huge storm rolled in, lasting about 10 days. 10' plus seas and gale force winds kept me away from the line for close to 2 weeks, and when I got back that track was nowhere to be found. A year or two later, again after a big storm, I spotted just the top of part of the track. The first gale and surf had buried it in sand and cobble. The second storm was powerful enough to partially expose it. Over the years it would get covered again, and again partially re-appear, but I will never forget stumbling onto that chunk of extremely heavy steel and then find it missing!

Many thanks for your fascinating info , Tatiana. My mind's eye went crazy trying to visualize that hybrid cross. I would love to see more photos of such animals , close up. If that isn't possible, I will just keep using my artist's imagination

If you don't want to hijack the thread, start another one here. I'm sure plenty of us would be interested. I'm not even really sure on the difference between sable and marten, until reading some of your stuff the last year or two, I thought sable was just the fur industry term for marten, much like lynx cat is the fur industry's term for high quality bobcats.

Never caught a bobcat but what I have seen there is no comparison to a lynx! Correct me.

did not mean to send that

I once caught a muskrat by the tail in a 1 1/2 longspring. The next day I caught another one by the tail in the same set. Those are the only two I've ever caught by the tail, out of thousands.

I also caught 2 rats by the tail this year. But this one, well, I am the only one to trap this private area in at least 20 years, and I never got a rat tail without a rat attached to it, so who knows what happened.

No they aren't, bobcats have way more color definition and are considered "prettier", while lynx have way more fur. Lynx cat is just what the fur industry calls the high grade western bobcats.

I remember back in the late 80s to the early 90s I think, lynx were worth several times what a good bobcat was, now it is the exact opposite.

I remember those high dollar lynx days. I sent a lynx off to the auctions, don't remember which one, in 84 I think, but I still remember the 500 bucks I got for it!

I sold one to Dean for 600$ during the same time frame. It was a beautiful large and white long fur! No picture

The irony of the sky high lynx prices of that era is fascinating to me.

The anti's got riled up and got "spotted cats" added to the CITES list. (We will show those trappers....!) Lynx were not put on CITES, but they were determined to be a "look alike" species.

And "Shizzam....!" Suddenly the price of a prime lynx went from $75 to $250! Guess they showed those trappers!

Pete

I think the craziest, coolest thing I ever got on my trap line was a $260.00 marten!

^^^^
I think we may have each had one in the same lot. Was that about 2012 or so?

That sounds right. I think that was the same time I got $48.00 for my best mink. I had limited myself to just a couple mink sets for years due to poor prices, so when the mink prices skyrocketed, the next year I made a bunch of mink sets along the beaches, taking 18 off one beach alone.
Of course that great mink prices year turned out to be a one-off and took 3 auctions to sell the collection I had sent to FHA. Probably averaged $6.00 by the time they all sold.

Remembered another interesting occurrence during my full time trapping days. 1982 I stayed at the old village of Kokrines. Spent the whole 82/83 trapping season there. There were a couple usable cabins there and a smokehouse.
Kokrines is where the guy who built Melozi Hot springs landed his equipment/supplies and dozed a cat trail back to the springs. Pulled all his stuff back there on that cat trail. The trail still existed but hadn't been maintained and needed brushing out. Once fishing for the dogs was over, due to freeze up, I started working on that trail. I would take a small dog team up the trail and work on it with chainsaw and axe. One day I was a couple miles up the trail using the chainsaw when I looked up and saw the top part of a head and ears of a bear. I turned off the saw, set it on the sled and picked up the axe. Didn't have a gun and was concerned about the bear attacking. As I picked up the axe it stood up. It was a wolf!! It started jumping around and I realized it was in a trap. I was going to try and kill it with the axe bit it only had a toe or 2 in the trap and it pulled ouit and was gone.
I had never been up the trail before but, another guy had stayed at Kokrines the year before. I looked around and found a piece of moose hide wired to the tree. The chain of the trap was also wired to the tree. Threw the trap in the sled and did some trail cutting till it was time to go back. Seems the trap was wired to a Birch tree and when the leaves fell they hid the trap. Pictures are from a trip to the Hot Springs spring of 1983 with another couple who were trapping up the Yukon a few miles from me.

Way cool, MT.

This is why I come here .Thank you smith

I don't know if I qualify for a wilderness trapper, but I see a few posts on catching stuff by the rear end.
About 30 years ago I was experimenting with snaring cats on run poles. I had a pretty good conibear set I used on run poles but because of a restriction on the size of a conibear I could set out of water I tried a few ideas with snares on run poles. Reason for setting on run poles was to avoid hound dogs. I got it worked out and was catching a few cats but missing a few also due to them jumping the snare. Then I caught a bobcat by the tail, alive and basically hanging by its tail when I arrived. I thought what a crazy fluke, then I caught another one by the tail. I mostly gave up on the set after that, but I believe the cat jumped the snare and then backed into the snare when it reversed down the pole. I was using 1/16 snare cable, or I don't imagine it would have been able to cinch up.

I've caught lynx occasionally by the back foot in cubby sets designed to catch them by a front foot. I've tried to figure out how this happened and here is my theory: Male cats mark territory by backing up to something and spraying urine. (Their external plumbing fixture "points out the back.") Thus my theory is that they are scent marking in response to a lure and thus backed up to the set.

May not be true, but it is the best I've come up with yet!

Pete

The last few years I lived in Nome the trapping pard and I started using the Western Alaska version of the white 17 snarepole set. For wolverine. It was a successful set. One year, when we were far enough east of Nome to get into spruce tree areas, I made a giant marten pole set withe a spruce pole. The pole was large enough for a wolverine to walk up easily. Set a 3/32 snare. 8 in. loop, 8 in. off the pole.
Next time we had an adult male lynx hanging by his mid section. He had got his head, shoulders, legs, and ribs thru the snare before his rear legs/hips pulled it closed.
It was an odd catch.
Here's the western Alaska version of the White 17 wolverine snare pole.

I have several places I trap bobcats that I also find sign of ringtail cats or spotted skunks. Along with my cat sets, I will often set baited boxes with 120 bodygrippers in those spots. Three times I have caught and held bobcats by the paw in those 120's. It's not a set I recommend for cats - but.

I have seen a lynx held by a 120 Belisle in an elevated marten set. Cat was DOA. Weird but true. Maybe he will post a picture.

This one I got last winter ?

This one. By my partner.

Well, in the Wilderness of South Peach County Georgia I once caught a Red tail hawk in a dirt hole set baited with Hawbakers #1 wildcat lure. And two years ago I caught a Great horned owl in a blind trail set. No bait, urine, lure…..no idea why he decided to land in that spot. He was in a terrible humor and both were released.

i think if you trap long enough your bound to get some weird catches ive had a couple
#1 caught a skunk in a number 3 coilspring by the head he was DOA
#2 a coyote in a 330 guarding a castor mound
#3 an otter in coyote set no water around for a mile or so
also found a doz 220 sitting on a bank when i was doing some nusicance beaver work ask the owner of the property who was trapping and he said no one had permission to be on his property

Is that in SE?

Yes. Two the same day. I was stunned.

Do you suppose they come down the Taku? Or was it up by Haines or Skagway.
I wish they'd come down the Stikine more often.

I think they travel both down the Taku and can make their way down from Haines and Skagway. And even the ice fields are possible, but probably not likely for a cat. I knew a trapper that was flying over the ice fields one time and spotted a pack of I think 12 wolves coming from Canada. He followed them for some time, and eventually figured where they were headed. Being a very experienced trapper, he set about trying to trap them.
It wasn't long after that he collected all 12!
Also, a wolverine that was captured and collard in the area of my main trapline up there was tracked over the ice fields, then lost, (this was north of Juneau, about 40 miles). 2 years later, it was trapped by a trapper up Telegraph Creek!!!

Hand in the cookie jar, and paid for it.

Well, a few days ago I was looking thru some pictures trying to find a few things in particular, and couldn't find what I was looking for. But then later on I saw this thread on "Unusual/Odd things on the trapline",... and after looking thru what I just did, I thought,....."Man,... I could burn some bandwidth on this thread". And since there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of trapping going on this year on this site,... or maybe eveyone is out on the trail all the time, I don't know. But anyway, I thought that I could post a couple pictures of things I seen and done over the years that some people might find interesting. This might take awhile,... but here's a sampling of a few things I just went thru,...

I'll start with some stuff from years ago. This first picture is of a coyote I caught during or right after the pipeline construction (mid-70's,... man, that's 50 years ago!). When the pipeline was done, a lot of people who worked on it stayed in Alaska, at least for awhile, and there were people trapping everywhere. Anyway, I caught this coyote by one link in the middle of the chain of someone else's trap that was clamped on the coyote's foot. I have no idea how this actually happened,... it was a brand-new trap, no rust, so I got a coyote hide and a new #3 jump out of this deal,...




And here's the picture of that coyote with my trap, which caught the trap chain of someone else's trap, that was clamped on the foot of this coyote, (red arrows showing both traps)




So, I've always wanted to trap on rivers and creeks to deter people from following my trails, since there was so much fur/trap stealing going on in my area back then. But, there's alot more danger and risk in doing that, but I liked it! But it was expensive too,... when a person has to learn most everything the hard way. My first snowmachine was a used 1971 Elan, and here's what I did with it when I went out during a bad chinook one day,... it landed upside down in the water, and I lost the cowling,... but I got it out and even got it running again and drove it home (minus the cowling)

A person might think that I was a gluten for punishment with trapping on creeks and rivers, but the risks were much preferred by me than dealing with theives all the time. So, here's a few more. By the way,... is there a prize for creating the most different ways to get a snowmachine stuck?

and some more,....

This was a particularly bad one. The machine plowed into the ice right in front of me, shearing off both spark plugs on the engine, and it shaved off the throttle cable on the carburator, and I don't remember what else, but I drove it home too. But this was back in the good 'ole days when things like boot laces were some pretty valuable snowmachine parts,...

Well, this isn't going to work,... it won't download any of my newer pictures, even after reducing them to 10% of original size. maybe someone can tell me how to do this. They are JPG's, less than 400kb, but they won't load.

Amazing what we survive trapping. You are a tough man.

Wolverinebait: Dave, Those are impressive incidents. Clearly you are the "Winner!" Pete

I think we should start calling you "crash"

I think we need a new event in Alaska.

Wolverine bait and AK Howler need to have a contest to see who can cross the thinnest ice over the fastest water !!

Dave, good seeing your posts again I always have enjoyed your sharing your real world experiences.

Now that my trapping is looking at photos and great memories and receiving phone calls from the trapper I gave my line to life is good!

Thanks Dave!

Wolverinebait , wow! guess it dose not matter what year or brand of snow-go you have had. they all get stuck equally.

Not exactly, the newer ones with bigger tracks may not get stuck as easily, but they make up for it by being heavier and harder to get unstuck.

Dave, create an account on vgy.com. You can open vgy on your phone then put pics on your phone into vgy. You can post them on here from that website.
Hi from Mike and Sherri.

Hi Mike,... thanks for the info, but there's only one problem,... I don't have a smartphone (I think a person has to be smart to operate one of those, so that takes me out of the equation). I think the software or whatever the Trapperman site uses now has changed, because I can't even re-post pictues that I have posted here in the past. The only ones that seem to work for me now, are older photos (prior to about 1990) that I converted to digital format. With anything newer, the whole reply box turns black, with the following entry:


"Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 67108864 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 20480 bytes) in /home/trapman/public_html/forum/scripts/picupload.inc.php on line 275"


I found some pretty cool stuff while going thru my older pictures that I would have forgotten about, if I hadn't always taken pictures of everything thru the years, and I think most of you would find them interesting too,... but I just have to figure out how to post them. Maybe Paul or Ken might know what I can do..


When I was alot younger, I guess I never really thought that running creeks and rivers was all that dangerous, because the bigger ones almost never gave me trouble,... it was always the little creeks with hollow ice everywhere that were a pain. But I was also quite sure that no one had ever trapped up some of the creeks I was going up, just because of the unstable ice,... and no other access,... which made the whole thing even more appealing to me. (and when Dean Wilson would tell me that no one has ever gone up that creek before,.. that sealed the deal for me). That also was the only way I could establish enough area to trap full-time in the early '70's, with new trappers everywhere.

I think I can still post a couple more older things in the mean time,.... (I'm not even ½ done with the "getting stuck" pictures tho,...)

But I think it was in the early '80's that the Copper River Valley was having a bunch of hair issues, with fox and coyotes especially, that made them not even worth skinning,... and after it ran it's course, it didn't seem to come back, at least in my area. Either that, or maybe the "poodle look" was the hot fab at that time,...

It was around 1990 (I think) when I was thinking about the fact that the only established fur bearer in Alaska that I hadn't caught yet was an arctic fox (not counting weird things like fishers in SE, etc) A good friend of mine was a police officer with the Barrow police department at the time, and the city of Barrow was under it's 4th rabies quarrentine at the time as well, so my friend said come on up, I could stay with him, so I did. So we went a few miles out of town, and I noticed that there is absolutely nothing to tie a trap to anywhere, and even if there was, and a polar bear came by, it wouldn't matter anyway,.... so I just set the trap on the ground, thinking that a 330 should kill an arctic fox right on the spot. But what to use for bait? With nothing but rancid whale blubber here and there,... what would be more appetizing than a fresh slice of pepperoni pizza?





I shot a few too,.... but with the wind blowing 30-40mph, and the actual temps still running -30° to -40° in March (and wind chills pushing -100°), it was hard to shoot them. I think I ended up with 8.

Frozen pizza! That's great!! I have heard, (on this site, I think), of trappers in very cold country drilling a hole in the ice and putting the end of the trap chain in the hole and filling it with water, thus creating an "Earth Anchor". Pretty clever.

There are arctic around Nome in winter. If you catch one and don't get to it soon, the reds kill and tear them up. Caught an arctic near Unalakleet years ago.
Seems I hear Reds are taking over the north slope and driving the arctic out.

The late Ben Hopsen Jr showed us that technique when he taught at the ATA Wolf School many years ago. He carried a themos full of warm water on his snogo with him, for just that purpose.

Even if you are not in "open country" it works great out on river ice.

Ben was the best "open country" wolf trapper I have known. (Although I hasten to add that his son B3 is no slouch!)

Pete

Ok, so I figured out how to reduce some of my newer pictures even more than before, but there are still some that I can't get smaller, and they still won't load, but I'll keep working on it.
In the mean time, I'll post a few more "stuck" pictures, then move onto other things.

I'll stick with some more snowmachine stuff,... but with "odd/unusual" situations, conditions, scenery, etc,...

Starting with some frozen waterfalls along the trail,...







But sometimes they block your pathway,...

Always waiting each winter for shelf ice so I can keep going,...






Sometimes you have to make your own trail across smaller avalanches,...







And when you get to your cabin, and the snow is deeper than you thought,.... just park on top,...

Sometimes in late winter, the trails start caving in on their own,....





In other places, the road signs might almost be covered over,...




But what's not good, is if you suddenly have fresh grizzly tracks along your trail in February,...

Since I have been on the ice for the majority of my trapping endeavors, I have avoided dragging around cargo sleds as much as possible, which I know would have made many of my "bad ice" issues much worse. But, then not having one makes trying to carry everything I might need an issue. And worse, is trying to haul everything home if you've had a good day on the line. But, with careful measurments when making a cargo box on the back, it's surprising how much a person can haul with no cargo sled, if you have to,...




But no matter what, watch what you're doing so you don't run over things like this and get them jammed up in your track,.. like I kinda did here, since it was 99% buried in the trail.

Test for Wolverinebait.

[quote=white17]Test for Wolverinebait.

Thanks White17,... I think I have my re-sizing issues figured out.

A couple short-story situations,...

I'll start with one kinda like martentrapper began this thread with. 10-15 years ago, I spotted something frozen in the ice of a fairly big lake that I trap on. Went over and saw what looked like a bull moose dead and frozen in the ice.



Came back a couple days later w/a good friend of mine, and some tools, and we tried to cut him out and see if we could flip him up onto the ice, so at least something could feed on it during the winter.



But try as we might, with both snowmachines, and come-alongs, we could only get it about ½-way out of the hole,... but not enough to flip it up on the ice. It was 2x3 on brow tines, with a 46" spread. Don't know what happened to it after break-up that next spring,.. whether it eventually sank, or maybe drifted to shore and then the bears could have had access to it.

Another unusual moose situation along a local river was this one that had fallen thru the ice with only it's hind legs down in the hole, with it's head and front legs on top of the ice. It couldn't move or get out, so it was eaten head-first, with the back-half untouched.





Another time I was riding up one of the rivers I trap, when as I came around the corner, I ran right into a pack of 5 wolves trying to take this moose down. They all scattered in different directions (I didn't get any of them, and they never came back here), but the moose was standing in water, and was torn up pretty well in the back of it's hind legs. I thought about just putting it out of it's misery,... but I also thought it might survive, so I left it be,... and a few weeks later I found it dead about ¼-mile away, with a few things already chewing on it.

Sometimes animals make really bad decisions, when they didn't have to do what they did. Take for instance, this coyote. I had stopped to fix up a wolverine set along the side of this big river that has been my main trapline for many years, when I noticed this coyote trotting towards me on my trail I was currently breaking out. I was watching it for maybe 30 seconds, when it suddenly stopped and saw me. It looked around like it didn't know what to do next,... and this river had an open lead for maybe ¼-mile long. I just figured this coyote would turn around and run back the way it came. My .22 mag rifle had a stuck casing in the receiver at the time, or I would have shot it. But it almost seemed like it was having a panic-attack,... and then it turned and ran out to the middle of the river,.. out to the open lead,... and jumped into the water!! I couldn't believe what I just saw!! I had not moved at all the whole time,... so I ran out towards the open water lead too,.. with only my camera! I wanted to see what was going to happen to this coyote,... if it could get out, or what. It was at least 100 yards above me, so the current was bringing it closer to me as I started snapping pictures,... there was nothing else I could do,.. and I wasn't going to get too closer to the edge of the water either. It managed to swim across to the other side of the open water,... but it could not pull itself up on the ice along the edge,... the water current kept pulling it along,.. and there was a lot of slush in the water too.





It didn't take long at all, before this coyote couldn't even try to climb out anymore,... and was now sort-of stuck in the slush, and just floating right down the middle of the water,.. not really even trying to swim anymore,... going right past me,... my last picture was taken maybe 2-3 seconds before it went under the ice,... and gone,... never to be seen again. A rather sobering reminder that the same thing would happen to me if I fell in that water too.





Another crazy coyote story happened on the Copper River just above Woods Canyon,... something that only a coyote would do. I make most of my sets using drags,.. that way I can make a set anywhere I want,... and on trails that might have other people on them, it gives the opportunity for something caught to get off the trail farther, so most people won't know it's there. But one drawback, is that something could just take off and go where it normally won't go,.. like a coyote going more than a mile right up the middle of the Copper river. So, I caught this coyote along the edge of the river,... and it took off heading out into the midle of the river, and into the narliest ice area there was at that time, pulling a drag behind him. After at least a mile of climbing thru some very unstable ice areas, I finally spotted my drag, but no coyote. I had to be quite careful, as there were hollow spots in the ice all over. I carry a stout pole with me when going thru ice like that, so I have something to catch myself with, or a tool to use to help get myself out of some situation. Anyway, as I approached my drag, I could see that the coyote had done just that,... he broke thru the ice and into a hole, and had not gotten himslef back out. Well, I had to be very careful myself now, because i wasn't sure if I could get close enough to look down into the hole and see what had happened. After constantly testing the ice all around the hole,.. I got close enough to see that when the coyote broke thru, he was about half submerged in water while hanging from the trap chain. And now it's all frozen up. But, I was able to use my pole and pound the ice back open all around him, and get him pulled back out. Only a coyote does stuff like this,...

CRAZY!

Odd/unusual catches. I suppose we all have some of these,... these are a few of mine.
Starting with the smaller things:

I have only ever caught 2 of these speicies of weasel,... the least weasel. The bottom one is an adult male least weasel,... they have no black tipped tail.




This regular short-tail has a couple arrows shot thru his feet,... that must have hurt running around like that,...





Caught this 3-legged marten on a line that I know I never lost one in this manner,... but he was as healthy as one with all his running gear.


Didn't catch this one, found it as road-kill one night. Not the slightest bruise anywhere,... must have died from a heart attack when a semi-truck straddled him,...




This is the closest thing to an albino that I have caught,... white feet & head, bright yellow body, and a mostly white-pinkish nose. I had him life-sized



Caught thses 2 guys in 2003. Have had 2 rats in a trap at least twice that I can remember,



I believe this was in the mid-80's. I caught a pregnant female wolverine in late February that had 5 pups in her, fully furred and ready to be born at any time. I took them up to Glennallen ADF&G to show them, and the area biologist told me later that he did some checking, and as best as he could tell, this was the first documented case of a wolverine in Alaska that had 5 pups. I don't know if that is still true or not,... but I think they are still there on display.

Oh my you are hi mileage ! Thank you for the ride

But there are two special individual things I have caught that are at the top of my personal list of rare things, and they are both lynx. The first is a blue lynx. The local area biologist for the Glennallen ADF&G 30+ years ago, told me that the blue color-phase in cats is actually a type of albinoism. It was a very cloudy socked-in day when I caught him,... so my pictures aren't the best.




The main thing is that there is not a single white hair, or black hair or brown hair on a blue lynx,... only different shades of grey. Even their eyes, instead of being yellow, had a greenish tint. Compare to a regular lynx,....





I had caught a regular lynx on that same day, so it made for a good comparison,...




The other special lynx was an individual that had 3 ears. It had 2 ears on the right side that were grown together side x side, with 2 ear tuffs, but only one ear canal going into the skull. I had some other pictures that were a lot better than these, but I cannot figure out what I did with them.




I've also caught 3 lynx that were tagged or had radio colllars. The first one was caught in the mid '80's, and came from the Kenai Peninsula and went from Skilak Lake to Chitina in about 10 months, well over 400 miles. The lynx season was closed here at that time, so after taking a bunch of pictures, I turned it loose. When I showed ADF&G what I had, we spent several days tracking it from the air, trying to find it, but apparently the collar had gone dead. Again, I can't find my best pictures of this.



The next one was a monster,... it was the only cat I've ever caught that hit 50" on the stretcher. It had lost it's collar, but it's neck was clearly ringed, and he might have damaged his right ear it ripping it off. Also had white toes on all 4 feet. Never could find out who collared it or where it came from, but this cat would be easily known by whoever collared it.




The 3rd tagged lynx was only ear tagged with no collar. And the ear tags had no numbers or info of any kind,.... light blue plastic tags on the left, and dark gray on the right ear,... 2 tags per ear. It came from the middle of the Yukon,... and after tracking down where it came, I asked the folks why they had no info printed on the tags, so a person could call them if it went AWOL, like this one did. And they said they only tagged them so they could ID each lynx on their trail cams, to see which lynx they were looking at. They said if it leaves, they don't really care where it goes, they only wanted to study the local lynx. You can see the dark gray tags in the right ear in the first picture.





Then there's just weird things, like the right eye of this guy with a vertical pupil,...



And there must be some nasty fights amoung the toms when they're fighting over girlfriends,....

And some other weird stuff. Fox and lynx seem to think they are marten at times, on my lines too. Here's a few examples, but this is not all of them by any means,... fox first. My boxes were at least waist-high at the beginning of winter.









And some lynx,...








This one is actually sitting on the box





Isnarewolves' picture of his lynx caught by the trailer hitch reminded me of this one, caught on the opposite end,... not sure which one is better,... (not sure where all the green coloring came from)

Wolverinebait, not actually a trapline oddity, since I caught it with hounds. But back around 2000ish I caught a bobcat with only one ear, it had an ear canal on that side that looked perfectly functional but no external ear. And no scar, looked to be a birth defect, not the result of an injury. Possibly he donated it to your three eared lynx?

Oh man,... I almost about this. This was a nice day's run,... that came with something special that wouldn't happen again in a million years. It involves the grey wolf on the right, with the snare still on it. And when I walked up to the grey at the set,... I could not believe my eyes,...



Along with the wolf, I also had snared a salmon !!! The only thing I can think of, is that the wolf found this old, dead salmon somewhere along the river, and was carrying it down the trail where I had a snare set,... and when the wolf hit the snare, the cable must have pinched the salmon to his neck/chest and with the first couple lunges, the wolf spun the fish around to the top of his neck. Snaring a wolf and a salmon at the same time,... that's not gonna happen again anytime soon,..



But on the "bad luck" side of things,.. when wolves are on the verge of starvation,and you snare one of the pups in the pack,... and it starts yipping and whinning,... sometimes the rest of the pack might jump it, and kill it & eat it. This has happened to me several times over the years. I've also seen where a pack killed and ate one of their own out on a lake for no apparent reason.



And just 2-3 years ago, I had a single wolf kill and eat a wolverine that was caught in a trap. All that was left was the tail. I guess I've been pretty lucky with that, because with all the wolverines I've caught, that was the one & only time I've ever had anything kill & eat one. He could have left the skull rather than the tail tho!! And on top of that, the wolf wrecked the trap,.. he ripped that wolverine right out of the trap, and all that was there that I could find was the chain and 1 spring (#4 Victor DLS)

Wow,... that's pretty cool too! Genetic deformities happened sooner or later to everything I guess, even people. I didn't even notice the ears on that lynx until I was almost done skinning it.

One more thing that has happened a number of times, that falls under the banner of "Unusual/Odd",... is catching lynx, and if they can get the drag loose,... is having them then climb up a tree. One might think that this is just another liability of using drags, but the fact is, at least with me,... that they very seldom do this except when a wolf happens to come down the trail,... then it's a great asset, because if the trap was anchored solid, that wouyld be one less lynx I'd get to skin. But I have spent a lot of extra time trying to track a lynx, only to suddenly have the trail disappear. Sometimes, you just have to look up. But, to retreive your cat, you have to cut the tree down.









This lynx was snared and still managed to climb up some trees,... when he apparently tried to jump out, and that's when the snare worked.

Well, just a few more odds and ends. I keep finding more and more, but this has to end soon.

First we have a marten caught by 3 of his 4 feet in a #1LS



Have you ever spent all day on the trail... covered close to 100 miles by snowmachine, get in your warm truck to drive home,... feeling a little tired,... came around a bend in the road, and suddenly see something right in front of you running down the road, and said out loud,... "What in the world is that??"



A rare time when you can't take a frozen marten out of a foothold trap,...



Bait-stealers caught red-handed,....





Sometimes an animal in a trap is just not concerned about anything,.. not even it's captors. I took a good friend and his son on a run one day, and this lynx just sat there next to us, and didn't do anything,.. didn't fight, didn't growl, didn't even pull the chain tight,... just sat there looking around while we were talking back and forth. It was like you could just reach over and pet it (but we didn't)




Some years when I catch more than what I can keep up skinning it all, I have to keep it frozen, and so I hang stuff on my front porch,... the fuel truck driver called it "The tunnel of Death"




[img]https://trapperman.com/forum/attachments/usergals/2026/02/full-20421-285116-lynx_3_aa.jpg[/img



This is for AV, so he knows that he's not the only one who catches bob-tailed rats,.. but I've made some too. From heads to tails, you'll eventually catch them by anything & everything, even a chunk of hide on the side. (and no, that first picture is not staged, one came out by the head, the other by the tail from the same pushup)









Good night!

Wolverinebait, thanks for taking the time to post the photos!! So your picture about coming around the corner at night and going what is that?!? What was it?

Lobstick tree marking a portage

Caught this wolf by the nose.

Thanks to all of you for sharing you're stories and great pictures to go along with them !

Your picture of the nose caught wolf is a great testament to how well a Alaska #9 comes up out of the snow ! One thing is for sure there wasn't any foot damage on it how was skinning out the head on it ? Probably not to much different than any other wolf .

As for what was that when driving around the corner ? It reminds me of a buffalo !

Keep the pictures and stories coming !

X2..looks like a bison to me.

Great stuff Dave !! Thanks

Not a portage or man made. In the hills 20 miles off the road and very few people wander this far unless in track rig in summer or snowmachine in winter.

It was a buffalo,... actually there was two of them,... by the time I got my camera out and took that picture, one of them had turned off the road. I don't really know the temperment of a bufffalo,... and I didn't want him to suddenly decide to quit running and turn around to fight, and batter-ram my truck !!

Man, great photos and stories! Now I have to get busy transferring photos off old SD cards from the line. Will take a while. I have a short video on one of me releasing a small black bear I caught, (3 times!). I released it twice. Not for the faint of heart! Not sure how to go about posting the video here, but will get it on my computer first, then figure it out.

That will teach that wolf to stick his nose where it doesn't belong!

WB , good plan on wanting those buffalo to keep going ! A fella offered to help a cow buffalo go down a alley way to get vaccinated then released in the tribal buffalo pasture corrals , they wired a sheet of plywood to the grill guard and drove in behind her , then bumped her twice the third time she taught them a thing or two and pretty much totalled the pickup which wasn't very pretty after she got done with it ha ha !

Wolverinebait a lot of cool photos, stories, and adventures you have had.

Wolverinebait, thanks for sharing your stories, what a legend! You've had good adventures and seen some cool stuff. I can see now why you were out on the Copper in a mokai, you just got bored in the summer when you couldn't drop your snogo through the ice into the river.

I got one of those nosey wolves a few years back as well.

Amazing pictures and stories everyone. This has been a fascinating thread to follow.

the wolf pics remind me of a skunk i found in my trap dead a few years ago with the jaws firmly agaisnt its skulls right behind the eyes