Another Snaring Success!!!!!!

Today, although it didn't turn out as planned, certainly turned out pretty good. All week we have been planning to get out and set up the Kifaru and camp out for the weekend, and of course as a side we were going to expand the 'line into some new territory I had scouted for marten. Woke up this morning and loaded up the sled with a gazillion things, totes lashed down everywhere. Boy does it take a lot of preparation when you go and do something outside in Alaska. And that might just be my understatement of the year so far...

But as we started underway we noticed something. The air felt strangely colder somehow, even more than normal. My hands were getting cold, despite the electric handwarmers on the snowmachine being on full blast. My face was getting cold through my helmet - in fact the bridge of my nose was even beginning to hurt from the contact between it and my frozen facemask - which was INSIDE my helmet, completely shielded from the wind. Even my feet were feeling it through my Sorel boots, which had not yet happened...something was up. At our first stop to check two sets, Sarah and I both expressed our surprise at what we were feeling. It seemed COLD! We continued on, making it to the carcass pile "bait station" from a few posts ago, where I got the Cherry red Fox. There are four open 'trails' to the bait pile that I left when constructing the set. When building the wall of brush surrounding the bait pile, I left these intended routes open, except, of course, for the snare in each one. Upon approaching the scene, I noticed first whack that there was a snare hanging-wire that was bare, sticking out from the tree in the second path to the left that I had made into the pile. "That's strange", I thought. But upon looking closer, I saw that the snare cable was leading from its anchor tree down into the snow, which unfortunately is not deep enough to conceal any furbearers, except maybe a weasel. So I thought maybe the moose had been back and trampled my snares again. But then I saw that the next snare to the left was not hanging anymore either. This is all hitting me as I am walking closer....and closer. Finally, I spot the snare cable. it too leads down into the snow...but then I see where it comes back out of the snow, and is curled around the base of a group of willow trees...this clump of trees is about 2 feet from my boot. Suddenly, it occurs to me, that from under the dusting of snow we got a few days ago...there is something that looks a lot like a white paw sticking up...and then it hits me.. I have my first snared Lynx! She was severely frozen in place, and so there was not a great opportunity for pictures, and it involved some work just to get her off the ground and out of the trees without losing guard hairs, but here's a couple shots after I got the snow cleaned off of her:




So, after the fist pumping and shouts of joy, we got the kitty firmly attached to the top of a tote, and tried to decide what we wanted to do. We let Ada off the back of Sarah's snowmachine and tried to let her run (once well clear of the snares that is) but she didn't even go 30 yds, and she was lifting her feet like she was walking on hot coals, trying to run on three legs (or two) at a time....even SHE was too cold. If Ada isn't up for a run in the snow - you know something is dead wrong. We figured it was FREEZING but also thought that we could either sit at home and do nothing or we could sit in our tent, stoke the woodstove, and do nothing. So we forged on to our previously chosen campsite area. It was when we stopped to set up camp that we decided to turn back. It just didn't seem worth it. Here's a shot of Sarah and the Moo just after turning onto our back trail:


The temperature, according to Weather Underground, was a straight up -25, but with the windchill was 42 BELOW ZERO! Brrrr..... -42 is as cold as we have seen since we've been here, and let me tell you, it felt like it too...Oh well, maybe next weekend we can make a go of it...This week I am going out there to cut some firewood and get some sets out, so we'll see.

And then there were five....

Today was a beautiful day. Really. The sun was out, nearly no wind, temps right around zero...about as good as you could want this time of year. Unlike the last few days which have been rediculous - more RAIN accompanied by sleet, snow, and then more RAIN repeated several times over the last 72 hours. That was the kind of weather that makes it suck to be a trapper. Weather that makes you forget you are on the Yukon Delta in the middle of winter for crying out loud.....

..But I digress..I said today was a beautiful day, and I meant it. So I set out this morning with high hopes of setting a new marten area I had scouted out on google earth as well as checking the existing 'line. It didn't take me long to realize that my plans would change. At the very first turn heading off the Yukon, the first thing I saw while entering the slough was overflow. LOTS of overflow. Overflow occurs when water pushes out, up, and through the existing ice and begins to flow on top of the ice in its normal fashion. This usually occurs when thawing or heavy rains occur (see above :D ). The trouble is this - usually, you can not tell if the water is 3 inches deep or 4 feet deep. You know the ice is down there. Somewhere. But you don't know how far. And so you have to gun the motor and hydroplane across the water in your snowmachine. Then you don't have to care how deep the water is - well, at least you don't have to care if you go fast enough.... I'll try and post a video of this later, because there are bigger fish to fry.

Today after crossing the various pools of overflow and arriving on the Kashunuk river sloughs where our Lynx sets are (No that doesn't give much away, the Kashunuk is much longer than you think....) :) I noticed Lynx tracks about 300 yds away from one of our sets. Of course, I immediately got excited, and started staring at the tracks. They continued in my very own old snowmachine tracks all the way to within a short distance of our Dead Tree set. Unfortunately at this point they turned left sharply, and went up the rise straight to the Turkey Neck set, which I had pulled on the last check. The little sucker went on a beeline directly to the set and munched what was left of the turkey neck and the beaver leg - now that the trap is gone of course...and then moved off in the opposite direction of the other sets in the area. So I continued on to the Dead Tree set. Nada. Undisturbed. The freeze/thaw cycles combined with the rain however turned the snow over the trap into a nightmarish, impenetrable crust. I think I could have stood on the pan and the trap would not have gone off. "Oh, well, at least we didn't lose any more bait", I thought. After the remake, I looked over at Sarah's set and I couldn't see it very well as I had to look directly into the sun. I crossed the slough and walked over the rise to inspect it closer, anticipating the annoying remake that the weather bestowed upon me. "But wait....what was that?!...Did I just see movement?... No, there's nothing there at the set...Something caught my eye though...what the..whoa! The flagging is on the ground! But there's nothing there....and the spruce hen is gone...but there's nothing th..." And then two little black tufted ears moved and appeared behind the trees making up the cubby. There, behind the stump, was Sarah's very first, and her very own, Lynx canadensis!!!!! Yesssssssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

First I must divulge this top secret photo of Sarah as we were about to disembark on one of our recent journeys. I think it is the trip during which she made the set, but she disagrees:


At any rate, here are some more pics of her first Lynx trapping endeavor. (first solo that is, as we all know she is partly responsible for ALL of our lynx so far)

She picked the location, she broke the dead limbs, she created the cubby, she blocked it up, and placed the stepping sticks:


Here she is with her finished product:


Now I have to give you a little background. On Saturday, while she was playing b-ball in St Mary's, she was fouled, and with that foul came a scratch on her left middle finger that left the whole fingernail coated in dried blood. Almost immediately upon arriving home Saturday night, she took off her glove and told me about the foul, and then added, "Hey that must mean I got my Lynx in the left front paw, huh?" This is reference of course to my belief in the 'voodoo' about drawing blood and the success of the hunt/trapping/fishing trip. There are countless examples from which to choose from in order to validate my claims, but I will let this one speak for itself. She did this all on her own, without provocation. I daresay she may even have been mocking the voodoo, but I will never know. I know this, however - the following are photos of a Lynx. And its foot is firmly held in a trap. Sarah's trap. And it is a LEFT FRONT FOOT that is IN the trap!!!!!! ......"Touche", say I !!!!! Every other Lynx trap I checked today was crusted over with snow and ice. I also must add that the rain began on Saturday, and the freezing temps Saturday night and Sunday night and...The Voodoo has spoken! If you want my bet, the cat was caught in the trap Saturday night, but I'll leave it at that. :D Have a look:




And, turn up the volume and check out this clip of a VERY VERY angry kitty. Lots of hissing and growls on this one:



Check this out as well - you couldn't get a Lynx paw any further in that trap if you HELD it for 'em:


CONGRATULATIONS to "Honeysweets"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The bull is down!.....

YEEE-HAWWWW!

The ghostly spectre on the left in these photos is me, sitting on my behemoth of a moose! (Don't worry, more pics later in the post to document the event, it's just that we didn't recover him until right at dark. I know, these are terrible, but they are all I have of my first moose while he was still in one piece)




After finally thinking that we were never going to connect with a moose this year, the season was extended until the end of February, and on Monday I went out with Abe, Robert, and Matt. The journey was about 80 miles roundtrip, but just before dark, the first moose we had seen all day appeared. He was taking refuge in a willow thicket which borders a river on two sides. After 'flushing' him out, I found myself barreling down the river standing up with the seat squeezed between my knees, pulling the rifle off my shoulder, pulling the clip out of my pocket and locking it in the gun, racking the bolt to get a shell in the chamber, trying to not hit any bumps, and trying to get to a location where I would have a shot. It was a hairy couple seconds there - not sure how fast I was going, but let's just say that the bull's speed was dictating that more than my own discretion...

At any rate, I chose a good angle, because I finally got a glimpse of him striding off through the spruce and willows at an amazing rate of speed. Very strange how a moose runs - the legs appear to be the only thing moving - the body and head just kind of float along on a level plane. Looks goofy, but they are covering some GROUND, let me tell you, and they do it with what looks like no effort at all. A negative aspect of this however, for the moose, is that your target areas basically do not move up and down at all, unlike, say, a deer. So when you put the gun up, you do not have to compensate for any movement other than the horizontal. MUCH nicer than when a whitetail is streaking across a field at 30 mph and you don't know if he's going to leap up in the air on THIS jump or the NEXT one...

In this case, the bull was about 300 yds away ('measured' afterward - not just a guess) and moving straight away - directly toward a stand of spruce which takes up about 5 square miles. In other words, it was shoot now or forget it. So I held for the spot where I presumed my bullet would strike the back of his neck, and squeezed. He immediately looked like someone who is running downhill and their legs cannot catch up to their body - his head went down and forward and his legs seemed to start flailing and windmilling - but the big sucker didn't go down. Oh, no. I hadn't hit the spine - instead the bullet went just left of center and hit just meat and blood vessels. Because the spine was not hit, all the .300 WSM did was change his mind on where he wanted to go. He must have decided that he wanted to cross the slough, instead of paralleling it anymore, after that little 'bee sting', and so he turned to the right and began to cross the slough. I chambered the second shell and, with the crosshairs on his front shoulder, swung the rifle with him to get his 'speed'. Once I got a feel for how far to lead him, I put the crosshairs out in front and waited for him to come in. When the beard came into line with the crosshairs, I squeezed again, planning to place the bullet in his lungs. You could hear the bullet strike him as the blast seemed to have a double echo. Not like a long, slow, echo off the nearby hills that you usually hear on a miss - this was a KA-WHAM! He stumbled for a surprisingly short moment, and then, to my shock, continued on as though nothing had happened. Just up the slope of the draw he paused and looked right at me...at which moment I proceeded to promptly place the crosshairs once again on his lungs and squeeze. All I heard was a deafening CLICK!......

It was at this moment that I realized that in the frenzied chase a few moments before, I lost one of the shells in the clip of the gun. It was loaded with three when I left the house, but when the bull stopped briefly and looked at me following the second shot - all I got was a dry fire. The third shell must have fallen out while I was racing down the slough with my eyes on the bull instead of the clip. Any-who, the bull proceeded to run into an astonishingly thick stand of mutant willow trees, that nothing could seemingly push through. But he could. And he did...

Robert and Matt went around to the top of the thicket to wait and watch, as there was nothing but open tundra for miles if the bull left the willows. Abe and I went in the brush on foot, trying to either flush him out again into the other guys or put the finisher in him ourselves. It didn't take long to see where the bull had been standing and coughing out blood. Now I've seen my share of blood trails - even trails in the snow, which of course are magnified, but this was a serious blood trail. I could have laid down in it and not reached both sides of the swath. It was amazing that the animal was still running - at least to me it was. Abe knew better from his extensive moose experience, of course. He said I he was just glad I hit him good and "slowed him down"! Hah! One in the neck and one in the boiler room with a .300, and he used the term 'slowed him down'. Now that's funny. Suddenly, Abe points to a spruce about 50 yds off in the thicket in front of us, which happens to be violently shaking. He says, and I quote, "Hey look, it's getting windy over there!"...Unable to keep from laughing, I realize that the bull is likely stumbling and running into the trees in his current state. We push on...in a short while I hear a heavy rustling, shooshing, noise in the brush immediately in front of us - it is the moose - but is he going away, or is he coming AT us? (which wounded moose are prone to do when given the chance - moose kill far more people than bears do) Robert lets us know the answer.... WHAM! His .30-.30 barks out in front of us about 100 yds. Then again, WHAM! Suddenly, an eerie yell erupts from the tundra out ahead: "AAIIEEEEEEYYEEEE!!!" And then, WHAM! another shot. What on earth is going on up there? Abe and I retreat to our snowmachines and bowl over brush on our way to the scene of the shots. And finally at long last, I behold my bull moose, there on the ground, looking like he is the size of a motor home. Here's a video taken just moments after I leaped on top of the beast and gave him a bear hug and a few swats, among a chorus of yells from our group. Yessssss!!!!!!!!





We were butchering from 7:30pm until 10 oclock (as the video mentions, I think) and every one of us was also nearly out of gasoline after our full day of riding, all while nearly 30 miles+(depending on when you looked at the GPS) from home. The decision was made to leave the cut-up bull in the snow overnight and go back on Tuesday to get the meat. Here are some pics from the next day:

Some of the terrain out there:


A closer look of the same shot. That's Abe looking back at me, wondering why I have stopped. :)


The area is a lot of open tundra (and frozen-over lakes and ponds), which is dotted with ribbons of brushy (VERY brushy) lowlands which border sloughs or rivers. This next two shots show the brushy thicket the bull went into,and a glimpse of the open tundra beyond - there is a hidden river down in that bottom, which is the one I roared down, originally, trying to head him off.





My snowmachine and the area once again:



Here is the hide and head - note the bloody pedicels where the horns had recently fallen off. It was a meat hunt anyway, but I never thought my first bull would be bald as a bean...


A pile of snow-covered meat, about 300-400 lbs worth without the bones, maybe more! - which regulation dictates you must leave attached until you bring it out of the field.




This is a pic of our sleds, loaded up and ready to go. All that you see there on the ground here is the meat pile, minus the bones and hide of course. Some of it is partially covered in snow. Man, what a great location for some wolf traps!

3 Lynx in 5 days..and 2 Lynx in 2 days....

We are definitely on a roll. The Dead Tree set is producing more than I would have thought my entire line would, all by itself. There is just something about that location that funnels in the cats. The video in the last post of Lynx #3 shows a little of the sign at the scene, but does not do it justice. The Lynx 'rut' is just heating up now, and so things should get crazier as we go into the next couple weeks. Oughta be fun...

As stated in the title, we have now caught two Lynx in two days - and I forecast a third today. Two days in a row now we rolled up on the Dead Tree set and watched a Lynx run away from the set location across the slough - and still found a Lynx IN the set right after. Like Deja Vu. And so I presume that the one we watched run off yesterday will be in the set today. We'll see. At any rate, I wanted to post some of the pics we got from kitty #4, along with a video of the lassoing.

Here is a couple of the great shots that Sarah always takes:








This one was, once again, not impressed with me! However, when the time came for the "lasso rodeo", as I now call it, his temper settled down, and he didn't even take so much as a single swipe at me OR the snare of doom. Also, on this video, you can actually hear the growling without turning the volume up too much. Check this out:


In other news, the Pilot Station Trapping Project is still rolling. We have yet to catch a dang Ermine, but the kids are still seeing success on their Fox 'line:


I'm still catching fox too, its just that Sarah and I have become so occupied with Lynx, skinning Lynx, and finding new sets for them that we have taken the bullseye off the Fox sets for a while. I'm going to try to change that this week because the pelts are fully Prime and are truly gorgeous! Check out this one, the most recent I have caught:




Here's a close-up of how 'poofy' they are - this pic is from the side while the pelt is on a normal wooden stretcher - the stretcher is less than 1/4" thick, so the rest is all guard hairs and underfur:


These are really NICE fox! I'm off to go moose hunting and will have to check our Lynx sets when done, so will be back later hopefully with a Huge new post!

Good things come in threes...

Whoooo-yeah!!!!!

Lynx number three is hanging from the kitchen rafters, and I am riding another wave of giddiness.

'Twas another interesting day out there on the trapline. Man, it is wonderful to be able to say that... "out on the trapline." Once trapping gets in your blood, it can only be a matter of time until you dream of testing yourself against what Alaska has to offer. We have not seen even a glimpse of wolverine sign, but those, along with Ermine, are about the only furbearers here in AK that Sarah and I have not connected with this season. We have truly been blessed with a "mixed bag" of successes, and for that I am very thankful. That said, I must say that I am starting to think that of all the forms of trapper I can be, I think I would least mind becoming a Lynx trapper. I am not sure I can describe the feeling I get when walking up to one of them - and it matters not in the slightest that they are in a trap. Yeah, I can say words like 'majestic', 'beautiful', 'incredible', and even 'wild' - but they are not quite strong enough. To look into the eyes of a Lynx that you lured in and caught does something to you that I have never felt before having it occur. It just plain FIRES ME UP! Next year, if we are here, I am already planning on getting another dozen traps so that we can get out 18 sets instead of six.....

Anyway, enough about me - more about the Lynx. This one was a little more photogenic than the rest:


Here's what she did when I pulled the snare out of my pocket: :)


Now, in the event that any anti-trapping type folks have stumbled onto my blog (heh heh, WHOOPS on you!!!!!) I would like to post this pic to show just how distressed, worried, and utterly freaked out this Lynx was because she was in a trap:


uhm, yeah. We are both standing less than 30 feet from a WILD Lynx who is caught in a trap, and she's scratching her back in the snow, playing with a tree, and wiggling her tail. Now that's trauma! Moving on...

Here's one from a little closer that Sarah took - I really like this one:


Here's a shot of Sarah wearing her new Mountain Goat trapping hat that she finished sewing together last week:


And one of me with the spectacular creature that is Lynx canadensis:



The video of our check and the dispatch:


Here's a short clip of my crazy self on the way home. I was in rare form - and that's a camera under my coat - not a beer belly :)

"...to lasso a cat...."

Well, today was a long day at work. Was planning to get out and check traps as soon as it was over, but it was just draaaaaaaaggggiiiinng on and on......

But then - on my way to the office to clock out, I saw Albert Beans on the bench, so I walked over to see if he had gotten any wolves his last time out and to check why he had called me this morning. I believe his EXACT words were "..yeah, somebody told me yesterday that you had a Lynx over in the Driftwood somewhere...." My mind was backstepping trying to recover from the instant adrenaline rush when I realized/remembered that "the Driftwood" is the term that locals such as Albert use for an area roughly the size of Texas and Oklahoma...put together. Instantly, I thought of the Turkey neck set because of Pappy's vision from the other day, but I knew it could have been any one of our sets, based on the magnitude of "The Driftwood"...

Once back at home, I hastily rounded up what I thought I needed, only to forget half of it on my way out the door in a crazy, whirlwind of rushed, half-dressed uselessness, all while trying to keep Ada in the house and keep the snow machine running so it could warm up. A recipe for disaster. But I made it out of the house unscathed and soon I was barreling down the Yukon as fast as I dared go without looking at the speedometer.

Got to the first slough and made it to the turnoff without wrecking, which was impressive for the rate of speed I was experiencing. A few minutes and miles later, I was fast approaching the next turn, this time a left, which would bring me to the scene of the turkey neck set. It just HAD to be the turkey neck set. The catch to that set is this....it is about 3 feet off the trail, and just over a blind rise, which means if you are driving the trail on a snowmachine, a highly pissed off trap-caught Lynx would most certainly be able to ambush you and reach your jugular AND your vital organs with all three of his use-able paws...and likely his teeth would follow. Have you ever seen the frightening creature a housecat turns into around a vacuum cleaner? Well, to give you an idea, I am thinking I am about to roll up on a larger, much-more-capable-of-death version of a housecat with a roaring 550cc motor running around 4000rpm.....you can imagine what I am preparing for...so, I get to the turn, and, holding my breath, I goose the throttle and pop up over the rise, ready to bail at a moment's notice...and....nothing. Not a damn thing. Well, except for some tracks in the fresh snow which clearly show me that at least one lynx has approached, and REFUSED, my set in the last 24 hours. What the.....!

Hmmm....now I am really confused. Is there a set-off trap under that new snow? Is our Lynx gone? Did someone steal it?...I only then, in my heightened state, remembered that we have two more sets out there. OK, so the turkey neck set isn't the one Albert meant...I remove the drifted snow from the set and remake it, then I back out the trail, down over the rise, and head for the next set, which is the very one Sarah and I got the first Lynx in. As I approached the spot, I simultaneously realized that 1) There is, once again, NO FLAGGING marking our set (where it SHOULD be), and 2) There is a highly pissed off Devil Cat looking at me....We caught another one! Yeeeeee-hawwwwww!!!!!!!!!

And his demeanor told me that my previously expressed concern about the Turkey neck set was justified. He was not impressed with the trap - or me:




What goes through your head at a time like this?...well, here's an idea:

"Wow! that is about the coolest thing I have ever seen!....man, I hope that trap holds.....Holy Cow look at those white paws!....Man, if he pulls out of that trap, I'm gonna bleed.....Oh, cool - listen to that growling sound he's making!......."

And so, I put the camera down, because I realize I am going to need two more hands than I actually have, as it is. And I approach the cat. With just a snare. At this point, he is just waiting for me, watching every move, and growling at a volume that increases exponentially with every inch I gain on him:


Finally, I am barely out of his reach when I stop and give myself the quick pep talk. And then, a lunge - from both of us. Only his was much, much faster than my own. a miss. I once again prepare my steel lasso and move in. "C'mon, how hard can this be" I ask myself - and then I find out: I throw the lasso at his head. He sees this coming, about 30 seconds before it actually left my hand. He rolls over onto his back like an airborne bird of prey, and twice as fast (it was like watching "The Matrix" all over again), making the loop miss his head by an embarrassing distance. But the Lynx?..ohhhh no, he does NOT miss...he grabs ahold of that steel cable with every available claw - AND tooth - and proceeds to try and show me just how measly steel cable can be. I am convinced instantly, and out of concern I desperately try to pull back the snare. Heh heh. Not happenin'. He's got it, he knows what it's there for, and nobody's getting that snare back just then. I briefly think to myself, through the "fight or flight" haze, that if he wasn't stuck in a trap, he'd be using the snare on ME about now. I try again to regain possession. All my adrenaline is useless. He's still got the snare. And I am starting to think he can just keep it. Finally, he must have tried to shift his grip a little, or maybe he broke a tooth, because he let go and I retrieved the snare from the writhing ball of fury. I unsuccessfully tried several more times with the snare, before firmly deciding that although many others may doubt the intensity of what I was trying to do, I knew better. Anyone - and I say again, ANYONE, who has tried Lynx lassoing while the fore-mentioned cat has both front legs free, knows better right along with me, too.
It was then that I went to the backup plan: a dose of lead poisoning to the upper spinal column. The job was done. And I've got a lynx to skin. I'll post some video in the next day or so - got some good footage of him growling at me while actually wagging his stub of a tail. Yes, like a dog. I think it was a challenge......

As promised, here is the (unedited, so pardon my nerdiness...) video of the moments prior to and after the above incident. Enjoy. ...In order to hear him growl, unfortunately, you may have to turn up the volume to a very loud setting, as the camera didn't pick it up all that well - but you CAN hear it...I'll do better on that next time - maybe approach the Devil cat a little closer before I hit record. :)