Trapping Club Meeting #2...

First I would like to start off with events from the school day, before we get to the evening. We skinned the fox in the last post...


...and then we went through a comprehensive dissection, including stomach content analysis. Also discussed were many skeletal and anatomical features common to predators. The biggest hits seemed to be the lenses of the eyes and exploring just how long the intestines really are in relation to the fox itself:


Now, on to the evening...

Well, this week's RSM Trapping Club meeting was a bigger success than last week's - I was hoping for a better turnout now that the flurry of activities is temporarily over, and it definitely was. All told, we had eleven kids show up - after everyone ran home for gloves and hats and snow pants and snow boots and what not (after all, it WAS -23 outside...)

We started by everyone making a few S-bend wires for hanging snares, and before long with all of us working together we had about 2 dozen. I grabbed a pair of rotted, foul duck carcasses from this fall along with two footholds and some snares and away we went. Though most of us walked, many only went far enough to get their snowmachines and then joined the rest of us at the dump, which was our first stop.




We all made it safely in the end:


Oh, and once we got to the dump there was a "Hairy Man" sighting: :)


First up we chose a spot in a low pocket of willows off the dump road where lots of sign already was. Careful to all use the same trail on the way in, we stomped down a bait station circle and got two snares hung in already-used-trails.








We applied the stank-nasty duck carcass-minus-breasts for scent and visual appeal - and OH BOY did it have some scent!!! As Basil found out... :) We also applied some of Asa Lenon's lure to a post-stick to sweeten the pot a bit.




After that, the fence building began.




There were a few more freshly broken tops showing than I would normally use, but in the end, it looked pretty darn good. As I have said before and I will say many times again - the 'dumb' ones look the same on the stretchers as the 'smart' ones.


A good time seemed to be had by all, though some were more bystander than participant this go-round...


While we were working on the first bait-station, two of the students set off around the dump on their own, and placed two other snares in trails. They also came back with a moose backbone! (on back of the snowmachine...)


After about half the students headed for home due to the cold, (did I mention it was -23 outside?...) we took off for the far reaches of the lake and made a set with the two footholds and the newly-acquired backbone. The set was created in a natural cubby and was a modified version of my "step-up" set I experimented with in Pilot Station. This isn't the best picture, but it was getting dark and the camera didn't adjust well.... :)


We'll see how it goes...