Trapping Adventures

So I've begun to follow Greg when he goes and checks his trap line.  I've gone with him 3 times now, however the most recent was the first time that I'd brought my ipod and I was able to snap some pictures.

This is Greg.  He traps.

Yesterday was amazing.  We left around 12:30.  It was snowing a little but it was warm out.  As the day progressed it stopped snowing and blue sky even peeked through the clouds.  On our way up and over a hill we ran into a flock of ptarmigan.  All I could think was I wish I had my shotgun!  Sadly I don't have a way to carry it with me yet.  (I just ordered a strap for it though.)  We kept cruising and there was a dead rabbit and land otter tracks by the side of the road by the gravel pit.  Greg stopped and picked up the half a bunny carcass and tossed it in his sled.  The first part of the trap line is through Christmas tree trail.  There was only one marten that had got eaten by mice.  Greg had been gone for a week so he had to rebait and reset almost all of the traps.  We finished that part of the line and then drove towards the river to check the traps by the bank.  There was a fox!  He was tangled up in trees with his foot in a trap.

Fox caught with a foot trap.

This was the hard part for me.  I'd never seen an animal die before.  I've caught fish and cut them up, but fish are different than furry, live creatures.  Greg strangled the fox.  :(  And then reset the snares.  I carried the poor critter back to the sled and Greg put him in the bag.

We tried going on the river up to Ayyu's but the river had some overflow.  So we turned around and went back along Christmas tree trail and up over land to Ayyu's after we turned off the road and were cruising on the tundra when Greg spotted something off to our right.  We stopped our snowmachines and he pulled out his gun and took a look through the scope.  There was another fox!  We moved a little closer and he took aim and fired off some shots while the fox zigged and zagged off in the distance.  Greg reloaded and we moved closer to the fox, shot some more and we repeated the process moving again, this time cutting the fox off from the treeline.  Greg hit him this time and had to reload one more time.  We waited a few minutes to let the fox tire himself out and then went to look for him.  We drove up and saw tracks headed up the hill so we went that direction and never saw the fox.  We looked for a good bit and then moved on to the snares by Ayyu's.

There had been a ton of snow the last week and a lot of wind, so all traces of Greg's tracks were gone and we parked where he thought he set the snares and then walked into the willows to look for the snares.  Greg went right and I went left, I spotted two snares in the trees and yelled out that I'd found them.  Greg trudged through the snow towards me and then I spotted a taught line going down into the snow.  I made my way over to the line and pulled on it, it didn't budge.  So I started digging and then Greg came over and started digging as well and uncovered a big white paw.  He said, "It's a lynx."  Then he kept digging and eventually pulled up a long tail, "That's no lynx."  And then I pulled up on it and flipped it over and it was a wolf!  I tossed my hands up in the air and said, "I helped!"  We both laughed, giddy with the find.  Greg cut the snare off the tree and I lugged the wolf back to the sled.

He's a small wolf but he's pretty.

While I was waiting for Greg to come out of the willows Joe pulled up on his sled.  I pointed out the wolf and smiled super big.  We chatted a little till Greg came out of the willows.  Joe helped us dump the snow out of the sled, then we parted ways.  Greg led the way up to little north by the old White Alice pump house and we pulled the snares and traps from there.  The snow was at least knee deep in most places if not deeper.  We were both huffing and puffing and sweating after the trek to and from the traps.

Water peeking through on little north.

Super happy Panda.

We started the long trek home, but Greg decided to cruise back to the last place that we saw the fox.  We drove right up and the fox was there, he had nestled down in a little hollow and we could see him from where we drove up before.  Greg pulled out his gun and shot him.  When I drove over he was snarling and baring his teeth and he was dying.

Beautiful little fox.

That concluded the adventures on the trap line for the day.  The next part of the adventure was in Greg and Maggie's garage.  The ride home was uneventful and fairly smooth.  We got back around 4:30, ate dinner and had a few beers.  I watched Greg skin the fox that he shot.

Skinning, part II of trapping.

Then it was my turn.  Sadly I didn't get any pictures of me skinning the fox from the trap, so I have no proof.  But I didn't mess up at all!  I didn't cut any holes in the hide and got the eyes, mouth and nose off without too much difficulty.  The fox that I skinned was a boy and I wasn't a big fan of skinning his bits and then cutting that part of him but I suppose that's a part of trapping as well.  I can't wait to go back out and see what's in the traps next time.  We put up two little ermine traps.  :)  I'm most excited about those, even though mom says she has a bunch of ermine.