Saturday Egavik trip

This was our second trip to Egavik this season. I for sure thought we'd have some critters in the two sets that we did on the first trip. But alas, no critters were even moving around! They have to be getting hungry soon. It's been warm so our bait will be all smelly, too. We're going to have something in the traps when we get back to Egavik. I just know it. On the way out of town I saw some ptarmigan over by some spruce trees. So I drove over and dropped three of them with two shots. Silly birdies didn't even fly away after the first shot!

The trail was considerably rougher than the first ride. The warm weather wreaked havoc on what snow had been packed down. So much tundra and even rock. At the end of December. Ridiculous. We still had daylight after checking the traps so we went off in search of places to do some new sets on the North side of the Egavik River. We found an old trail that might have been my dad's and took it back towards a little slough that led to the main river. There was a beaver house so Gregg chopped down a tree and did a marten set while I took the spruce branches and made a little wolverine cubby. It's perfect to do either a lynx set or a wolverine set when we do a marten set because we have all these beautiful branches for cubbying it up.

Wolverine cubby. See the chunk of beaver in there? Hopefully a critter will too.

It was so warm out I didn't even need goggles and the only time I used my face mask was on the ride to and from Egavik.

My tracks along side lynx tracks. Good spot for a lynx cubby.

I like pole sets for marten so much more than box sets. There's no chance of little assface mice getting their grubby little teeth into the fur and ruining it. Also this is the only trap that I can set without assistance from my trapping partner. I really should lift weights or something. He did get me a pliers type tool for big conibears and foot traps. I don't ever think to set it in the box with all our gear though. He also taught me how to set a conibear trap using a piece of rope. Really handy to know, because you can set it one handed using a hand and a foot. So if you accidentally catch your hand in a trap you can get out.

And of course a marten set.