NICE JOB AKTRAPPER26!

Love reading about your endeavors! Glad things are working out. You would probably enjoy being where you are better than here as we are pretty trapper heavy, but you could have ran out with me. Glad you are experiencing what you were looking for! Hope your wife is enjoying her job!

Northway, I would thoroughly enjoy the opportunity to go along on your line - your experience would be invaluable to me. Thanks!

I may yet still see you in Tok someday...:)

Maybe I should become a fish tech then.. anyway looks like your having fun thanks for sharing & keep those kids out of 1st slough.

I hope so! Would love to have you here. I've only got a couple more years until I can retire and I can see the "full" time trapping gig! Enjoy your time out there. I told my wife if I was to do it again, I would have started teaching up north and just kind of hopped from village to village seeing each part of AK. Would still like to get up in the Unalakleet area, but probably won't. One more week of moose hunting then trapping season will start for me!

Well, I'd like to say that I have lots of critter pics to post - but I do not. Lost my 'trapline' camera to weather and have not gotten the replacement yet. So, I was going through the memory card and trying to find what was worthwhile saving on it before I throw the camera carcass away...

One thing I had wished I had seen on T-man before the season that I haven't found was a video of a snow set. Not a set chopped into frozen ground and made while snow was on the ground. I mean a set IN snow. So I had made a clip of some of my rookie snow sets to have critiqued and learn from.

I have finally downloaded it to photobucket and though it became more blurred in the reformatting, I think it is legible enough to post. In one clip, the trap is shown with the dog at 7'o clock or so - that gets fixed before covering...also, I have altered my covering methods a little since this filming, but that was discussed earlier here. And yes, there is a happy ending to the critter who made off with my drag...he is now hat material - other than that, any and all pointers would be appreciated. Hopefully it will give someone like me an idea or two...and make my deep snow canine sets better with your suggestions.

Have you checked out the town dump? What kind of tracks are there? Is there brush around it?
mt

Have. No brush around it for about 50-100 yds depending on which side you are...

definitely tracks there...put a pee post set on one of the posts in the chain link fence, which has seen action, but still have not snared one. I have set some snares around bait stations that haven't been checked yet. And, we just got some more snow today and so the likelihood of travel in my tracks has increased now. Snow just wasn't deep enough for them to choose to travel my in track, or so it seems so far.

Are there snowmachine trails leading to the dump? Most of my best snaring are the brush lines that lead to the dump that intersect a snowmachine trail.

There are a few machine trails, but with the snow still being pretty skinny in places, the fox don't seem to be using them with regularity. There is a graded 'road' leading from the dump into the open field area behind it. I was hoping to use that once the machines get trails on it with some deeper snow. That seemed to me like more of what mt was mentioning about trail snaring and want to try it. Was thinking too that maybe I would try to make my own trail around the edge of the brush surrounding the clearing, and hopefully set that up once we get a good storm. Thanks for the advice! I will be giving those suggestions a try. Sooner or later I'll get to post a picture of the first snared one...

Thanks for the video! I'm just starting out this season and info like that is really helpful! I'd watch videos like those all day long (or as long as I could hide from the boss.)

Great pictures, I dont get many fox here but they look like fun.

I have to deal with some good amount of snow being in NYs snowbelt off of lake ontario and never though of useing a log as a drag.. I am just worried about a yote getting ahold of it

Yote won't take it far if it's the right size,

Bluetickkid33,

What White said.

I trap in timber country and use 6'-8' long by 3"-6" diameter logs for canine trapping. Even if the coyotes don't tangle they don't go far. If there is deep snow that wears them out faster. The furthest I have had one take a drag like that on a 3 day check is 30 yrds. Wide open grassy meadow. If you have any cover at all they usually go to the closest cover and try and hide there. Many times even on a 3 day check they don't go more than 5 yards. First time a log that size hits something solid they are done.

I see that you mentioned using wire to anchor your traps for fox. What size wire do you feel comfortable using?

I have used as small as 14 gauge before, usually it is double stranded though because of the way I attach it. I don't think you have to be too worried about fox, but I try to just go with #9 most times because you never know what you might catch.

I might also add that the conditions I am facing here are what prompt me to use wire at all. I prefer staking. However, preseason staking is not something I will find myself doing here, primarily for transportation issues. Wire anchoring lets me be more versatile when I am out and find a spot that says "Wow, I've gotta throw a set in there" like the spot in the above video. Placement (what is around the set area to tangle with) and what you anchor to are a concern of course.

thank you very much!

I have heard on here several times, including at least once in one of this year's journals, of somebody catching a fox after they dug down through 8-10 inches of snow at a set. I have never, of course, had anything of the sort happen to me, and thought it was just one of those crazy things. I didn't do that today, as our snow is gone, but...

In the last two weeks, we got dumped on with 10 inches of snow (yesss!) and then proceeded to get three days of rain this last Fri, Sat, and Sun. Made an awful mess. But, I kept checking with binocs anyway (without basically any hope), and pulled some sets. I had not relured a fox set for two weeks, and now - it seemed - they would be covered in a layer of ice, or completely above ground and snow. Went out tonight and checked the three remaining 'hotspots' closest to home. Without much for excitement. I walked on bare gravel most of the way to them, if you get my drift. Was starting to wonder why I didn't just stay home and watch the rest of the game, when I saw a snapped trap. And a blood spot. And an appropriately-sized stick. Someone nabbed my fox! What the...! Grumbling, continued on to the next set. Another fox! Whacked, but still there. OK, this is better. And at the third set....another fox! Weird stuff. I would have lost an EMBARRASSINGLY LARGE bet that NONE of those three traps were functional any longer, even IF they were still remotely covered. I have not a clue how this happened, other than, well, fox stepped into a trap. thrice.

Now tomorrow I just have to see if somebody (hopefully) brings my fox to work or it is gone forever...they've killed them here already, (sets are along well used trails) but always left them lay IN the trap when they did. Probably was a silver and someone nabbed it...ha ha Here's the ones I did get to skin, back at home in my skinning cubicle LOL:

nice man, is that one in the back a cross or is it just dark?? I hope you get the other one back.

naw, he's just a red. I haven't caught a cross yet, but I am waiting...

the pic is just dark and washed out. taken with backup cheese-mo camera lol