Byron, Aapa and I set off early yesterday morning to go and check the line. We rolled up to my first set which has a trap on a kill and a blind set. I lured the set with some puppy [Please excuse my language... I'm an idiot] when I originally set it and a group of 4 wolves approached the set and just walked all over the [Please excuse my language... I'm an idiot]. I had my brother set up the traps while I directed him how to do it. Keep in mind hes been living in the city for 15 yrs so his trapping experience is limited. Now when we cut out our 1" crusted snow block to cover the trap an average block is about 1" bigger then the trap your setting, these blocks were 5" bigger then the traps we were setting so that's where we screwed up.
We set a trap about 20" away from the kill because of the high fox traffic, a wolf stepped on the outside of the trap and broke the crusted snow exposing the trap, another wolf stepped on the outside of the blind trap 10' away exposing it also. From the looks of it, they might have smelled the traps, but on the plus side the pack running the valley has about 10 wolves in it so not all of them know about the sets.
I pretty much got skunked on all the other sets, but we did set out a few more buckets and a few more #9's. Usually by now I have all my sets out, but with the collar bone still healing Im limited as to the labor work I can do. It just nice to get out into the country and enjoy company at the same time.
The ride home was hectic, we had to leave my 700 due to a worn out clutch that wont dis-engage. We were riding 2-up on the Trapper, and one guy on the sled. We ended up removing the seat of my 700 and mounting it onto the sled so the ride wouldn't be too bumpy.
So until next weekend........