Thanks grisseldog!

I broke the dry spell with a small beaver in a snare yesterday.





It's not one I'd want to throw on the fur sale table to show off, but I was glad to have made a catch. Here's the set:



I also had a coyote step in the dirt pattern at a set, just a few inches away from a #2 Bridger.



It's been misting rain on and off for the last two days, and I've had a couple of traps taken out of commission after the trap beds filled with water. A bit of forethought on day one would have prevented that for sure.



Today I was checking the 5 snares I set around a bait pile and found that one of them was knocked completely off of the support wire (the loop was still almost completely open), and something had eaten 7 squirrel carcasses and the ribcage of a beaver.

Right now I've got 14 sets out: 11 snares and 3 footholds.

Been slow down here at the "Gateway to the Ouachitas" the past few days also Mike Joe. The Ozarks sure are pretty country.

Thank you sir! Do you think the warmer weather has anything to do with it?

On a side note, I did get my first bobcat back from the tanner the other day. I caught this one in a snare last year, and since I had never put one up, I looked around and found a local trapper that has been finishing fur for years. He fleshed and dried it, and afterwards we worked out a deal and he sent it off to the tannery along with a lot of his fur. After a nine month wait, I got it back last Wednesday.

Here's a picture of the cat:



And the finished pelt:





It's without doubt the product of one of my favorite days on the trapline.

Very pretty country and while you're not wearing them out, you're having fun trapping. Time spent with mother nature isn't wasted time at all.

Seems to have on the water line. Catching a few but not what expected when I set up a new area. Kill a coyote for me Mike Joe, work schedule might prevent me from setting a predator line.

I definitely agree with that statement wholeheartedly! I remember a couple of years ago I ran a line for a week or so and didn't do very well. I also remember being pretty bummed out about not making a stellar catch. However, it ocurred to me sometime afterwards that it is pretty foolish to be disappointed about time spent on the trapline (I certainly wouldn't have traded that time away).

I still want to catch as much fur as I can, and I still lose sleep over tracks in the pattern and empty sets, but it's always fun—even on the blank checks.



That sucks! I can't make any promises but I'll see what I can do.

I sure hope we get some of the snow that's in the forecast after Christmas. Snaring is a lot of fun with tracks on the ground!

Alright, it's been awhile since an update. I didn't trap much around Christmas as my parents came down to visit from Iowa and I didn't want to be out in the woods trapping while they were down here.

They headed back up Friday, and I made a plan to start the line back up. The field was becoming more work to trap than it is worth, so I decided to switch over and focus on beaver trapping. I've found a few holes of water on the bayou that have quite a bit of sign in them, and it's not a three mile trip from the road to set them, either.

I'll note that we didn't get any snow as was predicted, but the weather has turned off cold (for Arkansas). Yesterday morning when I left the house it was 7 degrees. Today it was 9. That meant two things:

1. The bayou was frozen over.
2. I needed to figure out how to set beaver snares under ice.

I did a lot of reading last night and went out this morning to try my hand at setting snare poles at this spot, which is just downstream of a bridge:





On the way back to the car, I saw an otter scamper from the ice into some brush along the creek, just as another one was climbing out of a hole of open water onto the ice about thirty yards away. I made a clean shot with the .22 and got to bring some fur home on my first day back on the line.



Here's a tailgate picture without the tailgate:



The pelt was roughly 28" long unstretched. (Not great pictures, they were taken as it was getting dark).




Where does that put this guy as far as size? Based on some pictures I have seen, I figured that might be on the small side for an otter. This is my first however, so I've got nothing to compare to.

Had a great day regardless and am hoping that I can snare a beaver under the ice before it melts off, just so I can say that I did it. The opportunity doesn't come around all that often in this part of the country.

Good shot Mike Joe!

Congrats on the sharp shooting of the otter,nice otter..

Mike Joe, I spent many years trapping Arkansas and maybe on or near some of the same ground you are now. Caught lots of beaver, otter, mink, coyote and cats on the Petit Jean Delta area and many other Levees in the bottoms.

Caught lots of fur there over 11 years. I trapped the Ouachita National Forest area west of Danville and Russellville for a while and lots of bottom ground East of Ola. I found out in short order that the mountains and national forest were not good numbers area. You will get some drifters and travelers but just too hard for many predators to make a living up there. Very nice country in the mountains, just not real productive for the rough travel time in and out.
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As you have found the fur variety is not as plentiful at all in the big woods compared to the foothills and mixed semi agricultural areas along the bottoms.

Best of luck to you. Some of those photos bring back some good memories. I have dozens of hours of video from the late 80's to early 90's when I trapped Arkansas. I will enjoy watching them when I retire at some point.

Nice catch of fur.Congrats

Thanks all!

It's warmed up quite a bit here and the ice is starting to melt off.



I happened upon this location today and put in a pair of snare sets:







Also got to see another otter. I had just finished anchoring a snare, looked up, and saw its head sticking up out of the water about forty yards or so up the creek. I grabbed the .22 and watched it dive and come back up to the surface several times over the course of a few minutes, but it never crawled up on the ice and I wasn't going to take a shot unless I was 100% sure I could retrieve it. After awhile it dove under and I didn't see it come back up again.

I've been fishing this creek every summer for eight years now (since I was about twelve), and I have seen four otter in that time, three of which were seen in the last three days.

I checked snares early this morning, and found an otter in set number 2:




It was caught in the set/location pictured in my previous post. I've been seeing otter just about everyday, but I never dreamed I'd mess around and catch one in a snare! This one was a bit bigger than the first. It's drying in front of a fan at the moment, I will measure it this evening.

Nice otters Mike.

Congrats on the otter Mike Joe!
Bob sounds like you trapped the ground just north of me. Pretty sure I'm familiar with the bottom ground you mentioned.

I worked some real nice ground J Staton. I would like to head South again to Georgia and Arkansas but once I headed West it had better quality fur and less people. Maybe one day I will head down that way once again.

Great pictures.

That's pretty sweet there Mike Joe, I don't personally know of anyone that snared an otter but from my otter experience I'd say your pretty fortunate that it was waiting there for ya. Pretty cool buddy

Mike joe are you not allowed to use a bicycle in those areas? Faster travel means more sets.

Good trapping.

Osky