Time to catch up!

Late December to Mid-January: My apologies for those of you who follow this blog, but time has been my enemy as of late and thus, the blog has suffered. I will now attempt to get you caught up on what I've been up to.

I hit the trapline right after Christmas and spent about seven days there by myself. My dad and brother-in-law Art were supposed to join me but Christmas got in the way and their plans were cancelled. As it were, trapping wasn't exactly stellar; in fact, this entire season has been slow, confirmed by nearly every other trapper I've talked to. The trapper's bread and butter, the pine marten, have numbers that appear to be down just about everywhere. And other furbearers just don't seem to be cooperating. That is unless you are a weasel on RFMA 1804. It never ceases to amaze me how many weasels are running around, setting me back at just about every trap I have set, including now my lynx sets. The little buggers are a pain in the butt!

A set of weasel tracks heading straight toward one of my marten sets.

I haven't set a weasel trap since the first full year I trapped this line with my dad. Yet, I've caught more than 100 weasels since then, all in marten boxes. I actually admire the little thieves, as they are very intelligent and professional killers - nothing can hunt down and kill prey like these guys can and size means nothing to them. Their downfall is that they are true carnivores and only eat meat... period! And because of an insatiable appetite and no end to their greed, they sometimes get caught in my traps. If I caught every one of them that raided my marten boxes, I'd have caught several hundred by now. However, they are cunning and often escape, leaving me with a box without bait and quite often an empty, snapped trap.

This guy made it into the box, but failed on his way out. He did eat all my bait though.

This guy was greedy and tried to take the bait with him - both he and the bait are in the trap.

Weasel number 27 on the season.

I keep hoping my wolves come back but so far, no luck. I'm missing an entire pack and can't help but think they fell victim to the government poisoning program in the Little Smoky Caribou range. As the crow flies, I'm less than 50 miles away, so it isn't unreasonable to suspect they may have encountered some poison baits. The other pack that originally had me set up traps for them, still haven't returned and it's been over a month now. I'm not sure if they will return or not but I hope so.

As I mentioned in the previous blog post, I managed to get 11 lynx cubbies up before Christmas. A lack of snow has allowed them to travel through the bush easily so they haven't been using my trails as much as in past seasons, merely just crossing them. But there's a lot of lynx around, as their tracks are everywhere and when I made my first check of those 11 cubbies after Christmas, I was expecting (hoping) to fill my quota of five, or at least get close to it. But in keeping with a slow season, I managed to only catch one, a two-year-old male.

This lynx was caught on Unnamed Trail.

I've been a believer in Forsyth's Lonesome Tom lure since I first started trapping lynx. The lure has proven itself time and time again. It is a thick, smelly lure most likely made out of a mixture of different animal glands and probably rotted down lynx liver that is designed to attract a lynx and make it want to rub on the stick containing the lure, much like a dog rolls on smelly stuff in your backyard. However, I think something was changed in the lure this year or perhaps I got a bad batch. During my check, numerous cubbies were without the lure and I couldn't figure out what was going on. I thought maybe it was dissipating in the warm weather. That was until I came up to a cubby and watched a weasel sitting on the stick, eating the lure... twice! Maybe the lure is too meaty or something because I hadn't seen that before and never had the lure disappear like this. This is only a guess but seeing those weasels eating the lure made me decide to try a different lure for the first time, so Barne's lures are getting some of my money now.

Realizing it was going to take a few more cubbies and some trail sets to catch the lynx I wanted, I went to work and now have 19 cubbies up and about 8 trail sets. I returned home from that trip with only a single lynx, several weasels and a couple of squirrels. disappointing to say the least. My next trip resulted in only three weasels and one squirrel, which was also very poor. Most of my cubbies were without lure and several of them had the bait stolen... damn weasels!

My most recent trip was with much more anticipation. I hadn't been back in about a week because I had to teach a trapping course in Westlock, but I figured the extra time would allow my sets to soak a little longer with the new lure I was trying. One good thing, the weather had changed, it was now quite a bit colder, and there was a few more inches of snow on the ground.

For three days the temperature swayed very little. 

A selfie taken at -24 after about 3 hours on the trail.

But even with the colder weather and some more snow, things were still slow. There is a lot of industrial activity on the trapline this year, so that may have something to do with it but I'm not sure. One thing is for sure, my lynx seem to have gotten a lot smarter. I've had several walk-by's and walk-ups this year, which has seldom happened in the past. The walk-by's I can understand, seeings that in those instances either my bait was stolen or the lure was gone. As for the walk-ups, in those instances, there was either bait still in the cubby, lure, or both. The lynx just looked in and then carried on. If I didn't have to check my footholds every 48 hours, I'd be using them at my cubbies and would have caught at least two more lynx by now. I've also had two lynx duck under my snares, which is also something I haven't seen before. I know the snares aren't set too high, so I'm not sure what would make them do that.

Here you can see the lynx tracks go right down the center of the trail and past my snare.

Over the last two years, I've caught two lynx in this spot with the exact same setup. This year, however, the
lynx just ducked under my snare, missing it. Its tracks clearly show that it walked perfectly through the set.

I've set up a few new cubbies this year in locations where I've witnessed lynx tracks. In one particular spot just before Broken Bridge Hill, I saw a set of tracks on two different occasions so up went a cubby. My first check of that cubby was a walk-up. I refreshed the lure and replaced the missing bait. On my next check though, sure enough, I had my second lynx, a two-year-old female this time.

I spent my last day at the trapline on this trip taking down several marten boxes, all of which have been in place for five years now. These were some of the original horizontal pole sets that Dad and I put up. The pipeline company in the area, SemCams, are putting a pipeline through that runs parallel with one of the existing pipelines, what I call Pipeline Trail. I'm not sure what the area is going to look like when they are finished or where my boxes will go until then. I guess I'll find out this summer. On nearly every trapline in Alberta there is some form of industrial activity taking place. I have been lucky since I've owned this trapline because I've basically been left alone... I guess it's my turn now.

Squirrels do eat meat and are known to get caught in marten boxes.

I don't catch a lot of squirrels on my trapline because I don't really target them. They just don't demand a lot of money, even though skinning them merely takes a few minutes. Having said that, when most guys are getting $1.00 for their squirrels, I have yet to get less than $1.50. Last year, I averaged $1.58 while most guys were getting .80 cents. It must have something to do with the genetics in this particular part of Alberta. Maybe I should start trying to catch more, as they would give a guy something to do at night in the cabin while watching the tube. Squirrels, especially flying squirrels, do eat a certain amount of meat. The ones I catch have all been trying to get my bait. Unfortunately for them, they are far bigger than a weasel and always get caught. I've caught eight so far this year just like in the above photo.

I'm hoping the lynx start cooperating soon, as I was recently contacted by the manager of the large ranch I trap for about 30 minutes from home. They are wondering when I'm going to be back there to help control their coyote population. I'm actually itching to get after coyotes so I hope my next trip back to the trapline is a productive one. Stay tuned.