Today turned out to be a very nice weather day.  Snow here in town and sunshine out on the line.  By the time I made it back to town it was sunny here and 40 degrees!  I like 40 degrees this time of year….it melts snow!

I had a couple of messages from Ed Lloyd this morning telling me about the skiff of snow out there and also that he had 4 eggs with my name on them!  So, I grabbed up a bottle of  Sherry’s salsa to trade him, tossed it in the car and headed west.

Doris’ pond proved a dead beat trapping place once again.  I’ll pull those traps on Monday, but I might get a hair to pull them tomorrow, who knows.  It’s 12 miles out of the way just to find all the traps empty…you can’t pay for gas that way.

Back up at Big and Little Spring things were looking up.  No apparent wind last night and things were melting at 10:30 when I got there.  I checked Big Spring and then decided I’d try and get through the depression (a dip between a small spring and the main Big Spring drainage.  I figured if I could get the toy through that and up on higher ground on the other side, I might be able to venture east down the drainage and maybe even set some traps.  I must have picked the exact spot I needed to because the toy never even slowed down.  On the other side I was a happy guy and ready to swag in some more traps.  I had taken 10 of my clip flags with me and didn’t have any other flagging material, so 10 traps would be my max to set.

I have to park quite a ways from the drainage and walk across the drifts but I figured what the heck, no traps out means no rats being caught.  I grabbed two coni’s and headed out.  I found two sets very quickly and came back to the rig for two more.  Those went in quickly as well and I found another place for one, so back to the rig I went.  So, now I only have 5 flags left and I just got started.  Oh well, it probably is just as well that I could only set 10 traps.  By the time I got as far as I could drive because of the drifts, I had set all 10 traps.

My last set was about 100 yards from the rig and that is quite a ways for an old guy mucking through knee deep drifts.  It’s especially hard walking when sometimes the crust will support your weight and other times you bust through.  Try that you other short people.  At any rate here I was facing a perfect bait set and the leg hold traps are all back at the rig.  I wasn’t about to walk all that way just to grab “the appropriate trap”, I’ll take a leg hold to there tomorrow, as for now I decided to rig this one up with a conibear.  If it works I’ll be danged surprised.

Here you have a log where the rats climb up on it and go to the bathroom.  Usually I would plop a leg hold right on top of the pile of rat droppings, put a few carrots around here and there and be done.  This time I use a conibear and my thoughts are to lure the rat down the log to eat carrots.  When he gets done eating them he should see the carrots on the other side of the trap and walk through the trap to get to those carrots…snap… and he is mine!

Look at this setup closely.  Notice I have placed a stick down through the opening of the spring and close to the trap jaws.  This stick is supporting the trap as it sets on the log, but the stick is also in a position not to interfere with the operation of the trap and also, when the rat gets caught (if one gets caught) it will jump off the log and drown, the trap chain is being held by the stake on the right of the log.  Do you think this will catch me a rat tomorrow?

So, with 10 more traps set, my total number of traps is 53.

As I started back I could see Bob waiting on the side of the road up near my outfit.  It didn’t take long to travel back on my trail and I was soon back to the truck.  3 rats in my bag and Bob had 3 rats in his…not too bad considering everything that is going on.

We BSed for a few minutes and then he decided it was time to head for home and start skinning the rats we caught yesterday and laid out to dry.  I still had my Little Spring traps to check and I headed in that direction.

As I finished this line I heard a noise and there was Ed Lloyd traveling along on the trellis road.  He had come out to see the dead cow I had told him about this morning through a email message.  It had gotten caught in a deep spring and drowned.  They will have to pull it out before it decomposes and contaminates the water.

Ed was watching where he was driving and not paying attention to my hand signals.  I wanted him to go back to the trellis and I would haul him on the toy down to where the cow was, but he was doing his own thing…bouncing and sliding down the road that leads to the Goose Club, once he reached the gate at the club he turned his wheel and here he came straight at me across country…throwing snow left and right and squiggling every direction as he came.  I just knew he was going to go out of sight any moment, but on he came roaring along.  He stopped close by and got out quickly.  I laughed at him and said I couldn’t believe he just drove across country like that and didn’t get stuck.  He handed me the 4 eggs he had promised.  I carefully placed them in one of my toy packs and crossed my fingers I wouldn’t break them.  He jumped on the back of the toy and we went over to see the dead cow.

Back at his rig, he thought he could just do a donut right there and get back onto his own tracks and ride on out of there.  He gunned it, turned his wheel and spun right down to high center ville.  Great try.

We dug and dug and he finally jacked up the back and we were able to put a tire chain on his drive wheel.  After a couple of attempts at rocking the rig, it finally came out and he spun like crazy to get back onto his old tracks.  It just took about 30 minutes is all.

This is Ed as he was coming toward me.  He got stuck just left of the two small bushes you see in front of him.  I was truly surprised he made it that far.  That little Chev outfit of his is a good one.  When he got rolling he followed his tracks back and out and we met up at my outfit where I gave him that jar of Sherry’s salsa.  It was a good thing it didn’t take us any longer to get his rig unstuck that it did, because we had just arrived at the spot, he took off the one chain and he got a phone call from one of the hands saying he had a load of cattle and would be there in just a minute…It’s Eds job to unload the cattle when they arrive.

Back on the trap line, Little Spring produced another 3 rats for me today for a total of 6 rats today!  I can live with a 6 rat day.

HEY DANGINT!   IT’S COLD DOWN HERE!!!!

Bears Butt

Feb. 22, 2013