I’m writing this tonight as I don’t know how much time I will have in the morning before going trapping.

Wapiti has decided to join me at the trapping line tomorrow (today, Monday).  He likes to go out and see what there is to see and hopefully tomorrow will be filled with Spring time things to be seen.  I asked him how much time he had to spend out there and he said he had all day…that is good, because I need to swag in a few traps out on the end of the Little Spring line.  I’m certain the snow is soft enough that I can work my way out to the end of the line and that is where I need to be right now.

I figure that existing lines need to be extended to their ends and then trapped for the next week before heading out to Club 41 and the other places.  I know I’m repeating things that I wrote yesterday, but it’s important for you to know we are under a time line that only nature controls.  If we aren’t prepared for the run we will lose a lot of fur and being prepared means having steel set.

My week long goal is to set to the ends of the two lines out west and Bull Run and then pull the traps at the beginning of each of those lines in preparation for Club 41.  A lot has to be done between now and then.

With 123 rats in the shed, we are going to have to do some serious catching in order to reach the 500 mark, which by the way, is our goal for this year.  A shorter catch than we are normally used to catching, but with a year like this one has been we will be very lucky to reach this goal.

Today it has rained almost all day and I’m smiling big time watching the snow melt away…have I told you how much I hate snow right now?  The only good snow is melted snow…that’s what I’m saying right now.  The extended weather for the week is calling for slightly warmer day time temps than the average and slightly lower lows than normal.  None of that makes much sense to me, but who cares as long as in the long run the weather is warming up.  The rats should come out in force and be running everywhere by weeks end.  There should also be water opening up for Bob to set some serious traps and I hope he pulls the 6 traps he has in the “splash pond” up by Gregs house.  He would be better served to have those 6 traps near the road at the spring rounding the west field than where they are at now.

Bears Butt

Sunday for Monday, March 4, 2013