Feb. 22,

A great day ahead.  High is expected to be in the 50’s!  That is quite warm for Feb.  The rats should be out all day checking on the sunshine and looking for love.

Wapiti has decided to join me and travel the lines today.  I guess he just got plain bored being retired and wants to check out the holes in his boots.

I’ll show him some of the trapping areas and maybe, just maybe he will get interested enough to join Bob and I on our trapping adventures.  We could use a couple more trappers to get the job done right.  As it is, we can only hit what we can hit and we always leave a ton of areas un-trapped.

I am expecting 10 rats today, but would not balk at 20.  More to come.

Bears Butt

A.M. report

P.M. report

It was a beautiful day…We made it out to the trap line about 10:30 or so, time does not matter, what does matter is that Wapiti and I were on our wheelers and checking iron.

I was trying to inform Wapiti about the area and some of the things I have encountered during my trapping with Bob.  I think I bored him aLOT!

In the end I only caught 7 rats!  Bummer deal.  But I also had 7 traps set off and so, I should have caught 14.  That would have been a lot better deal.  But not so…

One of the traps wasn’t “quite” set off, the trap pan was depressed and only a Milli-fraction of the pan needed to move downward in order to let the “jaws of capture” surround the leg of the animal.  But why did it not do the job it was made to do?  A little bitty stem of bullrush…..OMG…(for those of you not into texting..OMG means OH MY GAUHD), and it was stuck just under the pan and just thick enough to not let the trap dog release the jaws of capture.

It was so very close to doing what it was meant to do, when I picked up the trap to show Wapiti how “down” the pan was, as I raised the trap toward the heavens, a combination of  “gravitational pull” (downward) and the “force of the wind” upon the trap pan by my raising the trap upward toward the heavens, depressed the bullrush reed just enough to set the trap off.  SNAP!

So close.

And so, the day was a beautiful one on the trap line and Wapiti wants to go out again.

We did not see anything exceptional or out of the ordinary on this trip, but we did have a wonderful day…two brothers out in the swamp…mucking our way through and trying n0t to get our wheelers stuck.

One note.  Wapiti wanted to go with me to check a couple of traps.  I had warned him about the depth of some of the runs and the fact that you needed to make sure you had solid footing before putting your full weight on the reeds as you walked.  He acknowledged all was well and we started across the swamp, me in the lead.  As I approached the first of two traps, I turned and there was Wapiti…grasping quickly for something to keep him upright, as his left leg sank deeply into the depths of  “no bottom land”….His right hand grasped a huge clump of toolies and his right leg was planted firmly on solid “something” and the combination of it all allowed him to upright his nearly horizontal body and keep him from baptizing himself in the cold waters of Pete Holmgrens “Trellis Line”.

Later he said, “The water came up to the end of the barrel of his concealed carry”, I trust that means he was close to going for a swim.

He decided he would go back to the wheelers and watch me from the distance.

A wonderful day, great company, and a few cooperative rats.  Thanks for joining me Wapiti and thanks for the JU-JU treats.

Bears Butt