your craziest trapping experience

[JuliW]

While I don't trap anymore - I did at one time. I think of two crazy things that happened. First - a wolverine escaped a 330 conibear... Wow.. I couldn't believe that..until I saw it.

Probably the other unusual catch that I had was when I caught a wolf in a single snare set. Actually, it had been several snares that had been hung most of the trapping season season along a brushy creek bed with no activity whatsoever...I don't know why, but I decided to pull all but one snare. And all, I felt, had just as much chance of catching a wolf as any of the others...I just walked along and picked up snares until there was one left... and I left that one... A week or so later caught a very large blue phase wolf in that one snare... crazy.

Probably not the most exciting of trapping stories, but I still wonder at the strength of that wolverine to escape that conibear...And also I would love to know exactly how he had been caught in it...

 

[Smokey]

Juli, getting out of a 330 is a feet for sure!
I will dust off this old brain and see what I can recall! I remember one day checking muskrat traps and I had a 110 set on a den entrance and the chain disappeared up under the bank signaling a catch! Well, when I reached under there I grabbed something that did not feel like a muskrat - it took a couple seconds but I then realized to my horror I had ahold of the head of one VERY pissed off snapping turtle! I drug him out fearing letting go as I could not see my hand and new I had a good hold... I let him go after I got him out but that coulda went bad fast!
I had a hen pheasant with its head stuck in a fox trap once, musta pecked on something right on the dirt covering pan - what are the odds of that!
I had hurt my hand one night and a HS friend said he would run rat traps with me the next day and help. We both had wicker baskets on our shoulders and were catching a lot of rats that day! I would thump the live ones on the head and reset the traps and toss the dead ones on the bank while my buddy followed. We both had full packs and I was several yards ahead of him and all of a sudden he let out a warhoop and was dancing a jig in the two foot deep stream! I was confused and also laughing hysterically as I realized one rat I had thumped was only stunned and when it came to it started crawling out over his shoulder! He did not see as much humor in it as I did but some people are just that way I reckon!

 

[Anythingalaska]

When I lived in Seward for a year, I trapped a Wolverine in a Marten cubby set with a 1 1/2 Victor long spring. The Wolverine was caught but the very tips of two toes! It was dead when I arrived. I couldn't believe that it didn't get out. Also, this was 1/2 a mile out of town to boot!

 

[HFT_AK]

I think the craziest catch I had was a silver fox caught in a snare by the tip of it's tail. Never could figure that one out.

 

[JuliW]

Some great stories! Smokey - your description of the rat coming back to is just priceless!

Anythingalaska - the wolverine was on the ground or hanging? (cubby makes me think on the ground, and I know when we trapped marten down on POW we used square buckets with 120's. Crazy catch!

HFT - That is amazing. Gotta like a 'close' catch that yeilds a silver fox!

Oh - I do remember another story - on POW... trapping wolves. While we knew it was best to minimize scent when trapping wolves, we also made trapping a family affair. We had our four young children along on one such trapping outing. Set up a piss post set on a closed logging road. The boys, being boys (3 of them under the age of 6 or 7) all had to relieve themselves at some point during the setting of the trap. Not super close, mind you...but within several yards. LOL... I knew the trap would never catch anything.... and it didn't. Rather, I think we had been 'caught'. LOL...we went out to check it and it had been completely 'excavated' - I mean to tell you, that trap looked like an archaeologist had worked all the earth and dirt/gravel out of the trap bed, from under the jaws, from inside the jaws. From around the springs... The only thing left was a piece of moss under the pan. LOL... We surmised one of the local 3 toed wolves had discovered it and decided to show us up. And it wouldn't surprise me if ha had pissed on it too. LOL....For certain, if any other wolves were with him, he educated each and every one of them.

 

[Anythingalaska]

Anythingalaska - the wolverine was on the ground or hanging? (cubby makes me think on the ground, and I know when we trapped marten down on POW we used square buckets with 120's. Crazy catch!
.

It was on the ground. I made a cubby in the crotch of a large spruce tree. Had a marten in it the week before, and then that Wolverine the next week.

 

[BRWNBR]

Caught s good size wolf in a number 1 long spring. Trapping marten on the ground, had her by one hind toe, the last knuckle. Day after Christmas when i was 16.

 

[martentrapper]

In 1982 I was staying at the old village of Kokrines on the Yukon R. Used it as my main camp for trapping that winter. Kokrines was where the guy started his cat trail back to Melozi Hot Springs when he built the lodge back there. In 82 the trail was all grown over and needed brushing out to run the dog team I had at the time. There were marten there and I wanted the trail open. Late fall before trapping season began I was walking ahead of a 4 dog team with a chain saw brushing out the old trail.
Looking ahead I saw the top of a large black head and black ears up ahead of me. Could not see the rest of the animal. I thought, Oh ****, a bear, and I didn't have a gun. Just as I thought that, the animal stood up..........it was a black wolf which proceeded to jump around...........it was caught in a trap! This was the first time I had been up this far on the trail but I remembered that another guy had been trapping out of Kokrines the year before. He had forgotten a #4 victor set under a spruce tree with a piece of Moose skin wired to the tree.
I stepped back to the sled and picked up the only item I had to dispatch the wolf...........a 26 in. Estwing axe. As I staightened up with the axe in my hand, the wolf pulled out of the trap and lit off down the ridge the trail was on. That was the last I saw of it. Odd to trap an animal with a trap you didn't set!!

 

[SmokeRoss]

Caught my adopted brother with a snare set on a trail with a bag of rocks on a lever in a tree with a figure 4 on the trip line. (we were in grade school at the time) I thought it would sweep him right off his feet and hang him upside down like in the cartoons, but it only lifted his foot off the ground. I watched him walk into it and trip it. I had set it to catch the neighbor boys. LOL.
An Indian employee of my dad taught me how to make this set. He drew it out on a paper grocery bag with a carpenter pencil.

 

[kingfisherktn]

4 or 5 years ago my son and I had strung out our wolf snares and as we came around the corner we were surprised to see a very large black bear in our snare. All we had was a .22 pistol with us and not wanting to take on the bear with the .22 we called my other son to bring us a rifle. In the meantime the bear was putting everything into breaking loose, he was huffing and shaking the tree the snare was hooked to and eventually snapped the cable where it went around its leg. My son and rifle showed up 1/2 hour later.

 

[trailblazersteve]

It's carzy but in 34 years of trapping I can't think of anything crazy that sticks out. A few years ago I had a nice surprise though. I had some 330's set above ground on some otter runs (cross overs) and it snowed over a foot in between checks so when I pulled up to where I thought one of my sets was, I jumped off the sled and started to drag my feet around thru the snow. I kicked the trap and lifted it out of the snow and seen what I thought was a med sized otter. It was all wet then froze with snow crusted. I thru it in the tow sled and went on my way. When I got back to the cabin I had a couple of cats, a couple of fox, and this "otter". I brushed it off to find the biggest mink I have ever seen and caught. I am guessing it was a 6-8# mink. I turned it into the auction that year ( with I would have kept it ) and recieved a "top lot award"...