Spring time brings a completely different feeling in the back country… where we were used to waking up to snow-covered silence for the past several months, we now heard birds chirping frantically… It seems as though every squirrel, bug, bear, and plant were all starting to emerge from their winter sarcophagus’ and breathe in the the cool fresh air of the mountains, just like we do.
Though rejuvenating to my soul, those sounds also meant that my fur-bearing season was coming to an end after a pretty successful winter trapping fox, coyote, marten, and beaver. Because of the ending season, I was now in the position where I needed to go and pull any remaining traps that I had remaining in the deep woods.
Today I set out in the mid-morning to pull marten boxes that I had nestled up next to a steep ravine with pockets of ponderosa pines at its base. It was a chore to get those boxes into position late last year and they did not produce fur quite the way I had hoped. Furthermore, they took real effort to bait and check on a near daily basis this winter, requiring me to snowmobile four miles from my home and then snowshoe in and out through deep snow.
Yes, my decision to place those traps in that specific area was wrong… A lesson as a relatively new trapper I was becoming more comfortable with. I had assessed the terrain in the late fall, seen marten tracks, and felt that this would be a slam dunk… but it wasn’t.
…and there wasn’t anything I could do about it… except take the learning about where and how marten move (or don’t) through the area and apply them to my next season’s tactics.
Despite the low yield from those particular sets, the views and fresh air were a welcome consolation prize as I packed them into the back of my side-by-side and set off back to my cabin.
