Reset my marten traps today. Got my first river otter, and a big one. My guess is about 4 feet head to tail and maybe 30 lbs? Saw a bunch of others but they were too slippery. Deer season ended today so from now to mid-Feb when trapping season closes I have the Admiralty coast pretty much to myself. About everywhere I set traps I saw hunters tracks but we didn’t hear a shot all day. We saw a deer on the beach but Matt decided it was too small. Lots of snow on Douglas and Admiralty. Could be a rough winter for deer, plus there’s a few wolves on Douglas and they will have a field day. I reached 50 and finally realized I can wear my chest waders trapping so I can anchor the boat far enough off to get the traps checked without the boat going dry. Who knew?
My Alaskan Life
Today, we went and checked a longline, then checked shrimps pots and baited them with some of the carcasses of fish from the longline. Found a deer that had been either shot through the hind quarters or perhaps had been injured by wolves. The deer was still alive but I could see through the openings right down to the muscles and there was puss-like stuff on the meat. We put it out of it’s misery. We came back and cleaned the fish and headed the shrimp, then had rockfish and halibut burritos for dinner. Then off to put the remainder of their trapline marten on stretchers. When we got there, there was a pile of otter and a mink. The 8th grader who had been trapping with his dad skinned all 4 otter while we worked on the marten, so I got to watch him and learn how that is done.
Southeast Trapper School
Got to the inlaws yesterday. Spent the evening avoiding a wine tasting party by boarding marten pelts at the brother of my brother in law’s garage. A nephew was on hand to watch us. He has his own line he checks with his dad. When he said they were going out tomorrow, I begged my way on as a passenger.
They arrived in the skiff 20 minutes early to beat the weather coming in. I had been up with coffee on and was ready to go when they arrived. I took my .243 just in case I got a chance for a deer.
They have conibear sets for marten and otter, and a few snares set for wolf. All the traps are set within 30 yards of the beach. I’d wanted to learn how to set for otter, and at the first set, I got to see how to set for them, including one that connected with a large otter. I helped the nephew remove the rest the trap, and his dad came up to double check things before we moved on. It took a couple hours to check the rest, and we got one more nice dark-furred marten. Got back at noon, just before the weather set it, as it’s snorting and raining now. Can’t wait to get back to get my traps back out and get in some otter sets with the marten sets.
Wrenching
Forecast was too windy to go to the cabin yesterday. Thursday afternoon would have been the day, but I had errands to run. My friend Mike passed away recently, and the truck I’d given him I got from his widow. It barely made it home it was running so rough. At first I thought I’d take it to Greg, my mechanic, but thought I’d just check the easy thing – the rotor and distributor cap – and when I popped that off, I could see right away that was the problem. Changed those out, and had to get a new battery, too, but it seemed to run fine, and I got it over to Lt. Lance after our monthly SA board meeting, where I got some jam and jam making tips from a fellow board member.
The forecast on Thursday looked good to go on Friday, but by Friday the forecast was a gale so I thought I’d better stay in town. I hunted up behind the garage after doing some maintenance on the skiff, which also involved putting the chains on the truck as the wet snow had made the driveway too icy to get the skiff back up to it’s spot, even in 4WD. Didn’t see any deer up the hill. Been a long time since I have seen one, up there, actually. I saw some older tracks and a person track following the freshest deer track I’d seen, so I went up the hill and stood on a high stump for about an hour.
The snow dump turned to pouring rain, so I thought I’d tackle the jeep gas tank today. I nearly killed myself when I put a muffler on the jeep, and the tailpipe nested next to the plastic gas tank. Next time I went to fill up there was a baseball sized hole in the tank, which we noticed when the gas started pouring out the hole. I tried patching it but nothing would hold. Put out a feeler on Craigslist and the local buy-sell-trade for a gas tank after finding none from any of the junkyards, and got a tank in good shape from a local guy. I dropped the old tank today, but in doing so realized the front support for the tank was attached to a cross member between the body frame, and that crossmember had rusted nearly through. So then I came inside and thought about just selling the jeep as is rather than try to fix the cross member. I looked on Craigslist to see what other vehicles were available, then had a cup of coffee by the woodstove. That’s when it struck me that I could just run a bolt down from the inside of the jeep to replace the crossmember, and I was back in business.
I seated the new tank into the skid plate that holds it to the frame. The bolts in the hold down straps had both busted off when I tried removing them, so I drilled a hole a half inch up the strap from the end and ran a long bolt through it and bolted it to the skid frame. I changed over the hoses and used my floor jack to position the tank under the jeep. I got the back of the skid plate bolted to the bumper. Then I lined up as best I could the front holes with the underside of rear of the jeep, then from the top drilled a hole. The first one was off by about 3 inches, so I drilled another and that one worked. I got the other side close enough on the first try. I put a piece of hose for a shock absorber washer under the bolt head,and used a piece of fuel hose scrap left on the used fuel tank as another shock absorbing washer under the nut. When everything seemed pretty tight, I cleared the area out, put 5 gallons of fuel in, and the jeep started. I let it run for 10 minutes to be sure I was okay, then added another 5 gallons of gas. The fuel gauge might not be working now, but I can live with that. It’s always satisfying to do the home repairs not so much to save money but for the satisfaction and as a learning for the times you are out on your own and have to fix things yourself.
First check
I only was able to make sets for marten in 4 locations due to the wind and tide last Friday. I decided this year since the weather is so precarious in getting to my traps that I’d try setting 3 traps at a set, let it sit for about 4 days, then pull it. I figured if nothing came by in that time, nothing would. And if something did, I wanted multiple traps there if there was more than one customer.
Kurt went with me to set and was there today to check. I couldn’t have got to all of them had he not been there to hold the skiff offshore while I went into the woods. The first 2 sets were empty, and I collected the 6 traps and newspaper boxes and returned to the skiff. On the third set, which has produced in the past, there were 2 marten. The last set held one marten. Not bad. And there were 3 sets for which 2 the tide/wind was wrong on Fri and the third which I could not quite find that I’ll set later in the season, since I think I got a pair at each site last year.
We ran the beach to try to find a deer for Kurt. When we went to turn for home, we saw the weather had caught up to us, and rather than beat into it all the way home, we decided to go around the island to another boat launch and have a friend pick me up to go and get my truck and trailer.
We crossed the pass and got to the beach where we’d left the skiff to hunt on Friday where I saw what I thought were wolf tracks and headed north, looking for deer on the beach. As we rounded a point, we saw two hunters struggling to get their skiff off the beach. Been there. Done that. We pulled in to help them. Turns out they had gone into the woods to call for deer. When they returned, there was Mr. Wolf, having walked in their tracks. It was a black wolf and it took off before they could get a shot off. Had to be the track maker I saw last Friday. We helped them get their skiff off the beach. As we idled on our way, they noticed the newspaper tubes in the boat and said they’d seen blue ones in the woods in another place they’d called. I had trapped that same ground last year and got nothing even though we’d seen what we thought were marten tracks along that stretch of beach. Could be I was trapping on someone else’s line without knowing it and that trapper had already taken the fur that was there so I was glad to know that.
We continued up the beaches on the island and never saw a deer. Jeff picked me up and took me to the other boat launch for the truck and trailer, and I returned to get the skiff which Kurt was tending. A big blow is coming the next few days and glad we got out when we did.
My Alaskan Life
Finally got my traps out this weekend. Although late (season opened Dec 1), I was earlier than last year’s set date of Dec 30. Kurt went with me to see if we could get him a deer while we were at it. Saw a deer on a beach as soon as we got to Admiralty, but the deer had read this book before and as soon as we slowed down it was off and into the woods. There are only a few spots where I can pull up in my skiff in the lee of a south wind, the predominant wind, push the boat out with the anchor and line on the bow, pull the anchor off with a line attached to the anchor, run up into the woods and check my traps, and get back and know the boat won’t be up on the beach. This year, I set 3 traps at each site, instead of two. I know I missed 3 spots where I got marten last year. One because I must have erased it from my GPS, one because the wind was blowing on the beach at that spot, and third because the tide was so far out the walk was too far. Maybe I’ll set those when I check next week. I figure if I have 3 sets at a site, I’ll get more than 1 marten if there’s more than one in the area. If I check after about 5 days and there’s nothing, I’ll pull the traps as with the warming weather, the bait should stink plenty good for one to find it. A co worker had some clams sent as a gift from the east coast and they got “lost” and so were unsafe to eat so I got those to try with the deer scraps and jam I normally use, with a little marten lure at the set. It was a beautiful winter day, with the big mountains seeming a little bigger covered with snow and in the bright sun. We finished setting at noon, so had a couple hours to hunt before it would start to get dark. We got off near a point, and found all kinds of deer tracks and scat but the snow was crunchy. I tried calling in few spots and we eventually circled back to the beach. On our way back to the skiff anchored off the beach we saw what I think could only be wolf tracks on the beach. We were a long way from anywhere for it to be a dog. Gotta be tough to make a living as a lone wolf in the winter. Maybe on the crunchy snow the deer bust through and the wolf can run on top. Or porcupines, which would be an easy meal if you know what you are doing.
After my friend Mike passed away, his widow said I could take back the truck I’d given Mike, which had a prize lift gate and a front hitch receiver. The battery was dead, so we got a new one and it started right up. It ran rough all the way home, and did not want to go over 45 mph. I thought it was going to end up being more trouble than it was worth to get it back and give to the Salvation Army for a pick up vehicle. I planned to take it to our mechanic, but thought I’d poke around just in case. I popped off the distributor cap, and bingo, there looked like the problem. The contacts under the cap had crap caked on some of them. I popped off the rotor, and the distributor underneath was rusty. I went to the store to get the parts, wire-brushed the distributor plate and shaft, sprayed electrospray and sealer on the distrubtor plate, pulled off one ignition wire at a time from the old cap and put on the new cap, put dielectric grease on the contacts, replaced the rotor, and put it back together. Ran like a dream. Then back to Western Auto for a test run and some new wipers, stop leak for what looked like a weepy radiator, and fuses for the dashlights, which were out. Back in the garage I cleaned the interior of the truck, replaced the fuse, adjusted the wipers, and tested the lift gate. Everything checked out so hopefully this will work for the SA.
Temperature warmed up to about freezing so could be dicey on the roads. Hope to get out and check the traps later in the week, and then once more before I pull them and we go to our inlaws south of here a few hundred miles.
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Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com
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Mark Stopha
Alaska Wild Salmon Company
4455 N. Douglas Hwy
Juneau, AK 99801
www.GoodSalmon.com