Not too many ducks around here these days.

Yukon Mike

Yukon Mike

Well-known member
HI Guys,

I did see a CGE the other day on the Six Mile River but other than that it is still winter. Its been a pretty quiet one for me, not getting out much, but me and Mac did go for a ride along on a friend's trapline in Dec and I've been meaning to post a couple of pics for a while now.

Great hand scribed chinkless cabin. Some people got skills.

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My friend had to make a bridge on the way in ahead of us. He said it took him 6 hours to build. He laid down a bunch of the longest poles he could manage, tied them together, then covered them with willows. About a 30' span. Crazy.

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Me and Mac were in charge of bait, so we set 8 muskrat pushups and caught 4. When I was Mac's age trapping rats in MB I never dreamed I'd be showing my own kid how to do it someday.

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Making a cubby for lynx. Guys here like the #3 soft catch traps over conibears, because everything that finds a dead lynx will eat it.
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The old conibear baited with a carrot under the ice trick.

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Mike,

I trapped plenty of rats in the 70's-80's, paid for some college that way. Rats were about 4.50 each on the average for about 5 years straight. Top prices were close to 7.50 for a nice L-XL spring rat with no damage (bite marks). what are your prices? just curious.

Matt
 
Mac and our big catch.

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ANother friend of mine did way better than us on wolverines...

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On wolves ...

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And we only caught two lynx to his 6.

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A friend of mine just north of town 20 miles has caught 16 wolves at his place. He says he's just lucky but I'm pretty sure he knows what he's doing.

Just while I'm thinking of it, I've done a fair bit of home tanning over the years and recently tried a product called Liqui-tan on a wolf and a black bear and was really impresssed. It is the easiest, softest leather I've made. I really worked the wolf hide so it could be sewn into trim, but the bear just went into Jane's drier to tumble for a few hours and came out just fine for a rug or throw.

Mike
 
Good to hear from you Mike. How's that back treating you these days?

Thanks for the pics and stay warm.

Ryan
 
Those are some great pictures. You sure have a nice variety of critters to trap up there. They are big ones too!

I'd love to make a trip up north of here some day to try and catch the exotic stuff we can't catch at home.
 
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Mike - Man you are in a wild and remote place ! Is the platform in the first picture to store food ?
How much are the wolf and wolverine pelts worth ?
sarge
 
Mike, Great photos, We have had some winter here but nothing like that, Hope you didn't hear me cussing when my 6 skot bag of dekes fell off the tailgate this winter, King Can hit nose first and now I have a custom Yukon Mike 2 piece decoy!!!

I'm dropping him off with a buddy that does wood working, he is going to put his head back on.

Fred
 
Mike,
Cool...literally. :)
Love seeing those wolves and big kitties. I looked at the weather up in Whitehorse a week or two ago and it was warmer then here, that was depressing. hehehe
I hope things are going well for you.

Tim
 
Mike,
Those are some big kitties and puppy dogs. That would be lots of fun for us down south to try and take. Thanks for the critique on the tanning product. I'd been wondering about some of those products. Where did you buy yours from? Hopefully will have need for it this coming fall.
Great pics.
 
I don't know for sure, but I figger around $5 ave on winter rats. We're going to try to go after beaver and rats again in April depending on snow conditions.

Hey RYAN, I was lurking around your posts watching you guys getting out. Good stuff.

Depite me doing physio regularity for over a year now, parts of me are stronger and others jujst aren't firing up. Walking is still a really painful activity past about 30min, I can swim 25min every second day without a huge increase in pain, so that one I do alot. Being in pain all the time makes me soooo tired, and I have to have many rests throught the day which really don't get chores done. I do 60 - 80 pushups a day purley to have something to bag about. Not a very employable skill.

Hey John Fraser - check out this link - http://www.environmentyukon.gov.yk.ca/huntingtrapping/guidedtrapping.php

There is now a way can tag along and get his hands dirty with an experienced trapper as guide. If I can ever help you set something up like that just ask.

Dick you are right that's a food cash. The guy that originally built the place was s dog team user as so would net fish from the lake there and stack them up on the cache for the winter. No one I know uses dogs anymore, but if we had shot a bison while we were in there, lots would go up there wrapped in a tarp while we hauled out what we could at a time. The big wolves ($750 ec) smallones ($250), woverines ($250 -500), Lynx average ($250). Me and my friendcaught twowolverinesand two lynx for the season and none got sold, all tanned for making home products.

I want to make mitt or boot liners out of our four muskrats.


Fred, that decoy is going to be a mess of battle scarrs. Paint have hi sface blue like in Braveheart and see if he can fire up your other "troops"

Tim,

Great fish art BTW. We've been haveing days near melting in the past week. Calling for-30'sC again next week though.


Mike
 
Hey Kevin,

I got the tanning stuff from Halford's in Edmonton. Definately buy a jug of their softener too. I don't have a fur tumbler with cornmeal to finish furs, so INstead I run them through many washes in the washing machine set on cold. It really works good on salted hides to to get them rehydrated and wash the extra salt off. I use mostly regular washing detergent to degrease and get the mud and crud out. If you hide wasn't salted or is going to slip, expect a big mess in the machine.

Once it is cleaned, then I put it in the drier with no heat for and hour or whatever, then paint the liquitan on and let it sit.

Mike
 
Mike,
Great stuff,thanks for the tour. I trapped a little as a kid,rats and coons mostly. I guess i should not be surprised but i am that wolves.lynx and wolverines can still be caught in such numbers. I think the silence up there would be deafening. Thanks again .
Bill.
 
I appreciate the offer, thanks Mike. Maybe someday, but now with the kids funds are tight. A more modest trip for me would be going to northern NY where I could trap otter, fisher, and marten. There are a couple of otter and a few fisher around this part of the state, but not enough for us to trap them yet. About an hours drive north and you start getting into them.

How’s the health of the wolves by you? I’ve heard that mange is common in some parts of the far north.
 
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A travelling trapping trip is always fun. There is no mange around here that I've ever heard about. It is interesting that our wolves don't live long though - 4 years average I'm told. They get killed by their food. Kicks to the head, broken ribs, cracked jaws, that kind of thing.

Mike
 
Mike,

That is a short live span - 4 years - I bet they must have some fairly high fecundity rates to offset the mortality. Those lynx are nifty. We have a fairly large bob cat in this area and they are maketed as a "lynx cat", a nice one has a fairly soft spotted side and tummy and they brought upwards of 800 bucks in the late 70's for an extra large. I managed to never get a very nice extra large and I think the tops for me was 500 or so. I miss trapping and I keep all my stuff in hopes that some day,,, there are a couple hundred #1 stop loss for rats and several dozen 110 conibears, plus 6 dozen or so coils and larger double springs for beaver, cats, coyotes and such. SOme day maybe.

Your tanning method is intersting.

That back of your sounds like such a pain in the.......good that you do get around though.


Matt
 
That there is some cool stuff!!

Always dreamed of that in jr high. The before and after school trap line and some day making it big and moving north to trap for a living! Kind of envious of you guys up there..

Some day I'm going to have to get them traps out again!
 
Real bummer that the back is still so painful for you Mike. Good to see you still can get out, even if it's in short bursts, to trap and do some of the things you enjoy. Hope it continues to improve.

Ryan
 
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