A story from back in the 1990’s….

I had recently transferred from Afognak Island to the Matanuska-Susitna Valley while working for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in their salmon hatchery program. I was the new assistant hatchery manager at the Big Lake Hatchery, which produced sockeye and coho salmon for the Cook Inlet Area.

Meadow Creek ran next to the hatchery and served as both the outmigration and return route for the hatchery sockeye run and as the return point for cohos. The small creek ran into Big Lake, which, in turn, emptied into Cook Inlet through Fish Creek. Meadow Creek had a healthy population of rainbow trout which overwintered in Big Lake and migrated back into Meadow Creek during the summer and fall to feed on salmon eggs and decomposing carcasses. All this fish abundance provided a great food source for mink and otters which regularly hunted along the creek.

I had done a lot of trapping for beaver, otter, fox, and martin while working at Kitoi Bay hatchery on Afognak Island, north of Kodiak. I was the only staff member who trapped there and had the entire area to myself. Now that I was on the road system, I wanted to do some trapping, but I was unsure where I could go and not infringe on somebody’s established trapping area.

I decided to concentrate my efforts within a half-mile of the hatchery, since no one trapped there. I began scouting along the creek for potential set locations. I was pleased to find an active beaver lodge, some extensively used otter slides, and a nice little “hot spot” for mink. I planned to use only Conibear traps in water sets because dogs were occasionally spotted running loose along the creek banks. Water sets were also harder for someone else to detect, minimizing the risk of loss to trap thieves.

I used 330 Conibears and one 220 Conibear for the sets I made for both beaver and otter and 120 Conibears for the mink sets. I checked the “line” every evening after getting off work since the sets were all concentrated in an area only a few minutes’ walk from my front door. I pulled the beaver and otter sets after taking one or two animals of each species and concentrated on the mink sets. I eventually caught a half-dozen mink and called it good for the season.

The biggest surprise I received that year involved a set I had made trying to intercept an otter swimming along the creek bank as it travelled upstream from a heavily used slide area. An overhanging branch close to the water allowed me to hang a 330 totally under the surface but close enough to the bank that I could easily check the set by simply looking over the edge of the bank and into the normally clear creek water. I was surprised to not see the top of the trap during one evening’s check. I figured if the set had taken an otter, at least I would have seen some part of the animal in the water. My first thought was a trap thief had found the set and stolen the costly trap!

I routinely carried a walking staff with a small hook on one end which I used when hanging sets in the water out of normal reach and to check and retrieve those same sets. Using my staff, I fished around under the branch, trying to hook a section of the wire used to hang the trap or the trap itself. The staff bumped the trap and, after managing to hook a spring, I hauled the trap up onto the bank.

The trap had been sprung, but rather than holding an otter or a beaver in the closed jaws, I found the unluckiest mink in Big Lake. I’m still not sure how that little animal was able to exert enough pressure on the trigger to spring the big trap. Further, the mink had its neck caught in one set of jaws and its rear end held in the other side. Considering that the 330 Conibear jaws are eleven inches apart, that poor mink had to be positioned perfectly for the trap to catch it the way I found it. I pulled the set and headed home.

My “mystery ailment” mentioned last week is prostate cancer and I will have surgery in early January to, hopefully, cure the condition. Right now, the prognosis is good, but I’ll let you know how things go.