During trapping season, ingenuity can go a long way

Outdoors in Alaska, by Howard Delo

The statewide trapping season for most furbearer species opens tomorrow. The current trapping regulation booklet has been available for a couple of months now, so if you're planning to participate, make sure you have a current trapping license and a copy of the regulations.

In the last several years, I've only done some nuisance beaver trapping. When I lived remote on Afognak Island, I was the only person who trapped the entire area around where I lived. With no competition, I didn't have to worry about being the first one out on opening day to set the best sites. I also didn't have to worry about trap thieves or "anti-types" interfering with my efforts.

There were a lot of river otters and foxes, some beavers, a few martens and the occasional muskrat in the area. My favorite method of trapping was making water sets for beaver and otter. I tried using leghold traps and snares for certain types of bank sets but never had any luck on beaver. I learned to use the 330-size "Conibear killer trap" with fairly good effect though.

This style of trap, rather than holding the animal by a toe or foot like a leghold, was designed to close across the neck or lung area of the animal. If the shock of the trap snapping shut didn't kill it, then the underwater set location assured a rapid death by drowning the stunned and often unconscious beaver.

I always set the big 330-size Conibear underwater, usually in runways the beavers were actively using to gain access into their lodges. I would firmly stake the traps in place and also wire them to a solid anchor on shore. When a beaver or otter swimming along the runway triggered the trap, the stakes holding the trap in place were usually knocked loose. I had the visual indication that a critter had been through and the wire back to shore allowed me to easily retrieve the trap and animal.

I caught the occasional otter in these underwater beaver sets. I also targeted otters with leghold sets at specific sites they used in the area. These sets all had heavy weights attached to the traps. When an otter stepped into the leghold, it would immediately head for deep water as a safe haven. The theory was that the otter would pull the trap and the added weight out into the water and the combined weight would drown the animal.

This was a nice theory that worked occasionally. Once I found an otter in my trap treading water while holding an estimated 30 to 40 pounds of weight up off the bottom. I quickly shot the animal and pulled the set. From then on, I only made otter sets using the big Conibear where I could anchor them underwater.

I learned a similar lesson while trapping marten. When I found that the animals were not dying in the leghold traps from freezing, like all the trapping literature said they would, I converted all my marten sets over to using a smaller size of the Conibear trap. For marten, sets are made above ground so, like being underwater, the traps were not readily accessible to any animal other than the targeted species.

From that point on, any marten caught in my sets were dead from the impact of the snapping trap. However, one year I did have to contend with a trap thief along my marten line. Twice I found the remains of a nice marten in the trap hanging up in the tree. The cable holding the trap anchored to the tree was so twisted and kinked up, I had to replace it.

The patchy snow under the set site held the sign that told me who had stolen my marten. A brown bear looking for a snack between naps was the culprit both times.

I moved those sets to other locations.

Howard Delo is a retired fisheries biologist living in Big Lake.