And yet another action packed night on the north slope!
My shoulders hurt, my feet are wet, my face is cold... how much fun can a guy have in one night?
I got dinner early, about 5:30, and got it to go, came back over here, woofed it down and got dressed up in my white camo and got all my gear loaded up to head south. Bumped into a state worker right at my first set, but he was just pulled over on the road watching the sun set. I talked to him for a minute or two, pulled up to the pipeline gate and walked out to my set. This was the 330 conibear in a bucket that I saw all the fox around the other day. No fox, but the trap was out about 2 feet from the bucket and the line was tight. There was some drifting snow and I picked the trap up and oh, looky there, an arctic fox! Schweeet! [8D]
I tried setting the 330 prongs to get the arctic out, but only got one side set, so I dug up the anchor and brought the rest of the set back to the truck and threw it in the bed. I brought out the box set that I have that holds 2, 280 conibears on each side and walked it out quite a ways from the other bucket set and got it ready for some action.
I got back to the truck, and headed south to my other sets. I decided to pass the first one and check the middle one first. I had good feelings about it for some reason. When I got there, nothing. No sign, no tracks, nothing. I dumped about 8 pounds of that chicken pot pie and stir fry in the back of the bowl I made, and took off 4 miles south to my next set. I pulled into the pull off, and saw a fox running around out by the set. I waited a bit just to see if he would go into it, and it looked like he was right on top of it. Finally I got tired so I headed out to it with the .22 in hand. He took off of course, and when I crested the little hill I could see that I had a nice red in there! Schweeet! He was in a foot hold, and managed to trigger off both foot holds in that set, so both his front feet were caught. I put a round into him and he is now hanging on about to be skinned when I finish this post. [8D]
I got him back to the truck, got the shovel and other traps and went to re-set the area. I got it set up just like it was, and went to check my last set about 8 miles north of there. As I drove towards it, tracks everywhere. I was thinking hat trick, but to no avail. Oh well, can' t be too upset! There were at least two different reds running around, and ermine tracks were all over as well. I dumped the last 3 or 4 pounds of goodies into that bowl, and set the trap a little different.
So, all is checked, and then I get this wild hair up my butt to pull back into the first set while I' m driving north and try to get the arctic out of the 330 to get it re-set. As I turn to go into the pull off, I cut it too thin and dump the truck right down into the ditch. DOHHH!
The wind was perfectly smooth, and I could swear up and down that I was clearly on the road where I turned. But, no s...' s, SOfaB, or other curse words out of me, I just got out of the truck, and started shoveling. I had the left tires up on the road, but the right headlight was down in the snow. It was that nasty hard packed crap too. I thought I had it dug out pretty good, threw her in 4 low and tried to back out. It wasn' t happening. I shoveled about 15 more minutes, breaking all the hard pack under the truck and tried again. Nope, not that time. I kept on shoveling even after I saw distant headlights, and soon enough a trucker was standing there joking with me. He said he probably would of done the same thing, by the looks of the road and where the gate is. Regardless, we decided to play a quick tug of war, but I didn' t want to embarass him so I put the truck in reverse when he pulled and it jumped right out of the ditch. The whole front axle brought a large glacier with it, which is probably the reason I wasn' t moving.
No damage to the truck, and come to find out my cousin just spent all day fixing this guys truck, so he was more than happy to help me out.
And it doesn' t end yet...
I scratch the idea to try and re-set the prongs on the 330 since my shoulder is mush, so I head back up north. Then, I spot eyes. Dangit, I can' t just ignore them! [&:] I turn back around and drive down the road aways. I get out, walk out to the river, where the red fox was running the side, and get down. Oops, I forgot the spotlight and it' s light, but not light enough to really draw a bead. I figure with my patented mouse squeek I can get him in close and hopefully get a shot at him from a few feet. Well, I get him into about 15 feet, but the little bugger went around behind me. I contorted my body around, but had to shoot left handed, and couldn' t get my right eye closed without both of them closing, so I tried an open eyed, down the barrel shot and off went the fox, unscathed. He stopped, came back in after a minute or so, then started trotting back off down the river. I went back to the truck and figured, what the heck, might as well try it again. I drive about 3/4 of a mile south and hop out and run out to the river WITH the spot light and my head lamp. I get set up, fire up the spot light and not 5 seconds in I see eyes coming right to me. He came into about 50 yards, but didn' t stop, and went around me till he got downwind, then he gave up paying attention to my squeeking and took off. Oh well, it was a valiant effort and fun!
I finally got back in around 9:30, so that ain' t too bad. The truck doesn' t have any damage, and drove just fine back. The bad part is I' ve driven in and out of that pull off a thousand times. Oh well, it happens to the best of us I guess. [&:]