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Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 3:23 am Post subject: Pine Marten In Permanent Cage Trap Set
Thought I'd show ye this. I've recently set a cage trap, for any passing mink happening along this coming summer, on a little streamlett near here. It's at a place I go to every day - I walk my Dogs up to it - but which other people will pass too. Some on foot and those not as sympathetic as might be wished. So I had to make a proper job of it. I don't want any idiots interfering with it.
Bit of a silly Post this then, really. I don't seriously expect it to catch anything for a long while yet and, because it's so well hidden, there's not a lot to see either. So it's hardly instructional.
But then, maybe that is the underlying point of it all? I really wanted to show ye how a well concealed trap can be just that. Do it right and no one ever need know ye doing anything at all. And what they don't know about, they won't bother about
Here's what anyone walking down the track as it passes over the stream will see. Ye can't see it yeself either. Don't lie to me! :
Here's what ye'd see, if I pointed its exact location out to ye:
And here's what the next mink may see, upon investigating the scrape out into the stream bed:
Now all I have to do is wait for them to start searching the ditches and water ways for a place to spend the summer. I'll keep it more or less baited and scented from now on though. Just in case
Last edited by DitchShitter on Mon Apr 14, 2008 3:01 am; edited 2 times in total
good luck with the trap ditch, lets hope it ctaches a few of the crafty buggers! _________________ Interested in helping to promote this forum? Click here
Macnas; Hullo, mate No. Practically speaking, there's no danger of that location becoming submerged. I've been watching this spot for three winters now. I have that waters measure. Even when, following a torrential downpour, the big pipe - which I was effectively standing on as I took the first shot. All be it beneath the track - gushes a torrent, it all displaces against the opposite bank before rushing along the chanel. It never hits the spot where the trap is, due to the width and depth at that point. I guess years of water activity has carved out just what it needs now, so the water fits.
Sean; I don't actually expect to see any results from this trap for a month or so yet, at least, to be honest. I mean, I could get lucky and intercept a wandering buck. But it's really there more to pick up any spring traffic and then any moving young which may be born in the area and come down this stream.
I've set it up now simply because I've been a bit in the doldroms for a while and now am sparking up a bit more and fancied getting out and getting on some more. I have far too many traps and things hanging around here doing nothing. Little by little I hope to get them out there and create a more or less permanent trap line.
I walk that way every day, without fail. Having traps to check as I go along is an added bonus to a nice stroll anyway
I don't actually expect to see any results from this trap for a month or so yet, at least, to be honest. I mean, I could get lucky and intercept a wandering buck. But it's really there more to pick up any spring traffic and then any moving young which may be born in the area and come down this stream.
I said ...
About Two months later, last week, as the very first signs of anything approaching Spring appear? What do I get?
Yeppers. A bloody Pine Marten! (And, at last, a reason to use one of my favourite Smileys! I just Love that angry little face!)
Naah. I wasn't insensed, of course. Just phillisophical. At least he'd broken the near monotony of looking at an empty trap for so long. He gave some good of and for himself too - I'll cover that later.
Down side is that he'll have now well and truly scented the trap with himself and so will likely act as an absentee deterrent to any passing mink for quite a while yet. I'll try to work round this.
Anyway, there he is. I'll tell the full story here when I have more time and am better up to it. Right now I'm at the end of a long enough day. It's Jameson time!
Yeah, he was fine, mate. I check the trap every day, regardless of wether it's baited or not. He'd only been confined a few hours and it's a big cage, well covered and so insulated. Just delayed the little bugger for a bit.
Most amazing thing is; This evening I saw a Free one! F*ck it. I was elsewhere when it went off and so just started smashing keys as soon as I got back in here. I'll go fetch the write up and stitch it in here, for anyone who missed it elsewhere:
" Just stood up and glanced out the window. Lovely evening and a shame not to see some more of it. Only what do I see? F*cking magpie! Right there on the acre outside my gate. Just yards from where I Removed my bloody Larsen Trap three days ago
Well, that's now in the compound, being overhauled. But, obviously, I wasn't having that so out with the rifle. I've leaned on my gate post and had the bugger in my cross hairs. Sound backdrop. Have to chance the twig he was behind. Started crushing the trigger and he moved! B*stard!
Waited and watched a bit. Saw his mate slip away. Then he did. But he went to one of the ash trees along the paddocks edge. Off I went. I figured to take him from the ash pile wall. Maybe leaning on the old gate there. Once I found him again.
That's when it hit me: The birds. Something was up with them. Something was Out There!
So, there I am. One up the spout and with a positive Choice of good firing positions. Plus I have clean cover, Sorted! I'm stood staring down over the old, bottom gate of the paddock. 100 yards to The Styx below. Could this sun touched evening bring me the mythical fox??? Already I was swearing, in my mind and eye; " Show yeself and ye coming home with me! ".
Then my mind raced back to the black cat I'd seen earlier today. Mile and half away? Doubt it. But possible. He'd do. Or how about a mink? Could I Take a mink at 100 yards? I'd try! And f*ck me, there he Was!!! Bounding along besides the Styx! Just a glance through the trees below and moving right to left. He'd have to cross my firing zone, over that gate!
I shifted to my right. Allowing myself as much 'gone by' as I could, and took firing position. Eye to 'scope ..... Steady! ..... Stay 'Calm' ..... THERE!
Even as the cross hair found him and my finger found the trigger, he turned to face my way. Fading sunlight full on his RED coat and beautifully displaying the Huge CREAMY YELLOW chest! A second, in which a Black one would have been thrown backwards into the Styx. And then he was gone. And my heart still pumping like a train!
What a f*cking experience!!! I've just seen my first ever Wild, Free, UnCaged, Genuine Pine Marten!
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No. Practically speaking, there's no danger of that location becoming submerged. I've been watching this spot for three winters now. I have that waters measure. Even when, following a torrential downpour, the big pipe - which I was effectively standing on as I took the first shot. All be it beneath the track - gushes a torrent, it all displaces against the opposite bank before rushing along the chanel. It never hits the spot where the trap is, due to the width and depth at that point. I guess years of water activity has carved out just what it needs now, so the water fits.
(And, at last, a reason to use one of my favourite Smileys! I just Love that angry little face!)
hope it was ok mate, at least you know the trap works now lol
F*ck it. I was elsewhere when it went off and so just started smashing keys as soon as I got back in here. I'll go fetch the write up and stitch it in here, for anyone who missed it elsewhere:
"