A Wisconsin Trophy

My companion’s parka bounced through the pines, flashing against a foot of pasty snow that earnestly swallowed our boots. The spring in my step was gone — sucked from my feet by the forest’s fresh blanket and a growing disappointment of empty buckets. ”It’s over here,” Dan Nimsgern called through the trees.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /??><o:p></o:p> Redirecting my trail, I tripped on a buried branch as we searched for the 10th of 13 Conibear cubbies I’d placed two days and a snowstorm earlier. I hustled to catch Nimsgern, and was a step behind when he reached the clearing that housed the set. ”Something took place,” Nimsgern said with a hint of excitement. I stepped to the right of the burly Hazelhurst, Wis., trapper, expecting to see a chocolate ball in the snow. Nimsgern was right. Something had happened. The plastic cubby lay twisted on its top in a semi-circle of trampled snow, two feet from where I’d staked it. My rebar stake, wire and #160 bodygrip trap were gone. And mysteriously, so were all of the sweets I’d dumped into the box. Nimsgern stared at the ground. I shuffled my feet and pawed at my stocking hat, trying to make sense of the scene. I feared the worst. <o:p> </o:p> Before A Blizzard …<o:p></o:p> Flakes kissed the windshield as the truck lurched to a halt. We’d run more than half of<o:p></o:p> Nimsgern’s mink line, collecting three mink and a half-dozen muskrats. But we were done in the water for the day — it was fisher time. Or so I hoped. A day earlier, on the final day of Wisconsin’s gun-deer season, Nimsgern chauffeured me as I set up my first fisher trapline. Wisconsin’s fisher trapping season runs from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31, but most trappers are allotted only one or two permits. I had applied months earlier for the fisher tag I held for Zone C. Nimsgern, a district director for the Wisconsin Trappers Association, had filled his tag weeks earlier when a male fisher investigated one of his mink sets. But when Nimsgern intentionally sets for fishers, he puts out buckets as soon as the season opens. He had hoped to save his tag to trap with me so we could set a longer line. Three-and-a-half weeks into the 2001 fisher season, Nimsgern and I headed to a bear-baiting station to check my first bucket. It was empty. So were the next eight sets. ”I’ve never tried for one this late,” Nimsgern said as we rolled toward his home to check the last four pails. “There might be a lot of gut piles in the woods right now for them to eat.” We stopped at the crook in the road that led the last two miles to Nimsgern’s house. ”Your best chance might be right here,” he said optimistically as we climbed the slope. ”I saw one cross here earlier this fall, and the guy who deer hunts here saw one, too.” Snowflakes fluttered lazily as I spied the bucket beneath a snag, just as I’d left it a day earlier. ”It’ll work,” Nimsgern said, possibly sensing my disappointment. “I’ve caught a lot of them this way, and I caught one right here in a bucket two years ago.” Nimsgern’s system is simple. He uses square plastic pails with notches cut for bodygrip trap springs. Nimsgern uses #160s, and bends the trigger wires into the bucket in an arc. ”It just helps to make sure the fisher is all the way in and it helps keep small animals from springing the trap,” he explained. Nimsgern adds swivels to his trap chains to reduce pullouts. He pushes a long T-bar through holes in the top and bottom of the pail, forcing the end of the stake into the ground several inches to stabilize the bucket. He then wires the trap to a log or limb. While many trappers use muskrat or beaver carcasses for bait, Nimsgern prefers to tempt fishers by exploiting their sweet tooth. Nimsgern switched to sweets after he saw pictures from remote-sensing cameras set up at bear-baiting stations. Fishers were commonly captured on film eating donuts and cookies, he said. ”I like sweet baits,” Nimsgern told me as I poured M&M cookies into a pail. “These fishers are used to hitting bear baits, and it seems to work as well as anything.” Nimsgern uses an unusual call lure, too. Skunk essence is the preferred attractor among fisher trappers, but Nimsgern smears a thick gum he calls “liquid smoke” on a tree above his buckets. Its odor resembles a smokehouse curing bacon. As with any trapline set for any species, location is critical. And Nimsgern’s guidance was vital because I was unfamiliar with the area and had, at most, three checks to fill my tag. Logically, Nimsgern places buckets at bear-bait stations. Fishers visit them on their hunting routes, even if they’ve been inactive for awhile, he said. Other preferred set locations are along streams and near small lakes. I had three more buckets to tend before the blizzard. We hopped on an all-terrain vehicle and sped toward the neighbor’s parcel. At Nimsgern’s suggestion, I’d placed the first pail on a ridge about 100 yards from a deer stand. ”The hunter in that stand saw one go through here last week,” Nimsgern said when I placed the trap. “It’ll come back through.” It hadn’t. Or if it had, it had spurned my M&M snack. I bounced on the fenders as we zipped over a ridge and dropped into a valley.<o:p></o:p> Set No. 2 was undisturbed. The final bucket resided across a creek. Nimsgern parked the ATV at the high-water mark, and we trekked across a worn wooden bridge. ”Nobody home,” he announced. The sky spit harder as we pulled into Nimsgern’s driveway. ”I really thought you might have one today,” Nimsgern said as he skinned his third mink. “Animals usually really move right after a storm. They’ll move tonight if it stops snowing.” <o:p> </o:p> Snow Day<o:p></o:p> Steel on stone ground my eardrums at first light. While Nimsgern cleared his driveway, I dressed for another day in the water to help him check mink sets. The evergreens swayed as I stepped outside. Despite my hopes that local weather forecasters would be wrong, their fancy gadgets had come through: 8 inches of sloppy snow littered the ground. The wind whipped, and although the storm’s fury seemed to be softening, the sky wasn’t done dumping. ”We’ll have to take my other truck today,” Nimsgern said. “My trapping truck won’t make it everywhere we need to go.” The four-wheel-drive pulled us along unplowed back roads, halting at each stream crossing upon command. Many of Nimsgern’s mink sets were inoperable, buried under several inches of slush. Other sets were waiting widejawed but incapacitated under a foot or more of water. Nimsgern bucked changing water levels, repositioning traps at almost every stop. At one bridge, he showed me where a mink had swam right over his trap to leave the water. Snowplows wreaked havoc, too. Several culvert sets were buried under a crush of white when we arrived. As we neared the end of Nimsgern’s 200-set mink line, he collected another mink. ”I was hoping I’d get at least one today,” he said. After trudging and digging all morning, his mink was one more furbearer than I expected to find on my line. We had 13 more sets to uncover: my fisher pails. A Story in the Snow<o:p></o:p> I squinted at the edge of the trampled catch circle, sleuthing for signs of the perpetrator.<o:p></o:p> Nimsgern doubled back toward the truck, circling the clearing in hopes of cutting tracks. I stood over the dislodged cubby as Nimsgern approached, obviously tracing a trail. I spied the tracks he was following. They led to my feet. Another set of prints swept away behind me, and a third swath in the snow trailed down a steep grade. ”I think this is the track,” I called to Nimsgern. “Look at this.” A few feet later, the tracks became a trough. I’d seen similar trails. My mind raced as I slid toward the creek below. “Otter!” Nimsgern flanked me as I followed the snow slide. ”Otters don’t like cookies, do they?” I pondered. “And why would one travel through a foot of snow 75 yards from the creek?” Nimsgern reached the creek first, upstream of where the trail disappeared into the water.<o:p></o:p> I was horrified. I frantically scanned the far shore, hoping the animal had crossed the water and continued to make an easy-to-follow trail. ”I think it went downstream,” Nimsgern said as he splashed past. I followed. Twenty feet later, Nimsgern stopped, turned around, and extended his right hand. ”Congratulations, you have a nice male fisher.” I quickly shook his hand, then knelt on the grassy outcropping next to the fisher. I lifted the chocolate furbearer from the water. ”He’s huge,” I said. “It is a male, right?” ”Yes, and he’s caught perfect, right behind the head.” I spread the fisher’s gums and admired its teeth for a moment, then began the climb to the pickup. I followed Nimsgern through the mixed northern Wisconsin forest, beaming as my trophy’s tail dragged gently in the snow in front of me. <o:p> </o:p> A Curse and a Blessing<o:p></o:p> Snowflakes danced again as we reached Nimsgern’s fur shed. But I appreciated each fleck of frozen water from this cloudburst, despite having cursed the snow all day, certain it had robbed me of any chance at a fisher. Without snow, we might not have found my fisher. We certainly wouldn’t have been able to follow it right to the creekbed, nor would we have determined that a second fisher visited the set and had dessert. But if the fisher had visited the set before most of the snow had fallen, its trail would have been covered. ”I was worried,” I confessed as Nimsgern peeled the fisher’s silky pelt. ”I’m so happy we found him. I can’t believe he went that far.” ”They’re tough,” he said. “They’re one big muscle. Look, there’s no fat on him.” A swirl of snow misted me as I opened the fur shed door. I quickly pulled the handle and paused. Nimsgern stopped skinning. ”I knew we’d find him,” he said. ”We’d have tracked him until long after dark if we had to.” I’m so glad that wasn’t necessary.<o:p></o:p> Seventy-five yards was far enough. <o:p> </o:p> Paul Wait is editor of The Trapper & Predator Caller.<o:p></o:p> <o:p></o:p>

Related Posts

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Trapper Predator Caller

FREE Articles from Trapper Yearbook