All I know about the 25-20 is that my daddy used to have one, and I shot it as a kid. Also, the whitetail that was the world's record for many years, the Jordan buck, was killed with a 25-20. I'd think the ammo would be rather expensive.
Keep it coming, love the stories. The dreaded slush!!! I hated it, we had one pond on our line that always had slush, always!!! Had to do it with the snow shoes first & wait for it to stiffen up. Maybe a coincidence but I shot my biggest buck with a 25-20! (Long boring story ) Ya I wish I had it when I trapped, or I also had a 32-20 that would've worked good. BIG heavy bullets??? Keep the stories coming, I'm following it all. I'm out Bill🐾👣
Thanks for the info on the 25-20 every one! I'm not terribly concerned about the price of the ammo as I plan to cast and reload for it now that I have brass. 86 gr hardcast should be easy on fur, yet penetrate good enough for wolves at closer ranges. Caught 3 marten and a beaver yesterday, as well as a lynx the day before. The lynx was badly cannibalised so no picture unfortunately. Found where a wolf pack hit the North end of my lake yesterday. There are several well used trails going back into the timber, and 5-6 beds out on the ice. Looks like the might have a kill in there somewhere. We are going to snowshoe in there today and snare it up good. I'll let you guys know what we find.
I let the fire go out after I cook and dry my clothes. I'm just relying on my sleeping bag for warmth at night. It's comfortable to -30. I try REALLY hard not to camp out colder than that lol. I do carry a SAT texting device for emergencies when I am trapping with a client. Good to hear about the 25-20. I'll have to start working up a load.
-30 here this morning. Going to catch up on some skinning I think. Picked up a nice lynx yesterday, and found some fresh wolverine tracks. I'm thinking we may find him in a 3-30 next time we check up that way.
Great thread... The .25-20 will be a great round for your work, especially with cast.. Paco Kelly covered it quite well in his book Leverguns... Good loading info as I recall..
Had a lynx raiding my bait pile when I came home yesterday. I set a pen set out front with a chunk of beaver for bait. Caught the cat this morning, 50 feet from my cabin!
Y B T Have a question for you, do you ever have wolves in a pack when travailing step in the tracks of the leader so that it appears as a single set! Back in 54 when working 120 miles of any road we would frequently see that, we were working in registered trap line area. The biggest bunch of moose we ever saw had 27 in the group! That was where I experienced the 79 below zero F. I am very much enjoying you day by day happenings, keep up the good work!! Cheers NC
don't judge until you have walked a mile in other persons' moccasins' SUM QUOD SUM........HOMINEM TE ESSE MEMENTO
Nice lynx!!! Have only seen one in all my bush tromping. Keep it coming, this is the first post I look at every morning. Didn't realize I missed it this much???? I'm out Bill 🐾👣🐾👣
YB, glad to see you're back to posting and everything is going good. Got a couple of questions.... 1. Glad to hear you're ok after getting the feet wet, but how did you get the snowmobile out? 2. The 2 snares on the pole, that seemed to be out in the open, were they for the wolves you said were on the ice?
Nice cats!
Be Safe!
Old Turd- Deplorable- Unrepentant Murderer- Domestic Violent Extremist
Yes I have seen that. Especially when the snow gets deep. They will alternate who is in front breaking trail, and the others will step in the same tracks to save energy. I will often set legholds right in the tracks as they will use the same trail each time they come through.
Getting the snowmobile out....haha that was no fun. After getting a fire going, I cut a bunch of little spruce trees,and shoved them under the front of the skidoo for traction. I would work on the snowmobile then run back to shore and thaw my feet out when they got too cold. took three trips back and forth to finally get it out. Not a fun day for sure. The snares on the pole are actually for beaver. After I took the picture, I cut a hole in the ice between the beaver house and their feed bed. Wired to the dry pole is a piece of green Willow for bait. The beavers will circle the bait and get caught in the snares. I quite using conibears for beaver as I find the snares work better.
Getting the snowmobile out....haha that was no fun. After getting a fire going, I cut a bunch of little spruce trees,and shoved them under the front of the skidoo for traction. I would work on the snowmobile then run back to shore and thaw my feet out when they got too cold. took three trips back and forth to finally get it out. Not a fun day for sure. The snares on the pole are actually for beaver. After I took the picture, I cut a hole in the ice between the beaver house and their feed bed. Wired to the dry pole is a piece of green Willow for bait. The beavers will circle the bait and get caught in the snares. I quite using conibears for beaver as I find the snares work better.
Several years ago, I was catching coons and selling the meat (hides wasn't worth the effort). I found lots of coon tracks on this shallow creek and put out a few #1.5 traps, using green cut limbs as drags. I knew there were a few beaver on the creek, but so what. Came back the next day and had to hunt for my traps... Beavers had eaten everyone of the drags. It took a while and luck was with me, but I found all my traps.
Old Turd- Deplorable- Unrepentant Murderer- Domestic Violent Extremist
Well today was my new friend's last day trapping with me. He came up for 10 days and we finished our last check today. Final number is 6 lynx and 6 marten in 10 days. We have tons of wolf sets out as well, but they haven't been back yet. We sure had a blast chaseing Cats around though!