Hello, I´m reposting this here as I did it in the african forum before by mistake... here it goes.
After a very long tryp of 25 hours long I arrived at Anchorage airport where I had to wait for the hotel transportation that finally drove me to my hotel at midnight.
Early in the morning I first met Jake, after getting all the paperwork ready and some other stuff, we began the drive to the lodge. It was a 5 hours drive and 2 and a half more hours snow machinning.
It was my first time to be driving a snowmachine, so it got a bit hard for me. In our way to the lodge we saw several caribou and moose, and also some ptarmigan and an owl.
Once in the lodge I was introduced to the nice family who is managing it, Claude, Jen, Bob and Kyle, Claude and Jen are a nice young couple whose brother bob is also a lot of fun to be with, Kyle is helping them with everything and he is also great.
The lodge was great and I enjoyed a lot their company all my time over there, not to forget the great meals Jen was cooking for us everyday.

first day of the hunt.
I was told to wake up at 7 everyday, so I did the first day, nevertheless, I was already awake since 2, due to the jetlag.
We had breakfast, get into the snowmachine and went to our first checking of the traps Jake had already set for me before.
The day was great we had two lines to check, west and east of the lodge, Claude also came with us, so I was surrounded by two experts in snow machine driving, thought, it did not was enought to keep me away of falling off the snow machine several times.
The day turned out to be also great at hunting, we found out 3 animals got trapped on Jake´s traps, awesome begin of the hunt.
We got one fox, who it seems to have been killed by a moose while trapped, as the tracks in the snow seems to tell us. Also get a marten and a huge wolverine, the wolverine was caught in a snare Jake set near of a killed bear. Yes, thats right, a killed bear in January, you read it right.
It seems the wolves took the bear out of his cave when he was still on the hibernation period, incredible storie. The bear got killed and wolves, foxes, wolverines, etc fed on it.

second day of the hunt.
Again another great sunny day, but still cold, of course. Today we go for predator calling, but first I had to solve an issue and that is my boots. The cold was entering trought my boots, so I was feeling it in my feet fingers, I figured out a final solution, I put my gloves covering my feet inside my boots and that saved me.
We got no results with the calling, but in the way back Jake saw a fox and we can managed to shoot him down, really fun shooting. Not having drive more tha 400 yards from that first fox, Jake saw another one, same thing, we run into eachother so Jake could pass me over his nice semiautomatic 223 rifle mounting a red dot scope.
This time I could not hit it, Jake took his snowmachine and look for any blood traces or any chance of see it again, but nothing.
After all this movement we went back to the lodge for a nice lunch and then hit the road again to set four more traps. It was nice to learn and practice how to set your own traps and do the calling, I have never did it before and now is something I can highly recomend to any hunter to try at least once.

third day of the hunt.
Tonight it was really windy, it seems the weather is going to change and it did.
We ran the east line in the morning and the west line in the afternoon, no catchings but we still had to work over some traps that needed a reset. Traping is a hard work, you have to run the lines every now and then and make adjustments, etc, and you also need to think like the animal you are trying to get might think, otherwise you will never get it.
that day we also found mink tracks in a couple of places and we set a trap, in our last checking Jake saw another fox, I tried to kill him but was no lucky, then I ask Jake to try to cath it up with his snow machine and shoot him down, he did it and was able to kill it, so we got another nice fox.
Back to the lodge a long skinning work was required, Jake is a great guide, knows every detail of his work and is a pleasure to talk to him a learn from him all details of the hunt you are involved at. He also did a great job skinning.

fourth day of the hunt.
At night was again windy and it has been snowing so we have to run the lines again to reopen the paths. We found a marten on our way and came back for lunch at the lodge in the afternoon we went to recover a couple of traps Jake set in the lake for beavers with no luck, the ice have had grown so much that he had to use a machine to cut off the ice and hardly got to the end of the ice block.
While cutting up the ice we had an unexpected finding, something was trappen in our set, we first thought it was a beaver because that was the intended specie but it end beeing an otter, it was really hard to get the otter out from the ice, it was a big one and we could not avoid make some cuts on it in our fight to get it out.
We are doing a great job. We have time only to ran one of our lines, so we must run the other one tomorrow probbly under bad weather conditions also... we will see.

fifth day of the hunt.
We wake up same time, have breakfast and hit the road... another unexpected finding, there was a fox in the same trap we got the wolverine the first day... my god, what a good spot, I would really love to get a lynx and wolve if we have chance, but no chance at all yet...well you can never have everything.
Today, no doubt, was the hardest day of all, I fell down of my machine 6 times, it seems the fresh snow was laying over a frozen older snow area that is making the things quite complex for me... the worst of all is that the machine went over a tree in one of my accidents and some plastic parts of it broken up...
My back is really painfull at this time and I´m really tyred...too much going up and down the snow machine

sixth day of the hunt.
Today we went for a nice ride with Claude and family and Bob got his first marten, I really couldnt enjoyed too much because the pain in my shoulder and had to ask Jake to continue himself and take all the traps from the line out so I will not need to went trough it again.
Jake did it and in the afternoon we went together for a little ride on the road to see if we could find something but we had no luck.

Seventh and last day of the hunt.
We went to get out the traps set on the last trap line still set it (excepting four traps we left out to be taken in our way back tomorrow) and we found another marten in one of the sets, it was an old and big marten, we went back to lodge for a quick but delicious lunch and left fast to check an area in which Jake has seen linx tracks before.
We soon find tracks and we sat down for some calling in several places with no luck, then we agree to get back to lodge in a slow ride so we could be able to check both sides of the road and try to find some animal movement. We were lucky to shoot a couple of rabbits and a nice fox, it was funny shooting and we both enjoyed.
We came back to lodge, finish all the skinning and had a nice night in company of the Bondit family playing monopoly.

Still to comment we saw a lot of critters in our way back, including a coyote that was really lucky as the gun was frozen and so unable to shoot...
After a 2 days tryp I´m back to Spain and I find myself writing down this report.
I want you to know Jake is a great person and guide, that much, that I´m already booking a July brown bear for this same 2011 year, so is useless to say I highly recommend his services and this trap line adventure which is really fun and special hunt everybody should do it at least once, specially for the price, 6500$ is a great deal on a such hunt with your own snow machine for your personal use during 8 days and being in such a nice lodge with internet, phone, nice cook and even better company.

Best regards

Sounds like a great time!

Yes, great time in great company.
Highly recommended

Looks like a great time in some spectacular surroundings. You took some excellent animals.

Sounds like a great adventure. I admire you for going to Alaska during the winter.

That does look like it would be a lot of fun.
Any plans on what to do with the hides?

Hello friends.
It was a great time hunting, but, as Ide said, now is time to decide what to do with the hides... And I have no idea. I wanted to make a coat for my wife, as she asked me to do so, but it seems you need at least 10 foxes to make a coat, and I only have 5...so I really dont know what to do with hides excepting one marten that I would like to full mount, together with the otter, and I´m planning to make a rug out of the wolverine, but I will be hearing any suggestions from you.

best regards

I've seen some nicely-tanned, cased hides from critters of this type that were merely hung on the wall from hooks by the nose. Depending on the rest of the room, this can make an attractive, low-key display.

I said this in your "African" version of this thread, but I'll repeat myself here: it would be sinful if you don't do a full mount of that wolverine. What a fantastic trophy that would make!

Again, congratulations!

John

someone "admires" you for going to alaska in the winter. to a lodge with internet, hot water, a cook, sat tv, snowmachines with heated grips...yep we are borderline barbaric up here!
was great having you up spanishhunter, i hope more of our AR family can make the trip someday as well and see an Alaska they never new exsited.

yes, jeje, and dont forget about the monopoly...
even when we were beaten by a little boy

beautiful animals!!!

remember everyone this trip is available next season as well! some changes will be made as this year was the first year we'd ran this trips, but the success of them and overall feedback from the clients was great. my webpage will be updated in a month or so and have the trapping trips listed on there as well!

Sounds like a great adventure!!

Spanishhunter, I know a gal in Washington state who can provide the foxes to finish out a coat and make the coat. She's the one who did the costumes for the Kevin Costner movie "Dances with Wolves". Let me know if you would like her email address.

Thank you for your help Ryan, I have just read your post now. Will let you know if I still need the coat.

Best regards

you mean like these? Nice.