A little CSI Trapper - Who left these prints?

Pre-teen Yeti?

Looks like Mr. Robert Cat

Marten, fisher, or weasel? skunk? Hard to get a size perspective.
Or are they from your visiting mink?
5 toed weasel family in a 4 print pattern. Marten is my first guess, but I'm no trapper/tracker.
Looks like tail marks in snow, too.

Otter.

It is a fisher. The five toe pattern eliminates bob cat. Fisher are reletively aggressive and will attack pets.

We don't have fisher around here, but the otter will leave almost the exact same tracks.

This is the second time I have seen its track. Hopefully I will catch sight of it as I have never seen a fisher in person yet but they are legendary 'round these parts!

The deep snow seems to be giving all the animals a tough time right now as these guys are coming close to the house. Winter has a long way to go yet here.

Ann,
We had a fisher eating on caribou scraps once in Northern Quebec. Very like a wolverine in actions.
Here's one somebody else trapped

Thanks for the pic, Steve, they look like quite the beastie!

we have many of the little furry critters on my hunting grounds.I have seen them several times,even had them try to climb my deer stand while I was in it.

Fishers are very viracious little buzzturds! They raise hellwith rabbit,grouse and turkey populations. Where I am I am only allowed to trap two of them each season. They were introduced here by the all knowing DNR to supposedly control the porqupine population. Well, the succeeded in wiping them out along with cleaning out big areas of rabbits and keeping grouse numbers way down.
They are of the weasel family, which includes the badger and wolverines. Nasty critters who don't serve a lot of purpose when they are too plentiful in an area!

one of the fun critters to snare or use a coni on dark forest deep snow will find their playground... leaning pole baited and lured.. drill some pockets in pole for bait and lure .. not the easiest to find or catch....

A fisher is about 2/3s the size of a wolverine. I would love to catch one in the trapline, but they need more wilderness than my area affords.

I might be going back to college to be a physicians assistant for the Navy. If so I am going to try and end up in Minnesota, Montana, Idaho, or Colorado.

Trapline is coming again I can feel it.

I'm really glad to see that there are others here who appriciate the value of these small big game trophies.
A fisher would make a great mount in any trophy room as would woverine and marten. I'd like to see all three mounted in kind of a famly group.

Can you imagine a bigger challange than to try and walk into the woods and say I'm hunting fisher or marten. We take pride in our deer and bear heads on the wall. They stand as repersintitives of our accomplishments in the field. If you ever see someones trophy room with a fisher mount you can view that as a really great accomplishment. Unfortunantly most people just say what's that.

Good pic! The weasel family members all leave similar tracks.

D99 fishers don't need much wilderness to live we have them all over northern Wis. All they need is something to eat and no one shooting or trapping them.

Last season here in southern Indiana I saw a creatures larger than a mink/weasel but smaller than a wolverine in my woods. I was hunting with open sights and had no binoculars and it was about 75 yards away so I really didn't get a clear picture. It was hunting fallen tree tops froma previous logging cut. I had never seen such an animal in all my years in Indiana. Several weeks later I saw one again about 1/2 mile from where I spotted the first and got a better look. I went home and searched some old trapping books and it looked exactly like a fisher. Early this year I saw the same tracks you have pictured in the snow in my woods. My vote is for a fisher. Good shooting!

Those are not my hunting grounds but the tail track from your pictures don't seem to be made by the hairy tail of that fisher or whatever you call them. For me that tail is from an otter. We call them down here "lobito de río" (more or less means small river wolf).

L

Hi Lorenzo, I think those are foot drag marks, probably the back foot. Are you allowed to hunt or trap otter where you are?

Hi Ann,
Here everyone traps everything as nobody knows very well what is allowed and what not

A little bit more serious, that kind of otter you have there and that we call lobito de río is not allowed to be hunted. Some people traps foxes in the past but now the skin doesn't have any more value down here so foxes are everywhere !!!!!!!!!!!

You see them 24 hours a day and the partdrige and lambs populations suffer them.

We also trap another kind of otter, something similar a giant water rat, very tasty and also with beatiful skin. We call them nutria.



Lorenzo

nice cat

quote:

Originally posted by Cowboy44:
nice cat

btt