Trip Report: Neversink River Fly Fishing 9/27/14 – 9/28/14

The early bear season ended last week, unsuccessfully for me. With the trout season ending in another two weeks, I wanted to get in another fishing trip while I could. So, I headed to the Neversink river. Specifically, I planned on camping at the Wolf Brook MUA, and from there take the trails down to the Neversink River Unique Area where I could do the fishing.

My goal for this trip was to test my completed portable fly fishing kit. I’ve been messing with it for some time now, and I think I have a workable fly fishing kit that I can carry without problem in my pack over distance. So, with waders, boots, and rod stuffed in the pack, I headed for the river early in the morning.

Following one of the trails I was able to make my way to the river fairly quickly. I walked along for a bit until I found an area I liked.

I put on my waders and wading boots, and set up my rod. I took some pictures of the equipment, and I will do a separate posts about it later this week, since I have been getting a lot of questions about my set up. Then I got into the river and got to fishing.

The water was very cold. At first it felt fine because I was warm from backpacking to the location, but an hour or so later, the cold was hard to handle. To warm up I took some pictures of me fishing, which is an incredibly difficult activity. Setting the 30 second timer on my point and shoot camera, and then trying to get into the river without taking a dive, was challenging to say the least, but it does get the blood going.

I wasn’t having too much luck. I was determined to practice my dry fly casting, but there wasn’t a lot of surface action. There were some cadis flies hatching, but not a whole lot.

I didn’t have anything to match the color too well, so I tried a few different combination without luck. When in doubt, sit down and have lunch.

 

By this time I had put on my puffy jacket. Much of the river was still in shadow, so despite the relatively warm weather we have been having, I was still cold from being in the water.

I continued the same routine for the rest of the day. I was planning on concentrating my efforts on fishing in the evening to maximize my chances, but by mid afternoon, tired, and decided to pack up and start looking for a camp site.

The waders, wading boots, and the rest of the gear made their way into the pack nicely, contained in a plastic trash bag that I brought to keep the rest of my gear dry. I picked a direction and started bushwhacking. Soon I reached a small stream, Wolf Brook to be exact. I stopped for water. It seemed to be a more trustworthy source than the larger river.

 

I washed up, refilled my water, and kept going until I found a nice area in some pine woods where I could set up camp.

It was still relatively early, which gave me plenty of time to relax. I got up early the next morning and headed back down to the river for another try.

Finally, I managed to hook one on a #16 BWO.

I decided to end things on a high note, so I packed up and headed out.

I was very happy with the way the gear worked together. I didn’t catch a lot of fish, but that is mostly due to lack of skill. It was a good trip. The only down side was that the mosquitoes were still active.

Now I’ll start working on the post about the gear itself. I hope to have it up by the end of the week.

Foothold Trap Modification: Dyeing, Waxing, and Dipping

This post is going to be the last one of the series showing the standard modifications I do to my foothold traps before they go into use. You can check out the first two posts here and here. I will have more trap modification posts coming up soon, but they will involve modifications designed to create a portable trapping kit rather than standard modifications.

As I mentioned before, some reasons to modify your traps include:

1. To catch and hold the animal more effectively
2. To minimize suffering for the animal and any damage to the fur
3. To protect and preserve the traps

This post will focus on the last point: protecting the traps. By this I mean protecting your traps from environmental factors, primarily rust. Depending on how you trap, that will hold varying importance for you. How long you leave your traps out at a stretch, whether you use antifreeze to keep the soil loose, and whether the traps are in water will effect how much protection your traps need.

There are generally three ways to protect a trap: dyeing, waxing, and dipping. These methods then generally subdivide into two categories, with dyeing and waxing usually being done together and representing the traditional method, and dipping being a more modern method. Each trapper has his own preferences and will fight to the death to defend them. What I write here are just very general guidelines, and for everything you have heard that you should never do, there are a bunch of trappers doing that exact thing with great success. Keep that in mind as you read the post.

First, I am going to go over the three methods, and the general procedure for using them. This is just a very superficial overview. Then, further down in the post I will show you what I do, which is not necessarily the accepted wisdom.

The Methods:

Dyeing

Dyeing is an older method of treating traps, and many trappers no longer bother with it. The process uses either man made chemicals or natural materials rich in tannins to force a chemical reaction on the surface of the metal, and form a sort of patina on it. This should slow down the rusting process when the trap is exposed to the elements. The reason why this method is not used by many these days is that it doesn’t work too well. A dyed trap will still rust. As a result, this method is usually combined with waxing to provide adequate protection.

Waxing

Waxing is another traditional method for protecting traps, I suppose when wax was available. This process uses molten wax to cover the surface of the trap. It is very effective at protecting the trap as the metal is not exposed to the elements. It is often done as a second step after dyeing the traps, but dyeing is not needed for waxing. General wisdom dictates that certain traps not be waxed. In particular body grip traps and traps for water sets are not waxed because it is considered that it makes the traps too easy to set off.

Dipping

Dipping is a relatively modern method for protecting traps. It uses a dip to cover the surface of the trap much like you would with wax, except without the need for heating. There are different types of dips available. Some use gasoline to dilute the chemicals, others use water. To me they all resemble watered down paint. Just like wax, the dip coats the surface of the metal, protecting it from the elements. Many people make their own dip by diluting Rust-Oleum paint.

The Process:

Generally speaking, with all three methods you have to start by preparing the trap. The first step in the preparation is to clean the traps and remove all of the factory oils from them. The oils will not only interfere with the treatment of the traps, but hold a lot of scents that you may not want on your traps. Some people do that by boiling the traps in water mixed with lye. Keep in mind that lye will erode any aluminum pieces you may have on the trap. I’ve seen people use baking soda as an alternative. I personally just wash the traps with soap.

The next step in the preparation is generally to rust the traps. It’s counterintuitive, but in particular when using dye or dips, you need some rust on the surface of the trap for the chemicals to catch. Leaving the traps outside for a week does the trick.

At this point, the traps are ready for the desired treatment. Dyeing requires that you bring the dye to a boil, and leave the trap in it for the required time depending on what dye you are using. Once taken out it should have a dark color. If you are waxing the trap, heat up the wax (be careful not to ignite it), then submerge the trap, leave it in for a minute or two so that it reaches the same temperature as the wax, and then remove it. Some people like to use heated water with just a thin film of wax floating on the surface through which they pull the trap. Dipping doesn’t require boiling. Just mix the dip as directed, submerge the trap, pull it out, and dry.

What I do:

Here is my procedure for treating my traps:

First, I wash the trap. I use regular dish soap for the job. A lot of trappers worry about this imparting a scent to the trap. In my opinion, it doesn’t, and ultimately it’s not a huge issue. If you are trapping for an animal with a good sense of smell like coyote, they can smell everything you have done to the trap no matter how careful you are. They can smell wax on a trap, they can smell the metal itself, and they can certainly smell that you were digging in the ground. If a dog can track a person over miles just based on where a person stepped with their shoes, a coyote can smell that a human set a foreign object in the ground. My point being, I don’t obsess about it.

The second step is to etch the trap. I don’t like to rust my traps, but trying to dip a brand new trap will cause you all sorts of headaches because the dip will come right off. As an alternative to rusting the trap, I etch it. I do that the same way you would force a patina on a knife: I use a vinegar bath. In a container I put a bunch of vinegar, and top it off with water as needed. I then submerge the traps and leave them overnight. The result is that all the shine is removed from the trap, and the surface becomes much more receptive to a dip. In the picture below you can see an etched trap next to one that has not been.

As you can see, the process doesn’t work nearly as well on the stainless steel pieces on the chain as it does on the rest of the trap, but then, neither does rusting.

The third step is the dip the trap. I use dip instead of wax, or dye and wax because wax annoys me. I know it sounds silly, but I am very neat when it comes to my gear, and a trap covered in wax and all the dirt that gets imbedded in it just bugs me. For that reasons, I prefer dips. They are also much easier to apply because I don’t need to boil any liquid. The early dips used gasoline to dilute the dip, which made many trappers skeptical because there was a noticeable smell of gasoline on the finished trap, and people worried that it would just remain there. By now dips have been used successfully by many trappers, and have alleviated some of those fears, but it’s still something that always remained on the back of my mind. Fortunately these days there are water based dips. The one I use currently is Dakota Line dip. It works relatively well, it’s easy to wash off your hands before it sets, and it’s easy to use.

The last step, after letting the trap dry, is to clean up the dip off the important areas. Unavoidably, the dip will pool in certain areas. Most importantly, I like to remove it from the trigger mechanism and the tip of the dog using a small file. I don’t want the added friction on the dip there. I also clean up the areas between the jaws and where the arms meet the jaws.

And these are just some of the general methods available out there, and what I do to protect my traps. That being said, I’ve seen guys do everything from spray painting their traps to just leaving them untreated, and they have all been successful trappers.

So, this wraps up the standard foothold trap modifications that I do. This year I don’t actually plan on running a standard trap line, but I still wanted to replace the trap that went missing, which gave me an opportunity to show you my method. I will have another post shortly, showing the modified lightweight set up that I will try to use this year.

Back to Back Episode 1: Rain Gear

In the past few months a fellow blogger, Cesar, from Cesar and The Woods and I have been talking about starting a video project where we can exchange ideas on different subjects. The goal is to have it be a casual conversation where we go back and forth and address topics that come to mind related to the outdoors. With Cesar living in Sweden and being focused on ultralight long distance backpacking, and me being located in northeastern United States, and focusing on the mess of things I focus on, we thought it may offer some interesting perspectives.

The first set of videos is on our rain gear; what we use and why we use it. Cesar started out the series, as the project was his idea, and the first video just outlines what we are trying to do. The second and third videos show each of our takes on the issue.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

We’ll have more episodes coming up as time allows. I hope you guys find this of some use.

Wood Trekker Questions and Topic Requests

As you guys know, I’ve been writing this blog for going on five years now. I’ve tried to document as best I can my journey as an outdoorsman and my thoughts on the subject. I write the blog largely as my journal, so I can express my ideas without fear of censorship, and to that end I have been happy to write about the topics that cross my mind, or I think may help other. That being said, I do understand, that many of you read my posts, and you certainly have ideas about what you do and don’t find interesting. I understand that people come to this blog to search for information they may be interested in. Sadly, I don’t always know what that information is.

If I was to judge by the most visited posts, I could reach the conclusion that the subjects that are most interesting to people are as follows, in descending order of all time most visited posts:

1. Cody Lundin Fired From Dual Survival 
2. Dave Canterbury, Former Host of Dual Survival Apologizes to Fans
3. Dual Survival Season 3 – Drama!
4. Dual Survival Season 3 – Cast Changes
5. Dave Canterbury’s Military Record and Other Background Notes

If I was to give the people what they want, judging by the above, I should focus my writing on Dual Survival and other survival show related drama. Of course, that would be rather boring for me, and hopefully is not what really brings people to this blog.

Over the years I’ve written about numerous subjects. My focus and interest has shifted from topic to topic over time. Sometimes that is the result of me figuring out exactly what I want, other times it has been due to the introduction of new interests, as I have been striving to expand my horizons as a woodsman.

All that being said, I come to you, the readers. What topics are you interested in? What areas would you like to see me write about? If you have any ideas or interests, no matter what they may be, post them in the comments, and I will do my best to develop more writing on them. The topics can span anything from “beginner” subjects to more controversial questions. I can’t promise that I will be able to address all of them, but I will try to guide more posts in that direction.

So, what would you like to see Wood Trekker write about? What subjects interest you? What questions do you have?

Thank you in advance, and as always, thank you for reading.