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Snowshoes?

Started by gman98, March 23, 2015, 06:50:48 AM

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Corley5

I've used Michigans and Bear Paws and prefer the Michigan style.  I've got a couple pair of the military surplus ones and they're my favorite.  I'd rather see them hanging on the wall in the garage than attached to my feet.  I prefer the rubber bindings.  They're easier to get on and off for me anyway.  I used to have a pattern around somewhere to cut them out of inner tubes.
Burnt Gunpowder is the Smell Of Freedom

sprucebunny

Where I go in the woods, there are too many small sticks that would go thru those military ones or anything but a no-holes fabric deck. More than once I've been upside down or wallowing around in the snow cursing at small trees/branches that had stuck thru a hole and wouldn't come out.

Unfortunately, I can't find another pair of the Fabers I have.
Got some used 'Optima' ones from fleabay... we'll see how those are.
MS193, MS192 and an 026  Weeding and Thinning. Gilbert Champion sawmill

SwampDonkey

Yeah, mines not web like you would think with cord or gut, it's hard plastic with cleats on the bottoms for crust. But there are a few round holes bunched into it. The odd stick will grab a hole now and then, but most of the time there is enough snow when I'm shoeing that I usually don't get snagged. Also my land hasn't a lot of windfalls and snags because I have thinned the ground out the last few years with the trash all rotted into the ground by now.
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

enigmaT120

I have a pair of bear-paw type which work OK but I generally prefer my cross country skis.  On the rare years we get enough snow to bother with either.

That's just to get around in the woods and logging roads; I don't try to do any work in the woods in the snow.
Ed Miller
Falls City, Or

BHC

the surplus ones i use have cable same as in the picture, they hold up well to the snags, thinking about most of the wooden shoes i have broken it been the tail that breaks stepping over a log you don't see in the snow, with just the tail supported, they break at the mortise and tendon on the back bar. Most of the time when i am using them it is to trap beaver, and in a place i can't get my snow sled through,- fir or alder thickets, there is always a bunch of cut down trees around these flowages. Occasionally i had to use them to break a trail for the snow sled as well. Or to shovel snow away from the ice to set or tend beaver traps. I don't tend to use them just to go for a walk, or in open area's or good trails where i can run a snow sled, if i was i would look at some of the long narrow pickerel type.
84 C5D Tree Farmer, 78 S8 International, Thompson Band Mill, M14 Foyley Belsaw

SwampDonkey

I use mine mostly on trails or places I thinned out, which is almost the same because you create corridors more or less. But they do brush up in places. Going tomorrow on mine to do some more pruning while everything freezes up for a spell. Not suppose to get above freezing here tomorrow.

Do you trap the problem beavers BHC? That's about all that get trapped here now. Fur isn't worth much.
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

OntarioAl

BHC
Exactly as you say except I am flagging road line, cut blocks or no cut areas, just have to power on through no deviating from the line being run. The surplus ones are for work only if I am walking trails or in open country I prefer the longer narrow ones.
sprucebunny
Been there done that turned the air several shades of blue rolling around in the snow, that was until I started to use cross country ski poles. Tumbles in the snow are past history I will not snowshoe without them ever again.
Al
Al Raman

BHC

swamp donkey I trap problem beavers, and others depending on where they are, and how close i am going to them, i run a set of hunting camps for bear and deer in the fall, so i depend on a lot of company rds even if the company  not using them, so try to keep the beaver numbers as low as i can, in nov i trap coyotes for the state, and then in Dec i trap marten and fisher, if i can off a snowsled, and will target all the beaver that i go near. 2 years ago i flew over in a plane and marked 95 houses with a GPS withen a 20 mile of my house, if the price had stayed up i would have done well, they are ave $20 that's ok if it open water out of a truck= less work  but you would have to pick your time late winter when they take bait good and ice is not building for winter trapping/ under ice to pay, compare what you can make cutting pulp to what your going to make trapping beaver, and i cut pulp last 2 winters. I do know 4 or 5 guys who are catching 200+ beaver each and every year, and a couple of them pushing 500 every year, for the fur market there is no lack of beaver here in Maine. I bet if it was figured out there would be millions of dollars lost in roads and flooded/killed timber here every year.
84 C5D Tree Farmer, 78 S8 International, Thompson Band Mill, M14 Foyley Belsaw

sprucebunny

Al, my chainsaw would be jealous and depressed if I took some ski poles  :D
Had a stick stuck so bad today that I had to take the snowshoe off to disentangle everything.

BHC, ya beavers have wrecked a bunch of trees on my land but now they have eaten themselves out of a spot and moved on. No hardwood left within a couple hundred feet radius of their huts. About 20 acres of cedar flooded.
Sounds like you stay busy  8)
MS193, MS192 and an 026  Weeding and Thinning. Gilbert Champion sawmill

SwampDonkey

Quote from: BHC on March 31, 2015, 09:15:15 PM
I bet if it was figured out there would be millions of dollars lost in roads and flooded/killed timber here every year.

I hear ya. I thin small trees with a brush saw when there's no snow and them beaver's flood out a lot of 'silviculture' roads for sure. On dad's farm, I took the GPS in the winter time on snow shoes and measured 25 acres of flooded land the beavers had dammed up. That was on a 450 acre block of land. Those areas were nice cedar stands one time. At 50-60 cord an acre, that's big loss. Of course the timber had been cut before hand. But old beaver ponds, even if the beavers leave and the dam breaks, take a long time to heal up and grow trees again.  And they (beaver) don't only cut aspen and hardwood, but planted spruce trees make dam building material even if they aren't good eat'n. ::)
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

petefrom bearswamp

I think I may be the oldest fart posting  Here. I started in 1962 when i went to work for the NYS Conservation department here in NY
We first were issued WWII surplus bear paw shoes with rawhide webs and leather bindings.
Flat profile and caught in deep snow when marking trees for thinning as we were looking up all the time.
I was only 24 then so falling wasn't a big deal.
A couple of years later we graduated to shoes made by Floyd Westover in Gloversville NY in Michigan pattern with neoprene webbing and neoprene bindings.
What a difference.
I wish I had a nickel for every mile i have logged on these tennis rackets.
I have used them since, 3 pairs, but haven't been on a pair in about 9 yrs since retiring from consulting forestry.
My newest pair rest in my shop on a nail as i think I posted before, CRS setting in.
IMO style and manufacture is likened to the Chevy/GMC/ Ford/ ram/ tundra debate.
Glad the snow is gone here.



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57 acres of woodland

johnjbc

I still have a pair of the Neoprene Snowshoes like yours. Did a lot of Snowshoe Rabbit hunting when I lived up there. Started out with a borrowed pair of Bear Paws then bought a pair like yours. They sure were easier to walk in. Haven't had to use them since I moved out of the Great White North  :D
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