man i feel bad for you guys up north! this open water rat fling is one of the cornerstones of my season plan was hoping for a bit longer but i guess i will have to start sleaving! might hit up a river but i dont know how that will go no great launch on it

nimzy i took a day off a few days ago to skin but besides that i have been checking traps every day since 12:12am oct 14 haha

48 for today brings me to 512 not where i should be but ill take it!

Took 2 and a half days off to do some needed tasks and was back out today setting some water. I set up a bit over 2 miles of river. I will pull those Wednesday as they are talking 15 degrees Thursday night! I will have over 2 miles of river I won't get set up b4 the hard water starts. Lot of the water I trap is slow moving river water and shelf ice build quickly. I did not put any coon specific sets out knowing I will pull quickly. I will get enough in my rats sets for sure. Decent sign in several areas but one can see the rats and the coons move quickly when the main food supply leaves an area.

Bryce

hope you do good bryce i might go hit a river for rats and mink im sure there are coon on it to bu it would be around 5 and a half miles one way have trapped around it and caught lots of rats and have always seen plenty of rats in it but never really trapped it before would be interesting yeah im not looking forward to this hard water myself screws me pretty good

CableAble,
I don't need particulars but what is the rough size of the marsh you are on? With 2-4 other guys and you moving traps daily and having a lot of sets out there the area must be pretty large it would seem to me. I see a motor and I have never used a motor for rat trapping so I know my areas are considerably smaller for sure. My river I wade is about 6 to 20 feet wide in most places and only a few known spots over my head and I now know those over my waders too!

Bryce

it is a very big marsh i just walked a line around the outside perimeter on a mapping application it is 5.5 miles around just did my route and i go around 5.6 miles by boat checking traps haha interesting yeah you learn the deep areas quick haha

CA, I want you to rest cuz you're wearing me out. LOL.

Honestly, You got the right idea, numbers are ground out, day after day after day, no doubt. right now youre 512 rats ahead of me. Let em have it, its the best thing for them. IMHO

? you got more there this year then last?

81 today they moved pretty good last night tonight will be a stretch with the skin ice forming they will shut down early im thinking but it sure is nice out right now

nimzy last year i got to this marsh late trapped for 2 weeks till we got froze out and got 300 so im doing quite a bit better than that but that was my plan haha

I was more so referring to the condition of the marsh, population wise. Curious of how the muskrats are responding to heavy trapping pressure. If you are where I think you are, trappers went through that marsh in fall and again in winter last year. Just wondering if their efforts left the marsh short? Or not?

Nice catch CableAble. We already have 27 degrees here at 7 PM! I am pulling tomorrow to get ahead of the two days below freezing and a low of 14 degrees on Thursday night.

Got 34 rats and no coons today. Coon sign all over the place but by not setting coon specific sets or using any lures or baits one minimize coons. I get several in rats sets but I certainly will rather catch $2.50 to $3.50 rats instead of $7-$ coons put up.

Bryce

nimzy yeah one of the guys that trapped this marsh last year got around 3000 and the other guys probably got close to that combined so you figure 6000 some rats taken last year and the population is right around the same this year certainly not noticeably lower pretty amazing really if you think about it

bryce there is frost forming outside already right now darn skin ice will shut the rats down soon im sure oh well nice to avoid the coon if you dont want them good job!

thanks! Not sure how familiar you are with this marsh. Have you noticed any visible changes in the vegetation? I mean has more appeared or disappeared? Is it thicker or thinner? have any plant species changed?

Curious about the muskrats relationships/impact with the marsh.

So far your testimony strengthens the belief that muskrats can withstand heavy trapping pressure. My concern is can the marsh withstand heavy muskrat pressure? I believe these questions can only be answered by those that spend much time studying these situations.

I think a large harvest or heavy trapping pressure only strengthens the genetics. And possibly the breeding population.
Survival of the fittest, if you will. It’s only obvious that the habitat, water and food needs to be present.

Natural selection(survival of the fittest) has NOTHING to do with a situation that includes mans activities such as trapping. If genetic selection is taking place during trapping, the result would be that the sneaky careful individuals would survive while the more agressive or braver or more mobile would be selectively killed. Since no one knows the linkage between such traits and others such as fur quality, the effects of selective harvest(if it occurs at all) are impossible to predict.

Checked again this morning and had to pull half my sets due to ice. Picked up 7 more rats to put me at 70 on the season. Going to get one more check tomorrow and pull the rest of the line ahead of the lows in the teens Thursday night. Happy to have almost 2 weeks of open water trapping. Now just hoping for some clear ice and no snow to do some under ice trapping.

The marsh was Iced over this morning. Now I just have to wait till there Is walking Ice.

I chickened out and pulled all my traps today. Second check on the line I pulled yielded 21 rats and 1 coon. I am catching the highest number of medium and large rats on the rivers I ever have in 36 years. There are more rats in most places than there has been for 15 our so years but maybe our really heavy rains in April, May and June removed a lot of the earlier litters I don't know. Not good to be trying to make money selling large rats but nice to see some solid repro going on.

Bryce

Tomorrow will be one of those days the pushpole will be freezing up in your hands or youre post holing every step.

Amen to the good production Bryce!

Where U trappin Beav, Mercer?

Went looking around today, hopefully it comes around next week, got some catchin up to do. LOL

I am catching more mink per mile of river also, even with the two checks and out. More rats, more mink and by not trapping early I am not getting near the coon as they have moved to where the corn is and most of my river runs through dairy farms and the silage and snaplage have been gone for a couple weeks now. Nice to see the better numbers. One just has to get used to the fact that when you catch more rats in the fall you will catch more younger and smaller rats also. I will take the up tick in numbers.
Several small sloughs that have been dry for years have water and a hut or two. With rats well dispersed they should do well this winter. I have never had a day where I got a 60% success rate on a 2nd check on my river line. This is one section I grant but the one thing I am learning is that 15 rats have about as many feed beds as do 30 the feed beds in use just have more rats coming to them. I can see the big swing from corn fields to the nice alfalfa regrowth that is out there now. That is super feed for rats getting ready to nestle in for the winter.

Bryce

Got sets in Monday. Yesterday was 2 coyotes and a coon. Today 8 coyotes... 24 sets never hit close to that on coyotes per set. One day checks.

One with a tag.