Great job on keeping this thread going. Well opening day finally arrived for Hazel and me. Dropped a few rat sets in so I can get a little Fisher bait and see if I can catch my incidental otter. Only had an hour so I forgot to take a picture. Maybe tomorrow.

59 yesterday and only 42 today i sure hope this weather keeps up i got froze out of here last year on dec 7th

it sure is fun muskrat glad your enjoying the pictures

go get em wimarshrat!!

CableAble, wow the marsh just keeps on yielding for you. I pulled about 60 traps yesterday as I got back into the water Sunday after the freeze up we had. These were 4 sections of river that were really poor in sign last year. They were better this year but far below the earlier sections I did this fall. I got 25 rats, 4 coons and 4 mink so that puts my rat total at more than 1,000 below yours! Still getting a higher percentage of smaller rats in the rivers even now. Reproduction was better but seems to be later. A friend traps more sloughs and the rats are bigger so maybe with all the high flooding this spring rats moved to the sloughs that have been dry most summers here and did very well. I have 8 mink this year which puts me back at my 15-20 year historical norm of a mink per 20 or so rats. I don't set for mink I just get them in rat sets. Those were my norms from 1985 to about 2007 or so. Four of my rats really got tore up by coons. They seem to be everywhere. All tore up rats were rear foot caught which means they stay alive longer and thus attract attention.
Tomorrow I head out early for a large marsh for 2-3 days of hopefully open water rat trapping. Gear is loaded and alarm is set!

Bryce

Well plans did not work the way I had planned. Got to the marsh at 7:15 AM and it was 22 degrees on the truck thermometer! In places over a half an inch of ice and all the feed bed areas in among the cattails were froze up and the sun was not getting at those sites any time soon. Will lay out a short late season coon line for tomorrow and the rest of the week while we wait for hard water.

Bryce

Sure are some encouraging posts!

Anybody else rush out and set cable restraints today? I got a few out, I figure if I do half as good as I usually do I don't need to sharpen the skinning knife.

58 more 1542 marsh keeps on going dying down these days but set some previously trapped area yesterday and there was good sign everywhere set more today need to move alot more in there tomorrow

hey bryce that marsh wouldn't happen to be horicon would it??
boy half inch eh? man we had a 1/16th at most and all gone when i left

PA trapping started a month ago but it is just now getting cold enough to trap!

Good job CA! Looks like the ice may be your nemesis come Tuesday or Wednesday? Keep piling them up.
I still haven’t set a single trap this season. And now I just bought a different house. So I need to things organized and ready to move in February. Guess I’ll have to skip trapping for this year.

trapre i started trapping 48 days ago hard to believe its been that long!! 1152 hours it looks like and 1739 animals have died in that time frame looks like 1.5 an hour haha numbers are fun!

thanks handitrapper!! congrats on the new house hope you get a good fur shed built!! thats to bad you might not get out this season but thats how life works sometimes i guess eh

Yep. It’s all worth it in the end. Been trying to get the owner to sell me this place for nearly 2 years. And it finally happened. Great fishing right in the backyard. Literally! Always wanted to live on a lake. And @ 52, it’s finally going to happen. I’m pumped for the crappie & bluegill spawn in the spring.

good for you handitrapper! now if only there were rat huts on the lake you would be set haha

There are. And a very good friend of mine owns the 100+ acres of land directly across the road. Plenty of woods, wetlands and close to half mile of shoreline. I’m pretty well set. A dream come true.

Our short little line produced 22 rats. Hazel decided to spread a little love...

When my daughter was young (4ish) she would help in the fur shed @ night. Her job was to dry the rats as I was skinning. She would towel dry, comb, talk to them, and have a little tea party with the muskrats. Like they were little dolls. Every time I finished one, she would hand me another, and the process would start all over again.

Things like that stay with you your entire life.

Yes that was Horicon. It is probably going to thaw tomorrow but I have other things to do.

Bryce

42 more kinda slow

bryce i figured so haha 4 of the guys who trapped this marsh were up there nut if you said there was that thick of ice i dont know how much they go done haha

Well had a little time yesterday afternoon. Tossed a couple sets in at a farm down the road. Made for a nice morning walk along the creek before the boy and I went to grandpa's to make italian sausage, summer sausage and ring bologna. Grandpa also made some venison bacon. All should be coming out of the smoker at 8:00. Making brats tomorrow. What a great time of year!

Temp hit 165º by 6:00 so pulled, cooled and ready to package.


50lbs of Ring bologna and 50lbs of summer sausage!




Bacon!

Trap Setter you are making me hungry.

Line was producing nicely the last few days. Picked up another 24 yesterday and 23 muskrats plus a bonus mink today. Had to pull tonight as I am taking a road trip to MN. Kids were happy to be back out there until they sunk the otter sled.