Thanks boco, I looked up that puck set and from what I found it's kind of similar to what I had been doing. Putting a 120 down down under the ice on a pole with a big potato slice on the trigger. I didn't have to much action, but I gave up quickly since I was trying this in January and I was getting almost a foot of ice built up in 24 hours. It became too time consuming to maintain. I'll have to try it again now that it's warming up

I haven't applied my rat study to the Yukon River delta yet, and I'd love to, but around here, rat houses, for the most part, are froze right up, especially small huts in the open. Survivor rats are near deeper water in bank runs near shore. Huts all over the place just tells me they need trapping because the population is booming, but those shallow water slough huts are just extras, and not the survivor rats, for the most part. Access to deeper water that doesn't freeze out is key .

I was seeing more pushups last fall than i have in a few years. Ill set some traps one of these weekends but thats about it besides shooting a few during break up. There was a bunch of lakes with 70 or more pushups. Always wondered how a baited colony trap would work right beside a pushup?

I don't know how "baited" colony traps work at all. I use them in runways and channels on the bottom.

I always figured since multiple rats use the same pushups you might get a bunch if you were to offer the rats something like apples, potatoes, etc right beside where they are going to eat. Open one hole, pull 4-5 rats and on tothe next one. Ill try it one of these days.

I find those little pushups caved in by spring around here. You can pick up the mess and see the frozen plunge hole. I cant trap at ice out here, but last December I trapped a pond above a beaver flowage. 90 or so spots, and half were pushups. They will rarely yield more than 2 rat here, but there may be a half dozen satelites around a big house. Some of those push up are, like feed beds and toilets, particular to one rat. Most of the perimeter stuff near the dead spruce and drownded cedar were froze out or scarce in rats. This is all flooded peat bog type stuff.

We get some pretty big pushups here. Ive come across some with a single hole and 4-5 feed beds around it. Seen one with a high ceiling, the hole was almost the size of the pushups diameter with a
Sort of shelf all the way around. Got a lot of rats from that house just by putting 3 traps on the shelf. Pushups fall in mid to late may. By then the edges of lakes are flooded and you can be shooting and trapping at the same time, all the time keeping your shotgun close for geese and ducks.

Man, I'd love to be where I could just do that, lol. For A little while anyway..I think those pushups cave in just 2 or 3 weeks earlier here. Normally ice out on the creeks and rivers is by the 10 of april here, but ice fishing on Lake of the Woods will end on the 15th and in mid may there will sometimes still be ice there.

Beaver pond ice can stay frozen to the bottom , and pop up after the pond floods late into April some years, but usually pops up by the 10th of april. Ice remains under the slough grass for sometime though, shaded . and snow cover in the forest will clog roads into mid April most years, limiting travel on the unplowed wild areas.