Never trapped muskrats before so I was wondering if any of you have ever used a big trap on a float. By big I mean Duke #3 with an oversized pan. In my studies I’ve noticed that muskrats will climb all over a float oten coming up over the sides instead of the ends so they could work the float and never step on the pan of a 1 or 1 1/2. I was thinking a bigger trap with a big pan would mean a surer thing as long as the pan tension was way down and would probably kill them like a body grip. What are your thoughts?

With very light pan tension I'm sure it would work. Down side is that if you want to put out a good number of floats it's going to be a lot of heavy gear to haul around. And the floats will need to be built in a way they will support the heavy traps. But I'm sure they would work. More like a body grip as you stated I bet.

Considering I have had over 90% success rates (per trap) running two #1.5 coils on an 8" X 24" float, I can see no benefits of the larger, more expensive, heavier traps. This was running 40 floats in the spring, catching 76-78 rats per day.
Now, if all I had were #3s, I would not hesitate to set them for rats/mink.

Walleyed runs around 100 Floats and of those,I have 40 Floats with dimensions of 8" X 33" That have

TWO #2 Victor Square-Jaw Coils onboard and they Really, Really make your Float Squat down in the water.

They are a bit Tippy but they are deadly set up Like that.

You will Definitely need larger floats if you use the bigger, heavier traps.

w

Bigger is just fine (and better) IF you can get the pan tension down to nil (like just this side of going off on their own). Rats walk all over most guys traps before getting caught...or not...and unless you see it for yourself, you'll never believe it.

Lot of guys see a rat in their trap and say it's a 100% catch rate...but what they didn't see is the first 3 that walked over them and swam away. It's a humbling experience.

Beav said it right: "In rat trapping, it's not how many you catch, but how many you miss".

Plenty of guys running #3s back in the rat boom days. They bring a rat down a lot faster than a 1.5...as long as your floats are designed for the extra weight (which is easy).

Another BIG tip on floats is make the float only as wide as the trap. Most guys make them far too wide. Rats crawl on edges a lot...often times between the pan and the edge....or right on the rail.