I have always used traditional colony traps for Muskrat and had success as would be expected. Nothing spectacular but did the job in the correct spot. I am intrigued though by colony trapping in more open areas or drainage ditches like the ones that litter most areas of Wyoming 3-4' wide. I watched a video of Clint a few years ago where he had made a wide funneling style colony trap he was using in an open stream. In the video he never did talk about if it was a successful trap or not. I did at that time make one and try it. IT was late in the season and at the time i didn't have a bunch of really good muskrat area so i had no luck. No animal no catch lol. Just curious what others have found done or experimented with.

When trapping In ND we use to fill the culvert with colony traps. Then I got smart and made up some wings and attached them to the traps.
Lets say you had a 8x8x 30" trap and attached two 8x8 wings to the leading edges of your trap now you have 24"to work with. Well If you create a funnel you have a bit less. But with ONE trap you can cover a 18" culvert and catch just about every rat that attempts to swim through It.
I just zip tied the wings to the edges of the trap. Will work great In larger runs or use just one wing for those B&E sets. In a situation like you mentioned 2 traps could cover most of those narrow ditches and catch you most of those rats. The only rats you will miss are the ones that are swimming off the bottom. But of coarse you could stack them and catch those high swimming rats.

Here In WI they seem to want to protect our rats so all these ideas are off limits.

If I remember correctly, he was using those more as a scouting technique to see if the creek was worth pursuing further.

I've had horrible luck with colony traps in streams unless it's a very small one or a culvert you can completely block off. I think rats are more skittish than what we give em credit for.

That is exactly what he was doing. Was always curious if Clint or anyone had any luck with that type of colony trap. In the past I have tried tying a couple together to fill a larger gap or space and never had any luck. Just wondering if the funnel design he has in that video is productive.

Well I'm here to tell you my system works. Best I did with 2 traps with wings In one culvert on the first check netted me 18 rats. I had 12 rats In one trap.
If you aren't catching rats In colony traps then your doing something wrong or you don't have any rats. If I was trapping in good rat country and could find 100 useable culverts I would leave all my foot holds In the shed.
I guess If I was scouting rat country I would just read sign to determine If It was worth trapping. The last thing I would be doing would be setting traps.

We don't have the concentration of rats. Only time I get multiples is on den runs, and lots of those rarely produce doubles and there's not any way around for the rats to go. 12 rats here outside a few of our rare rat mqrahes is 1/4 to 1/2 mile walk with as many traps for a few days.

I find muskrats have runs through the bottom of beaver dams. I always set colony trap there and catch multiple rats. The runs usually have cloudy water in the entrance.

Colony traps in bottom edge sets in streams work great around here. Anchor it, in case a mink gets in it.

Remember In WI you have to be at least 15' from any beaver dam when setting colony traps another dumb rule.

Wings are better than a bigger trap. The doors get too heavy on the super large traps. You can make split doors but they still don't pile in like you'd think. Personally I've had far better luck shoving smaller traps side by side than using big colony traps.

I have found the standard 6 x24 work great in runs and but entrances. These are places I was using 110s and with those we all know you can only catch one. I will put them side by side to cover wider areas.

Also I always anchor with a rod so after I muddy up the run I can slide trap back down for into spot and it makes it easier to find them.

when i rat trap that is normaly all i use. but that was in ohio back in 2013 i cought 110 just using colony traps that year. i say it is all how you use them and how many rats you have.

I had some challenges with under ice colony trapping in shallow h20 last winter. I had good success but was aggrevated when the top of the colony trap was stuck to the ice.