Yes tlguy reaching in with a gantlet and setting a foothold inside

I mentioned weakened coils. Not because they are easier to set but more that they go off easy. You don’t want a stiff pan under ice

Today was busy. One Granddaughter was in the Sunday School Christmas Program in the AM and one 7th grader playing center on a girls hockey team. She just started so is not as able as most her age but she enjoys the game. Out to the marsh. Better today. We got 26, with 1st check yesterday at 16 with tons of plugged traps. Today there were also fewer plugged or sprung. We pulled 10 traps as it seems that many feeders are one rat feeders and were freezing up. There won't be as many rats as it first appeared but still a lot for the size of the place. Also catching mostly smaller rats with even a half dozen kit sized rats the two days and not fat either. There are cattails all over the place so that is strange to us. Would be better to catch 40-50 nice rats then 60-75 smaller rats. Hip is holding up very well but my back has been bad the last few weeks. Today has been a bugger.

Bryce

are you talking like a 3rd litter of rats this year?

So back to my question about plunge hole location. Is there a pattern?

Beav are you asking do we find and use the plunge hole the vast majority of the time or are you asking that do we get more plugged traps when we use the plunge hole when we sleeve the push up?

Yesterday on the roughly 40 sets I checked I don't remember any push up sets where I was not using the plunge hole as the entrance for setting. I am not finding a 2nd entrance in many of the push ups. The ones that I do find I catch percentage is higher. Don't know for sure if I came through the main or the secondary opening. Also two sets that appear to be big push ups but are just breather type huts with no clippings have yielded a rat both days.

Bryce

Bryce, he is just wanting to know if there is a pattern to the entrance to the feeders. What tells you were the entrance is located?

That's what I was asking.

I think we had a late litter in NW WI. I caught a very small rat a few days ago.

Yes from what I can see these are the patterns or signs I look for. If there is a slight indentation on the feeder that is a good sign. If that is on the higher side or the straighter or taller side even better. The next best is the south east corner or the side away from the wind which is usually that side and there the ice is thinner almost always, especially early in the hard water season. If one is lucky enough to get out before the snow or cloudy ice then bubble trails will give you the best place and from experience it is those two more than not.
We are pulling several that are froze up. We got 14 today with about that many plugged. 16. 27. 14 which is consistent but not high. Our other spot has 22 rats with about a 40% catch rate instead of 30%
Caught one rat today that probably will be an extra small!!
Bryce

On the same subject. Setting a pond with a bunch of huts on it this weekend. 6" of snow, so really setting blind. Thinking 160's baited parsnips and carrots. Any hints/tips? How far away from houses? 1st time so looking for anything that might help.
Thanks

Look for any smaller huts or push ups as you walk the marsh. They won't show up much but should be good. As to setting baited body grippers around houses??. Many times entrances can be out in deeper water with a run up to the house and not easily found. You could spud some holes around the house to see if you can have clippings etc. come up. I would set near those. Also if you can scrape the snow away to see if you can find any bubbles. If active there should be action around the huts. Also if there are cattails around the houses, look for anything that might be a trail through the cattails.

We checked today and pulled at least 25 traps that were not active. We will pull Thursday. We will skip Wednesday as we both have other things and it will be very cold also. We got 10 rats today on our 4th check. We have 88 so far. We estimated 100-110 so we won't be too far off on our count. Just more smaller rats then we anticipated and more 1 rat feeders then we have seen in other areas in the past.

Bryce

Checked my stuff for a second time yesterday got 43 and had 1 froze in the ice that got destroyed in the process of chopping it out so would have been another 44 haha this warm up should be fun I'm also gonna skip tomorrow might even set some coon traps out

cableable,,,glad to see youre back out after the rats again. keep us updated.

We pulled our two marshes that we set together. We did not check yesterday. We estimated that we would catch about 115 rats in the two places and wound up with 107 so our estimates were not outrageous.

Couple of questions for the posters
1. We had one push up where two smaller rats were eaten on. the first one was just one front leg. Today both hind legs were stripped clean to the hips with no other holes or bite marks. Any thoughts as to what may be doing that damage?

On the bigger marsh with roughly 75 rats we caught mostly smaller rats the first couple checks and more typical xl rats later, but none of the rats had much fat on them and the marsh is just loaded with cattails. We have never seen rats with that little fat in December in a good cattail marsh before. Any insights from othe posters?

Bryce

Are the cattails the native broadleaf variety, the invasive narrow leaf variety, or a hybrid?

That I do not know for sure. I can get a sample and have a native plant specialist take a look. This place has up to 4 feet of water in places now and in dry years is not very wet at all. With two wet years in a row it developed a rat population but the cattails have been there for as long as I can remember.
Also when I talked with the DNR specialist at Horicon a few years ago the native and the foreign or invasive both are good sources of tubular roots as they are multi year plants. It is the hybrid of the two that is the annual plant that does not develop a major root system. We don't know if the rats in there came from a larger river about 3/4 of mile away. Most rivers around here with any size have not been good for rats this year at all.
Bryce

I bet narrow leaf, useless for rats or skinny

Bryce,,alot of times we find the smaller/younger rats along the shoreline, and the older rats further out in the deeper water. were the "eaten on" rats drug up into the hut and fed upon? that would more than likely be a mink, and there wouldn't be any other wounds on the rat, as the mink found it already dead, and just fed on it. according to our biologists, either cattail species is good rat forage, but the hybrid that takes over after time is not.

Thank you for the comments. I will try to find out if those cattails are native, narrow or hybrid. As to the mink eating the rat, that makes sense as it was the same feeder the catch before that had the damaged rat. Probably camping out there, but it is a long ways from any other feeder, shore etc. I caught two big males last year in runs between rat houses so they can go a long ways if they know the routes.

I added this link that gives a short discussion regarding the hybrid cattail. I note in this paper that the hybrid can and does reproduce via the rhizomes and shoots. It does not reproduce using the seeds. I was mistakenly thinking that they were always a product of the two other varieties forming the hybrid. This better helps me understand how they can take over a marsh once there. They don't need the other cattails to expand.
http://www.library.nd.gov/statedocs/AgDept/Hybridcattail20070703.pdf
Bryce