Good morning. I attempted to use the search feature and found a bunch of good info but not what I was looking for so hopefully one of you can help me out. I caught a muskrat in a body gripper last night and sometime while in the trap something ate the meat off one leg and started to eat up into the body cavity. I assumed it must be a mink but why would they leave most of the rat and since I am very new to water trapping I wanted to ask. It was set at an exposed entrance bank den on a cattail pond. Thanks in advance.

Tom

shove remnants in hole and guard with trap.like Arnold-he'll be back.

If the trap and muskrat remained underwater for some time and were still underwater when you found them and the muskrat was somewhat hollowed out from the leg inward then I would be suspicious that water shrews were the culprit. Otherwise what pcr2 said. Crawdads would have been a popular answer when we used to tease Cathryn about them.

He left the rest cuz he forgot his setters?

Lol. I will likely use that joke many times over the next few years thank you.

PIG CASTRATOR !!!!

w

shrew....all my mink damage is back of head,neck, andback….usually a gazillion holes

Agree with pcr2. Had the same thing happen a few years back. Stuffed the rat carcass into the hole and guarded it with a 110. Next morning I had a nice buck mink.

Moosetrot

I appreciate the replies. Some of them I understand and some I dont, I think I'm going to treat it like a mink and guard the carcass. Again, thanks for sharing your experience.

Tom

It could have been a coon. I had one this year that a coon had ate the meat off of the legs and cleaned out body cavity... Why a coon? About a thousand coon tracks where it stood to do its deed... The coon just rolled the pelt up as it ate. I had a photo of it on here. It would have been about November 11.

Garry-

Had one almost exactly like that but it was a mink in fact he did the exact same thing a couple different times till I caught him, he was also the biggest mink I ever caught

Coons will leave a nice open skinned hide if he eats it all.
A lot of mink seem to start by going in from the throat to get to the heart. Often times I have had them leave the rest untouched, which was nice, since the only real damage was a too-large pie hole.