I am getting ready to set a drainage waterway coming off from the lake near me. The water flow is a steady stiff current. I am not a water/boat guy so i have no idea how to describe but that lol. It is not fast enough to make you uncomfortable footing wise though and you can stand broad in it with out getting swept so i call it stiff?

Anyways I am going to be setting mostly for muskrat as there is a lot of good sign. I am curious though how well 110's (well Wolf creek 551 5"x5" single spring) work straight in current on bottom edge sets. I like this set and am comfortable with it using colony traps and conis. This is a stronger current than i have ever set before so just curious from the water guys out there. I will still be setting any of the side runs and off shoots which aren't impacted much but the main runs up and down the waterway are where the question comes from.

My questions

Do i stiffen up the trigger or do i make it snappier to go off quicker?
Do i just step away from conis straight in the current because the speed the animal is likely moving?
Am I just overthinking this as an issue altogether?

The stiff current will open the up stream door on your colony traps, use baited 110's and 160's with a 2" piece of carrot mounted on a 3/8" fiberglass rod will get you all the rat you want to skin.

I'd go ahead & try the conibears

Just set it on the closest notch to the dog and go.

For colonies, you can add weight to the doors in such current.

Don't forget current on the sides and down low is much more calmer than in the middle on top.

And bottom edge sets are awesome for muskrat; even mink sometimes.

I don't know what kind of colony trap doors will swing open In any kind of current. My traps are made out of 1x1x 14 gauge wire There Isn't enough surface area to cause these door to swing open In the current. Anyway mine have never done this. But they may wash away If you don't stake them down.

I don't recall ever setting a BG and having current set it off. If the current is that strong there its going to be tough for me to catch fur in it. I look for a better location as mentioned above

In most cases when a BG gets sprung It's from debris not the current. Well I guess It's the currents fault for moving the debris.

Interesting this thread got revived a bit. I have set this stretch of water for a couple of weeks and have had decent success. Ten rats and three coon. Set it with colonies 551 conis and 1,5 on homemade platforms with bait like a hags setup. Connected on each type. Although the baited sets were more successful than anything. Debris was the number one issue. I clean colonies out every other day or so. Just grass moss and clutter. Nothing special really. Some things are easier in the strong current than slow or sitting water. For example our water is crystal clear. If you cnat see something because of mud just wait a second its all gone. Hard things are finding active runs. Not hard i guess just different way to look for them i suppose.

I set it up as an experiment really traps in the strongest current and weak different baits and such. One thing i found which surprised me i guess was that half of this waterway gets sunlight every day and the other is shaded by bank all day every day. I got zero catches on the shaded side. All catches except one rat were on the shore of the sunny side. This was very evident as i walked the line daily and caused me to look at other water areas i will be trapping different. Setting up a new line now about a half mile away from this location same waterway and the same is evident upon scouting. Sun side is hot and the shade side is blank. I wonder why i never seemed to notice this before in my trapping? Guess i never really trapped open canals like this before so maybe the trend didn't exist?

Way to go on the shaded side verses the sunny side deal. The sunny side will have better habitat then the shaded side. And better habitat gives you more prey species and green foliage that rats need.