I had Bridger 150s set in a bank den entrance for rats. Set them around 1100 on Saturday and when I checked at 0700 on Sunday I found 2 traps still set, 1 trap with the below remains pulled up onto the bank 5 feet away attached to the wire. And the last trap completely gone, but had been wired off to a stick that was hammered down 12" into the mud. Then it froze overnight so I couldn't see any tracks in the frozen mud flat. Wasn't a big scene like something got caught in the missing trap and pulled it. I think I made two catches on rats and it was a big enough critter to drag the stake out of the mud. The way the carcass is almost skinned, peeled off is interesting. I found the lower jaw to the muskrat 5 yards away. Possible culprits could be otter, mink, coon, eagles, ravens, coyote. The mud flat was frozen enough to hide animal tracks but my boot tracks were making noticeable tracks, so it wasn't a thief. This was in an isolated little pocket of water, probably 100 yards long by 20 yards wide on a mud flat in a delta. This body of water never got deeper than 12" or so but the surrounding delta which is only a few hundred yards away at most, has good numbers of coon, otter, muskrat, etc.

Looks like crunched up bones in the pic?

I've had rats peeled like that when the water level dropped a lot overnight. Coon tracks every time.

coon

Mink

Yes bones were crunched so something pretty strong

Buzzards do the skunks I catch the same way.

Buzzards do this to possums and coon it kinda freaked me out a little bit then I put a cam on it and had one buzzard and a few deer so I didn't question the deer and just strictly blamed the buzzard.😛

I have had coon leaving my muskrats looking like that.

I know mink would not do it like that . They just work there way on it. I say coon also.

I've had coons do that to rats many times. Mink just eat the head in my experience.

It skinned it for you, I've only had the heads chewed on and think it is mink because i catch mink after most of the muskrat are gone. I did have a otter eat one just left me a foot .

Well I went back today to check on a few remaining sets in the area. Nothing in my sets. Fresh otter and coon tracks both in the area since Sunday morning and all tidbits of what was left of the muskrat had been cleaned up.

It takes fully functioning hands to skin a rat like that. Raccoon.

That's a great point, Carl.

Bring a bucket or wooden cubby with you the next day, throw the rat remains in the cubby, guard it with a 160 or 220 size BG (trigger set on the bottom please). You should have the answer that night as animals always return to the "grocery store" when samples are available ! ! ! !

There is a chance of people's dogs running loose in this area so not a great spot for a bucket set.

if I have that problem it is either coons or mink.

I was thinking raccoons or otter also Eric I'd still set a bucket set with a conibear guarding it set the trap back about 6" should do the trick to keep any dogs safe .

Allan that would be a good idea but I've already tagged out on my two otter for the season. And the regional quota here of 40/40 has been met for otter so it's closed anyway. And if I caught an otter even when setting for coon I'd have to drive down to CDA, just to surrender it. I had another rat eaten tonight. Sorry no pics forgot my phone in the rig. It was a rat in a run, 2 feet underwater. This one was not peeled like the first half dozen, it was just the head in the trap. I'm thinking that one was otter or mink, as there were no tracks on the bank. I pulled all my traps from that area tonight, as it's a pretty far drive and would have been worthwhile without all the stolen catches. Will set a new area this weekend and maybe get some wolf traps back out in the woods.