Last time we had a decent muskrat population around here was 2004 i believe i have the year right.
It rained much more than normal that whole year , feeder streams & ditches that went dry half or more of the year never did . I was shocked how much the population had recovered & expanded , i found rats in places that i had never found them in before even going back 30 years before when muskrats where everywhere . The year after , it was almost as low as before .

So far this year , rains have been more off than on , seeing a few but we had a drought last year so there weren't many anyway left .

Lack of stable water levels have a big factor but hawks, owls, coyotes, coons , herons & other wading birds are hard on them but biggest problem i see from testing that was done here in Ohio is from Farm chemicals .
Fertilizers, Herbicides & Pesticides all show up in testing . Even trace amounts of long ago banned DDT were found.

I don't think we will ever see stable populations consistantly ever again .

Here’s my observation. The big lake at a nearby state park ( about 40 miles of shore line ) is almost devoid of rats today. The same lake produced 150+ rats for me in the late 1970s. It was a young lake then, only 6-7 years old. Lots of brush and trees on the edge of the water.

I do find rats in good numbers on a couple of local creeks. They are very brushy and hard to even walk along. I think the super thick willow brush provides them with good cover from hawks and owls.Particularly great horned owls, that are hard on rats.

Very few rats around here anymore. Used to be every wet spot had them.

You remember things differently, and maybe not accurately, when you're a kid but I remember the marshes being completely covered with rat huts in the 70's. 50 of them visible no matter where you were.

Today, the heavily populated spots will have 3-5 huts.

Rat populations on the tidal Potomac marsh where I trap have held up fairly consistently over the past 30 years.

Jarhead

We don't get rain the muskrat will be concentrated in bigger water. The ponds here are all getting dried up.

Rats have been declining in Western NY, draught and I believe the Blue Green Toxic Algae. you can find young rats and litters on spring feed creeks with flowing cold water, most farm ponds have very few rats that is stable water year round, beaver ponds you will find them in the dams, not many, the rats coming off the larger water ways are large alpha adults. We also have a lot of otters and they are taking their share also. When I returned to western NY about 10 years ago my mink rat ratio was 10-14 to 1, its now about 5 or 6 to 1. The mink are doing well because the litters are raised on small stream away from the algae, then migrate down to the larger waters, there was a fellow trapper that use to take 1 to 2 hundred a season out of a local swamp, last year he came in for one day had very few and said he was going to Ohio, Austin P keeps track of the rats in central NY, great source of information on rats. I remember when water was blue and now its green. This is happening at all elevations in the lower 48, even high elevation lakes in the rockies. I remember seeing the algae in Africa, SE Asia and Central America in the late 70s and to the MID 80s, Look at your satelite images on Google, look at the beaver ponds, where the beaver are active the water brown, where they are not its blue green. Even watch TV where they are selling a house on waterfront property, the water is green.

ITS been raining here lately and i have been watching two litters of rats on two different feeder streams. no ALGAE.

Did anyone note the wording of this thread. There is a key word left out, and that is ; Does anyone have any more muskrats

the algae blooms on Lake Winnipeg can be seen on google earth or any satellite weather image.
That marsh photo looks like they lowered the water cause they sure did clip that marsh down. That's what population I had 10+ years ago.
WE have had the invasive European cattail invade out marshes, seems the 10 foot stalks are too tall for the rats to clip and haul to their lodges

The rats are here in pockets, a few here and a few there. I think there's probably a really high mortality rate because of predators, especially birds. Sometimes you find big huts with hardly any rats. We are currently having a wet summer, so it could be a bit of a better year for them.
Cover is a big factor, they don't fare so well in the open.
So, the question is "When you say do we have more rats, compared to when?"
Compared to 40 years ago, no. Compared to some recent years, perhaps.

I spoke with a few trappers that trapped Black Moshannon Lake in Centre County PA years back and they said it was loaded w/rats. Today you would catch 10 at most according to them.

I see rats in my 40 acre pond, but the water's the lowest I've ever seen it. If we don't get rain and lots of it by fall, the pond will freeze to the bottom and all the rats will freeze out.
It's sad, as the last couple of years they seemed to be making a comeback.

The only upside to the 100 Year Flood that darn near destroyed my barn and inventory last year is that there were a lot of muskrats last winter and this spring. While driving across Michigan to UP show this weekend I made many comments on how it was nice to see water were I have not for years.

There always is a few rats around the lake here, and in any creek, bay, or river, but we are in a drought, there is no inflow, some creeks are dried up. Any beaver colony will have a few. Beaver have slow rivers dammed up like never before, places that wont hold a dam if there is more flow. This country up here needs water, the farmers do, the forest does.

Les it's possible you will see more rat sign on the big lake because of the drought. I'd like to go blow the dam in Kenora and see what the lake could be like.

As no till farming came in we lost big eating size bullfrogs, rabbits, quail, muskrats , lightning bugs, and prairie chickens . I suspect the reason lies with that and the chemicals used. None of those things are extinct but numbers are very very much diminished

I agree Danny , and also digging drain pipes in fields to drain the low areas.

I figured Beav would chime in on this thread

I have seen more this year than in past, still only a handful though.

comeback? Maybe? hard to tell

I think they are doing well here...The swamps and marshes have filled up from all the rain, and that's just what the rats needed