Hey guys I made some new colony traps and I was looking to try and get the bright shine off them and dull them down for this season. Thanks for your advice

Brush on some speed dip or stack them up and spray paint them. The shine won't bother the rats but they will hide better from thieves.

Doesn't galvanized lose its shine and get dull if you leave it outside?

I just threw mne in one of those brown, acidic creeks and colored it in a few days

Never had the problem.
Oh yeah old rabbit cages don't have any more shing.
just

I spray paint them with rustoleum flat black-same as my minnow traps.

Yes, but that doesn't help if you need them right away. If you're gonna paint them, you might go for a camo pattern.

I wouldn't paint the doors. Seems I have a considerably better catch rate with plain metal doors unless you can fence them in real tight.

We have a pH here of over 7 and almost up to 8 in places so our water is basic. Just take those shiney colonies to a muck bottom stream and cover them for a few weeks in the mud. The basic water will react to the metal and your traps will be dull as H in no time.

Bryce

Depends on the amount of time you have before using them.
Bury in swamp mud , boil in black walnut hulls , or Sumack berries .
Those make them dark almost black in color.
Paint with a straw color that close to the weeds or pond bottom.
In reality , a theif , will find them , no matter what you do.
If in a pond with a lot of pond scum or seaweed , cover them with it, it might give you more help.
My best bet was to place them deep enough that they were hard to reach.
Muskrats like to follow runs until they get to a point where they find what they want, then will go where ever they want , but will return to the run unless on top of the water.