Good deal!!! Keep em coming!!

Another day, another check! Went out and checked and set some more traps. Got another dozen or so out but would like to get more out since I'm still only trapping 3/4 of the slough. Changed out two of my conibears for colony traps since I decided they were active enough for it. Might pull the bottom edge set since it hasn't caught anything yet. Set a 110 on a spring clip in front of a random hole in the middle of the slough. It's most likely a rat den but no clue.


This little bugger was waiting for me at my first foothold of the day. Looked like a rat and I was pumped since that set didn't produce during yesterday's check. Pulled the chain and cleaned off vegetation and a nice mink was waiting for me! I absolutely love being able to finally catch mink after 3 years of targeting but no catches.



Here's the catch from today, 8 rats and 1 mink. One of the rats tried to wring out of the 1.5 coilspring but ended up staying so his leg is all sorts of messed up and then he has a few holes by his front left leg luckily he was a smaller one that can be used as bait and I don't feel as bad. I would have liked to skin him out but something got to him first.



Really itching to get beaver traps set but still have at least 3 weeks. I'll be content trapping rats and mink until ice up though which may come early this year.

I have good beaver and coyote trapping where I'm at and would gladly trade that away for rats and mink. I've only caught a handful of muskrats and mink. I would love to have a good rat and mink slough or two.

Great work which has paid off in success. Congratulations!
Be cautious about warm temperatures drying the animals, green bellies can develop quickly.

The season is off to a good start, keep them coming. I've been looking at your updates, helping to take the edge off a bit while I wait to set traps here.

What type of set did you catch the mink in?

Wish we had mink round here
I mean, we have some but not enough

Are you doing all footholds?

The first mink was in a colony trap and then this mink was in a 1.5 coilspring set on a rat toilet. I'm very surprised with my recent success with them as I have never caught one before these two.

Have 6 or so colony traps out, 6-8 110 conibears out in runs/ dryland, and then probably about 35 footholds. I haven't really counted traps but will today so I know how many I should be picking up when I pull.

Great catching there. The mink are nice to catch along with those muskrats. Keep setting. I will be riding along with you. Again good job. Just an FYI 1980,81, and 82. All my classmates took off of high school for deer hunting. I took a week for trapping. I know that look you got from the principal.

Good job young man!!! I’ll be following along.

Well, not the best catch in the world today, Only 5 of them but 4 of them are pretty big rats and 1 is a little puny guy. A friend was supposed to come ride along with me and I gave him quite a few warnings that I was going to go check but he never came. Sometimes I wonder how my generation can live with themselves when they stand someone up like that. Does any other generation want to adopt me? Going to try putting those rats up tonight if they dry quickly enough. Might be trapping through huts soon enough, 1/4 inch of ice on the slough but the boat did wonders breaking through it. Had 41 sets out and only 5 rats which is an 8.2% catch rate but I'm having fun doing it so it doesn't matter for me as long as I catch a few. Ended up putting those other 20 rats into the freezer on carcass since I couldn't get my heater to start this morning to skin them. Y'all have a good night now!

Man! You are on a heckuva roll, Bud. Stick with it and keep us updated. By any chance, do you take the time to keep a journal of your trapping? I started keeping journals of hunting/trapping/fishing when I was 11 years old. Now that I'm an old-timer, it's really fun to pull out those journals from 50 years ago. I really encourage you to do so.

Jack

Great job ! Those rats could be hung up to dry. Also if you always lay them on their backs they'll not spoil as quickly as laying them on belly.

That's good advice from eedup...hang by the tail or back foot and put a fan on them. Great job! Keep at it...you are rolling now. We don't open up until the 10th.

I used to keep a trapping journal last year but ended up losing the time to write in it. I'm going to start another one tomorrow and keep with it.

I had all of them laid on a piece of meshlike chicken wire and it was working well, they would have been skinned this morning but I couldn't get the heater going to keep me warm.

Well, I'm really embarrassed to show this but these 4 rats are my first attempt at putting up rats. I skinned out all 5 from today but one of them was too bad to even put on the stretcher. I couldn't get the face to come off of the head. I feel really bad for these rats but I know there's a learning curve and hopefully, I get it sooner rather than later.

Keep the nose pinned at the top of the stretcher. Rats are measured from nose down so you are losing a lot by having them pulled so far down the stretcher. Otherwise, keep up the good work!

I’m pretty sure the nose eyes and ears are still on the carcass.Don’t be afraid to use your knife once you get to the ears and on down to nose.Pretend your a taxidermist intending to mount the rat even if it takes 20 minutes.Once you learn how to do it right you can work on your speed.