Freeing up some freezer space and bow hunting- rats are almost drying too fast in this weather. I got in a 10 coon sets , averaged about 3 a day for the last 4 days Full Frost Moon seemed to shut-off fur movement only trapping farmland coon and no water sets. Mainly trapping coon motels and cut corn hedge rows right now, I'll be back to water after deer season if it's not hard by then. Here's a nicer boar- starting to prime up.

Eagleye, nice collection of rats. I am amazed at how similar in size all your beaver pelts are. Nice photos,
Muskratwait, I have almost the exact same number of rats you do and this year I have a collection of the smallest rats I may have ever caught, along with being thinner as well. Not a good year to have increased numbers of large and smaller rats.
I set out a dozen colonies and have 1 rat in first check. Many of these little streams were almost dry and with the 2 plus inches there is enough water in places to submerge a colony but the rat sign is really scarce.
I waited on wading the river due to being high and quite fast with hearing tht it was supposed to rain Wednesday AM and storm today. Well we are dry yet so that is on me. Don't know when I will get out again.
Friday is veteran's day and I am giving a short presentation along with a free lunch and a banquet tomorrow night. Put together some info on the history of the draft in the USA. Politics was around heavily 150 years ago too.

Bryce

nice job everyone !!!!!!!

I'm pulling everything this morning and will bow hunt until gun season- I'm seeing nicer bucks moving now and temps are dropping.
I had an extremely high catch rate yesterday thanks to grinners plugging up the DP's- caught 4 coon and here's a nice silver flanked boar.
When I'm out today- I'll be thinking about how lucky I am to have these freedoms... thanks to our Wisconsin Veteran's and Veteran's across the nation!!!!

Another very slow day on the rat colony line. 1 small rat! .3 of an inch of rain raised the small feeder streams a lot. Muddy water today. One of the 3 body grippers in the trails scored today. Big male. Well furred and about 20 lbs but a C color at best.

Bryce

Eagle that's a nice looking coon, I was suffering possum overload as well

First one of the season. 160 trail set, has produced a raccoon a day all week, then this little (well, pretty good size actually) stinker. Didn't spray fully, just farted enough to make the area tangy.

Nothing today. Lots to catch up on. Water still moving quickly, hope to do a river line tomorrow and Monday. Will put out a dozen or so canine sets for 5 days or so.

Bryce

Well I don't have much to share but wanted to be a part of the conversation anyhow. Had a young guy I met this year catch his first 2 muskrats a beaver and a coon this week. He is going to the technical college and lives in an apartment so has no place to skin so he brought the beaver and coon over last night and we walked through the process. He did a good job no extra holes. Tonight he will be fleshing them so we'll see.

The creeks are going down and the weather has turned real cold. The mink seem to be moving a little as I have caught four in the past few days along with another dozen muskrats. for the few sets I have out it isn't too bad of a catch. One of the buck mink was a real horse. I'm not working very hard at it and enjoying myself. Catching everything in blind or bottom Edge sets with body grips. I am going on a scouting trip to the Mississippi backwaters tomorrow. The season opens up Monday morning on the national Refuge.

I drove to the National Refuge on the Mississippi River on Monday morning for the opener. I only seen and talked to one other Trapper braving the cold snowy weather. Ice had formed in a lot of The Bays limiting where I could set. Some of the channels were open and I put out 35 sets. All were blind pocket or feed bed sets. You cannot legally set within 3 ft of a rat house on the refuge. Tuesday I picked up my traps with 21 rats for the night. Was back home by 1:00 p.m. and ran my short local line and got another seven rats and two mink. A good day on the line. Will be doing some Beaver damage control next on a local creek. It looks to turn a lot colder. Good luck and stay safe.

Got the second biggest beaver of my life yesterday 73.5 pounds.Tough going otherwise.

That's a whopper. What kind of set did you catch it in?

What a beaver, hope it wasn't a long walk out!

This isn’t the set it came out of but pretty similar.Ran about 20 percent catch rate kinda disappointed.

It’s about 2 foot from waterline to top rail of boat.lol

Why? And for how long?

Nimsy I think the rule is in place to protect ducks. the rule is for the entire season. Also you are not allowed to use Colony traps. These rules don't apply on state land only on the Federal Refuge. I am fairly new at trapping on The Refuge and I'm learning as I go. The season on The Refuge opens later than the rest of the state and you are only allowed to set 40 traps which have to be tagged with a special Federal tag.

That's a huge beaver, congrats. I pulled my sets a week ago because of the rain and not wanting to mess up the landowners fields. I had one farm where I had to use his 4-wheeler to run the traps every day. I finished with 37 coyotes, 74 coon, way too many possum and some skunks. I also had another bobcat (my 6th in the last 3 years) that I had to release. I'm going to trap some more coon, otter, mink and rats after deer season. Good luck to all of you who deer hunt. Sounds like the opening weekend will be a bit uncomfortable, lol.

Sounds like you're having a great year so far Lance. Did any of the coyotes have mange?