Wisconsin muskrat mystery
#7729172
11/28/22 05:23 PM
11/28/22 05:23 PM
|
Joined: Oct 2015
Posts: 558 wisconsin
Muskratwalt
OP
trapper
|
OP
trapper
Joined: Oct 2015
Posts: 558
wisconsin
|
So far this fall my short water line has only been Fair. Mostly d u e to some of my private land spots h a d dried up. We had been in a summer to early fall drought and eliminated some of my private land trapping areas thus my rat numbers were down a little. Three of my usual stops are on a small Creek called iron Creek. It is a slow moving very Mucky bottom Creek that runs through Farm country. It has plenty of vegetation including Cattails and wild rice some boggy areas and normally is good for 30 to 50 rats and always some mink. With a lot of the little puddle tributaries that drain into it drying up I thought there should be even more rats in the main Creek this year and should be as good if not better trapping then usual. My three stops on this Creek are about a mile apart and this year I could not catch even one muskrat or mink off of this Crick. There was not any fresh sign but normally I don't look for it because the rats are always there y e a r in and y e a r out. I have trapped this c r i c k since the 1970s off and on the past 10 years consecutively. My sets are usually bottom Edge and blind Culvert sets at Road intersections and if there is any fur movement at all I will have catches. I am no biologist but I would think even some sort of disease wouldn't have completely killed every rat on the creek. It has just come to my attention that the Wisconsin DNR water Department has been poisoning invasive cattails on some of the areas located partly on some of the headwaters of this Creek that was done this spring. I don't know if this could be a Cause or not just looking for any input anybody might have about this issue. I have been trapping muskrats for many decades and this is certainly a puzzling mystery to me.
Walt legge
|
|
|
Re: Wisconsin muskrat mystery
[Re: Muskratwalt]
#7729183
11/28/22 05:32 PM
11/28/22 05:32 PM
|
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 21,716 Sandhills Nebraska
Gary Benson
trapper
|
trapper
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 21,716
Sandhills Nebraska
|
I've seen very good fishing ponds killed off by spraying cattails. Just because people are educated doesn't mean they're smart.
Life ain't supposed to be easy.
|
|
|
Re: Wisconsin muskrat mystery
[Re: Muskratwalt]
#7729333
11/28/22 08:24 PM
11/28/22 08:24 PM
|
Joined: Apr 2013
Posts: 4,069 WI
nimzy
trapper
|
trapper
Joined: Apr 2013
Posts: 4,069
WI
|
|
|
|
Re: Wisconsin muskrat mystery
[Re: Muskratwalt]
#7729358
11/28/22 08:50 PM
11/28/22 08:50 PM
|
Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 1,422 WI
BvrRetriever
trapper
|
trapper
Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 1,422
WI
|
So far this fall my short water line has only been Fair. Mostly d u e to some of my private land spots h a d dried up. We had been in a summer to early fall drought and eliminated some of my private land trapping areas thus my rat numbers were down a little. Three of my usual stops are on a small Creek called iron Creek. It is a slow moving very Mucky bottom Creek that runs through Farm country. It has plenty of vegetation including Cattails and wild rice some boggy areas and normally is good for 30 to 50 rats and always some mink. With a lot of the little puddle tributaries that drain into it drying up I thought there should be even more rats in the main Creek this year and should be as good if not better trapping then usual. My three stops on this Creek are about a mile apart and this year I could not catch even one muskrat or mink off of this Crick. There was not any fresh sign but normally I don't look for it because the rats are always there y e a r in and y e a r out. I have trapped this c r i c k since the 1970s off and on the past 10 years consecutively. My sets are usually bottom Edge and blind Culvert sets at Road intersections and if there is any fur movement at all I will have catches. I am no biologist but I would think even some sort of disease wouldn't have completely killed every rat on the creek. It has just come to my attention that the Wisconsin DNR water Department has been poisoning invasive cattails on some of the areas located partly on some of the headwaters of this Creek that was done this spring. I don't know if this could be a Cause or not just looking for any input anybody might have about this issue. I have been trapping muskrats for many decades and this is certainly a puzzling mystery to me. I wonder if you got spanked?
|
|
|
Re: Wisconsin muskrat mystery
[Re: BvrRetriever]
#7729363
11/28/22 08:54 PM
11/28/22 08:54 PM
|
Joined: Oct 2015
Posts: 558 wisconsin
Muskratwalt
OP
trapper
|
OP
trapper
Joined: Oct 2015
Posts: 558
wisconsin
|
So far this fall my short water line has only been Fair. Mostly d u e to some of my private land spots h a d dried up. We had been in a summer to early fall drought and eliminated some of my private land trapping areas thus my rat numbers were down a little. Three of my usual stops are on a small Creek called iron Creek. It is a slow moving very Mucky bottom Creek that runs through Farm country. It has plenty of vegetation including Cattails and wild rice some boggy areas and normally is good for 30 to 50 rats and always some mink. With a lot of the little puddle tributaries that drain into it drying up I thought there should be even more rats in the main Creek this year and should be as good if not better trapping then usual. My three stops on this Creek are about a mile apart and this year I could not catch even one muskrat or mink off of this Crick. There was not any fresh sign but normally I don't look for it because the rats are always there y e a r in and y e a r out. I have trapped this c r i c k since the 1970s off and on the past 10 years consecutively. My sets are usually bottom Edge and blind Culvert sets at Road intersections and if there is any fur movement at all I will have catches. I am no biologist but I would think even some sort of disease wouldn't have completely killed every rat on the creek. It has just come to my attention that the Wisconsin DNR water Department has been poisoning invasive cattails on some of the areas located partly on some of the headwaters of this Creek that was done this spring. I don't know if this could be a Cause or not just looking for any input anybody might have about this issue. I have been trapping muskrats for many decades and this is certainly a puzzling mystery to me. I wonder if you got spanked?
Walt legge
|
|
|
Re: Wisconsin muskrat mystery
[Re: Muskratwalt]
#7729389
11/28/22 09:10 PM
11/28/22 09:10 PM
|
Joined: Oct 2015
Posts: 558 wisconsin
Muskratwalt
OP
trapper
|
OP
trapper
Joined: Oct 2015
Posts: 558
wisconsin
|
Bryce all other areas I trapped this fall some were even very marginal conditions but still had water had trappable populations of rats it was only on this specific Crick there did not seem to be any rats at all.
Walt legge
|
|
|
Re: Wisconsin muskrat mystery
[Re: Muskratwalt]
#7729401
11/28/22 09:17 PM
11/28/22 09:17 PM
|
Joined: Oct 2015
Posts: 558 wisconsin
Muskratwalt
OP
trapper
|
OP
trapper
Joined: Oct 2015
Posts: 558
wisconsin
|
Real good food source again this year just like every year with cattails swamp grass and wild rice and still plenty of water in this Creek on the part that I trap.
Walt legge
|
|
|
Re: Wisconsin muskrat mystery
[Re: Muskratwalt]
#7729478
11/28/22 10:29 PM
11/28/22 10:29 PM
|
Joined: Oct 2015
Posts: 558 wisconsin
Muskratwalt
OP
trapper
|
OP
trapper
Joined: Oct 2015
Posts: 558
wisconsin
|
The middle stop on this Creek had the usual otter sign which is their year after year and is nothing out of the unusual I have caught otters at this stop before
Walt legge
|
|
|
Re: Wisconsin muskrat mystery
[Re: Muskratwalt]
#7729548
11/28/22 11:21 PM
11/28/22 11:21 PM
|
Joined: Jun 2007
Posts: 4,706 Illinois
foxkidd44
trapper
|
trapper
Joined: Jun 2007
Posts: 4,706
Illinois
|
The middle stop on this Creek had the usual otter sign which is their year after year and is nothing out of the unusual I have caught otters at this stop before Could very well be the otter, as they are voracious on about anything in the ecosystem.. an otter won’t hesitate to feast on a mink either. Do you also have more hawks and owls than usual ? Can’t rule out disease either. Muskrats have been disappearing in alot of places,,, most dnr departments have done studies,,, but can’t seem to find anything conclusive
Stand by your principles, Stand by your guns, and victory complete and permanent is sure at last. Abraham Lincoln
|
|
|
Re: Wisconsin muskrat mystery
[Re: Muskratwalt]
#7729996
11/29/22 01:19 PM
11/29/22 01:19 PM
|
Joined: Oct 2015
Posts: 558 wisconsin
Muskratwalt
OP
trapper
|
OP
trapper
Joined: Oct 2015
Posts: 558
wisconsin
|
Thanks for everybody's input. One thing I would like to clarify is that I did not intend to do any DNR bashing. The headwaters of this Creek are not the only place the DNR has done Cattail spraying this summer in our area. Just trying to get some definitive answers. So the mystery will continue. Thanks for everybody's help.
Walt legge
|
|
|
Re: Wisconsin muskrat mystery
[Re: Muskratwalt]
#7730013
11/29/22 01:57 PM
11/29/22 01:57 PM
|
Joined: Dec 2021
Posts: 986 Louisiana
MattLA
trapper
|
trapper
Joined: Dec 2021
Posts: 986
Louisiana
|
Likely to be the poison like you said. We had the worlds greatest numbers of muskrat along with likely the highest population of otters for years, our muskrats only went away after we started killing beaver year round and the nutria came.
Last edited by MattLA; 11/29/22 02:03 PM.
|
|
|
Re: Wisconsin muskrat mystery
[Re: Muskratwalt]
#7730034
11/29/22 02:15 PM
11/29/22 02:15 PM
|
Joined: Sep 2008
Posts: 6,706 Newark, Ohio 83 years
Actor
trapper
|
trapper
Joined: Sep 2008
Posts: 6,706
Newark, Ohio 83 years
|
I have been trapping these rascals for a very long time and I am continuing to learn more about them. I am not a college educated biologist but have trained a few of them about trapping them. When I was a State Conservation Officer, in my training class of 25, only 2 others had ever trapped. Most of these people had a college education pertaining to wildlife and biology.
One thing that I did learn from the books was that muskrats can have 3 litters per year, and the first litter can have a littler that same year. When I lived in the Big Marsh area of Lake Erie, I saw firsthand the 3 litters per years. I also observed that low water, high water, or lack of food in any particular area can/will interrupt this breeding cycle. They may no longer breed more than once a year and cycle may move from April and May to June or even July.
Another thing that low water causes is when the rats move because of low water, they accumulate in smaller areas, that can realistically hold 20 rats and 40 end up there. This is when mother nature steps in and disease pops up from nowhere and wipes out 99% of the population. When the rats accumulate in a particular area, so do the predators. Raptors, owls, eagles from the air, mink, otters, and raccoon from the ground. Another predator that kills young muskrats are geese. I have seen on several occasions, geese chasing after very small swimming muskrats, catching them and killing them. On one occasion, the goose then ate the young rat.
I am not saying, that the above is what has or is happening, only that these are my personal observations over the many years I have trapped and observed muskrats and their habit and the reactions to their environment, and what different conditions can and do cause.
Garry-
“Don't pick a fight with an old man. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.”
Have been trapping 77 years…
|
|
|
Re: Wisconsin muskrat mystery
[Re: Muskratwalt]
#7730044
11/29/22 02:27 PM
11/29/22 02:27 PM
|
Joined: Oct 2015
Posts: 558 wisconsin
Muskratwalt
OP
trapper
|
OP
trapper
Joined: Oct 2015
Posts: 558
wisconsin
|
Thanks g a r r y. One other predator that I have come across in the Mississippi back Waters area that I have just started trapping recently are northern pike. 2 years ago in late summer some of the nicer northern pike that I was bringing home and cleaning had muskrats in their stomach about the size of a chipmunk but definitely muskrats. It must have been like the third litter and were being eaten by the Northerns.
Walt legge
|
|
|
|
|