Doing a house Rat job and am having a situation I've never seen before. about 3/4 of the kills are not in the trap but laying close by. Apparently they're getting head nocked by the bail, but missing getting caught. 2 have even crawled off to be found dragging themselves around. Traps seem plenty strong, a mix of Vic's with the yellow pan, and another brand. Anybody else seen this?

Rats have to be the fastest rodent out there. I don't catch a lot of them, but have caught a couple by the tip of the nose. Shorten the pan so they commit further under the kill bar.

Yep have had a few situations like that. I use small cage traps for most all of our rat jobs. Too many issues with using only snap traps. Learned that long ago.

Yes. Luckily the bail coming around does a job on their skulls. I have found weak Victors in the past.

My 1 cent spring tension improvement for Victor rat traps.

I use a weasel box and screw the trap down, the trap like to jump when tripped. Also, out of sight of people. JMO

Norways?

Those are brutes compared to our typical roof rats. I usually go straight to cages with them as I don't like them dragging snaps off.

Might consider some small footholds.

A number of guys have said they have done well with our swing panel traps set in runs and under hay and straw. Can be hidden and covered. One trapper even mounted the 5x5x24 swing panel traps vertically and caught 8 after the snap traps had stopped producing.

Thanks for the help guy's, \am looking for a way to reduce the pan size, not sure if I can cut the plastic without trashing it?

You might want to try some Straight Cut Aviation Snips> https://www.harborfreight.com/strai...pUE5d2OaKNyQqodTei476dVtz_BoC7OMQAvD_BwE

That was my first thought. Not sure how brittle the pan is.

Could try heating the plastic pan.

Good idea - make it better , get a pair of Irwin long nose snips. If you do any work with 1/2" X 1/2" hardware cloth (mesh) it is way easier to cut with the long nose snips.

Try a Demel tool with a cut off wheel.

Don’t remove too much. It’s a lever so the more you remove, the less sensitive it becomes. The bar that holds the nail down can be fettled to make the trap more or less sensitive. Tge copper trigger traps have smaller triggers and can be tuned to be very sensitive.

The copper trigger traps are set off by the rats mouth so they are further inside the kill bar.

The pan trigger is activated by the rats foot and that can happen with the head and body further from the bait. Bad strikes might just be a simple matter of geometry

I've found I have better catch rates by setting the trap on it's side against something like a wall or box.

That’s an interesting idea. Do you secure it to the wall? Funnel the rat in? Do you happen to have any set pics?

Great thread, big Bob.

No pic's, did not fasten, have at least one left, not just educated, the scutter has a Doctorate! Gonna try some more change ups.