Looks like everybody else is doing alright, thanks for the motivation!

Jordan,

Awesome having the boys out there. I remember taking my boys trapping when they were young.

I have coon that are blue but not that dark. I also have some very nice, white leathered coon that I put up yesterday. The adult boars look good but the young and females that had kits are not great. Caught 10 today and there were some nice ones among them. I also caught a skunk that's really nice but according to my wife it stinks, lol. I'll leave it sit outside tonight and see if it passes the Brenda test tomorrow. I had 3 possum today that didn't impress me. Keep up the good work all. Sounds like we're in for a decent stretch of weather.

set my first trap of the season today ,1 baited 160 box, that should connect, setting a few more tomorrow

Patiently waiting following the advice of the experts.

Planning on starting after deer gun season.

I did some bow hunting this morning and pulled the camper home. There's some beavers that might hear from me tomorrow.

12 degrees this morning at 730 when I started setting beaver traps. I am still cold, my old joints can't take it anymore. It is supposed to warm up tomorrow. Got 13 sets out.

You must be pretty close to the Canuck border it was 34 here.

Finally got the John boat out yesterday and set some more muskrat traps. I added 16 more rats to the seasons total which is now at 83 rats. So far I have managed to avoid raccoons and mink.The mink are on hold for a few more days. Might set a few beaver traps. I am feeling my age climbing in and out of a boat,but for a few hours my mind tells me I'm a kid again.

It hit the 30s around noon here.

Checked a short river line this AM. Yesterday 4 rats and 3 coons, today 1 rat. I hope the rest of the river line is not that low in numbers. I reset a marsh that I pulled out of on Monday due to the low temps. (still have ice in the tall cattails on the surface! Had 16 the first check with 3 coons and today 1 got 19 more. Tomorrow I will pull both those lines. It is late for skinning as I worked a food booth for 6 hours for our VFW to raise funds for the Honor Flight.

Bryce

My little guy and I set 7-330's yesterday. Today My younger daughter and son went with to check. 2 beaver and 2 snapped traps. They were excited!

Got a marsh and a section of river pulled today after church. Got 3 coons, a male mink and 9 rats. One was alive yet but had two big holes one on each side behind the ribs so that one did not come home. Really a tough ordeal to set this marsh but I do it every season.

Bryce

Is anyone seeing distemper? I found two dead adult coons near water the other day.

None yet. I will be wading 3-4 miles of river the next week so I will keep an eye out. Sure are plenty near the water now. Still a lot of corn out around here so they are feeding well.

Bryce

With the extremely dry summer most of the marsh and ditches I normally trap rats in dried up completely. There were some areas that maintained some water but I was surprised when I saw a lot of locations dry as a bone. The rain we have got the last month or so filled most of those areas back up with atleast some water. I figured the rats would simply be concentrated to the areas that maintained water throughout the summer. With that in mind I set some traps in those locations, but after 3 days with 25 sets out I’ve only connected on 2 rats. I haven’t had any problem trapping rats in this area in past years, but this year is not looking so great to start.

In your guys experience on dry years do the rat populations drop that significantly, or do they disperse to areas with constant water available? And when the ditches and marshes fill back up do they disperse into those areas pretty quick again or does it take some time?

I found 2 dead coon about the end of October. Young ones, I figured distemper. Every few years it runs it course here.

My experience in the past shows that they do disperse but numbers fall way off in total in my area on my line. There are not all those small sloughs that are safe places for small colonies of rats to reproduce and then go for better places for the winter. Last year for us was a very dry year and my rat numbers were less then half of my 3 previous years. Even the rivers with water were low. This year water is even lower and 4 out of the 5 small marshes near me do not have enough water to float a canoe. Most are just mud. There was a place of about 5-6 acres that 3 years ago had 9 houses on it. This year they are combining corn on that spot. I am getting a higher percentage of smaller rats even with the lower numbers. I am wondering if with a really dry spring that rats were not able to or did not travel as much in the spring and we had fewer early litters. Once rats have to go on dry land to find water they are very vulnerable.

Bryce

Thanks for the input Bryce.

I may have to just accept that this year is gonna be a tough year for water trapping. I went out today and did some more scouting and even the beaver lodges that have been active all the years past are looking to be vacant. Once the ice is on the water it should really reveal what the rat populations are looking like this year.

No shortage of coon sign while setting up a section of river today. Rat sign moderate. I am setting some body grippers for coons as a defense against coons getting in many of my rat sets. Don't know how it will work. I did that on another shorter section last week and got 4 in the body grippers and 1 in the stoploss. Sure glad I was not trapping in my canoe today! Tomorrow about 25 degrees cooler!

Bryce