Last year and this year I have taken the trapping season off as I have been busy with personal life. I would like to finish off this season. I was wondering if any other NW Ohio trappers have noticed any change in rat populations or trapping conditions with the lower water levels and any new behavior i need to look out for this year. Thankyou in advance. also i’m glad to be back on Tman

Are you inquiring about inland water bodies like ponds, swamps, marshes,
rivers, creeks, & brooks or are you talking Great Lake Erie water levels ?

I can tell you that man-caused low water draw downs of Lake Ontario
water levels for flood control & mitigating shoreline erosion have had a
devastatingly negative effect on shoreline marsh muskrat populations
here in New York State.

Our rat populations are at a very low level due to negative habitat impacts
brought on by these low water levels caused by the governing body;
The International Joint Commission which regulates the water level on
Lake Ontario & the Saint Lawrence River for the United States & Canada.

walleyed

i’m asking about inland but from what i know is ohio muskrat populations have been decreasing and i’ve seen it first hand, but now with the lack of rain and low water levels it seems that the ponds, ditches, and creeks I used to trap just don’t hold any rats. i’m just wondering what their behavior is like now. where to even trap them since i’m not near a big lake. i left one pond and stopped trapping it as the population is low and they aren’t ruining any of the landowners property. this summer when i went back after skipping a trapping season in hopes to rebound the population, there was none. i have found a spot holding rats but i can’t get permission. for some reason their dens go way back into the bank, farther than i’ve ever seen from muskrats. i don’t know if this has something to do with the low water, maybe they have longer to dig as it never gets flooded.

In my area a lot of the ditches and creeks that I used to catch rats in dry up in the summer. I live on the same piece of land I was born and raised on. When I was a kid the creek never went dry. Us kids would catch creek chubs, bullheads and stuff all summer. Now it dries up totally. When we get a big rain or snowmelt the water goes instantly to the top of it's banks and within a couple days or sometimes hours it's back down to almost nothing. When I was a kid I always caught at least 50 rats behind the house, now there's almost none. Modern farming is the culprit. All the fields around here are very well tiled now. When I was young many had no tile and the ones that did it was sparse. All the streams and ditches that drain farm land around here lack constant flow. All the flowing wells around here have dried up as well. The water just runs off and does not soak in and perk out.

Rats will go to find water. When it gets really bad they will den in groundhog holes or under buildings. If you got spots that had beavers, usually theres enough water in the old runs for the rats to use so look for those.




Cant really "farm" muskrats like you can with beaver. They're either there when you trap them or not. Doesn't matter if you last trapped them two weeks ago or two years ago. Especially pond rats. One day they have rats, the next they're all gone.

I agree that muskrats go to find water. They keep going downstream until they do. Sometimes all the way to Lake Huron. That's why the ditches and creeks around here that used to have thousands of rats now have few. I am also aware that some muskrats find a way to survive periods of drought or low water. However, you will never have more than a residual muskrat population in areas that annually lack water for much of the year. I have trapped these same places for 40 some years and the only consistent spots have at least some water year round. Wherever we have decent habitat, we still have rats.

I can remember back through the 90s having droughts here in PA quite regularly during the summer. Always had a rat population come fall albeit not 1970s/80s numbers but could get 2-400 depending, not like a couple dozen nowadays.