Great going YT I really enjoy your posts. I also wish we had rats like we use to, but those days are gone. Good to see there are rats around other places still. Like you and a lot of others I cut my teeth on catching rats as a young teen.

Like others have said I wish we had the rats here like you do , every once in a while you will find a swamp that has a few but not near the numbers you have . How many you trying to catch this year ?

I'm so happy we have rats still, I'm dreading the day it happens. I love catching rats more than anything else. I wish we had beaver around here though in numbers. I consider myself a water trapper more than a land trapper.

This year the sloughs that hit hard last year are low in catch rates this year even though we had our first litter having a litter before trapping season. I'm catching a lot of dinks. I'm going for 400 this year but I don't know if I will hit that due to the weather earlier this year not allowing me to have a fall or winter rat season. I'd be happy with 300 like last year though and it should be do able.

I got 38 rats on Tuesday, took my dad out with me. I got them all put up last night, going to check traps again tonight. I have 50 rat carcasses sold already and need 12 more to fulfill the order. So that will come quick and then I just need to bag them up. I don't have any pictures but I will post some tonight when I get back from checking. I keep forgetting to take pictures, too tired and too much other work left to do once I get home. I need to clean the fur shed up a little bit this weekend since I have only been putting up rats and not cleaning. I've got a good amount of glands between last year's and this year's. I just need to find buyers for more carcasses, heads, and glands. Anyway, enough ranting I'll post tonight and take a few pictures and post them up on here.

TYT, spring rat glands usually sell well.

I fell asleep hard on Thursday night, so I didn't post any pictures. So I'm going to post tonight to get caught up again. I don't know why I'm so tired lately but it's all good. Anyway, here's what I know. On Thursday (3-14-23), I caught 51 muskrats. Nothing too exciting happened on this day though, pretty standard check. I didn't set any new floats. I did lose the last 1 oz of my Lenon's Muskrat Super all call when I dropped it in the water.

Now on Friday (3-15-23), I caught 52 muskrats, this is the most rats I've caught in back to back days. I haven't started skinning at all yet but the plan is to get up early tomorrow and skin rats until I have to go feed cows. I'll skin the 51 from Thursday first. I think I set a total of 10 or 12 new floats and 1 new spot. I have one spot on the line where I had 5/6 traps with a rat and the same today, so I set another float so I can clear that spot out quicker. If that float is full for 2 full days, I'll set another. I did end up switching to high water by Mark Steck. The floats are starting to hit hard so I'm trying to get the rest of them out so I can start pulling my less productive areas and setting them down the line in areas I haven't trapped yet. I hope I have another week of this but I don't have a clue how bit up they are yet. When I got home and started to try to run the dryer, it was not working. So I'm back air drying them until my dad gets back on Sunday. This will at least give me time to get caught up on skinning. I also did find a shed with floats in it while I was running the line so I'm going to try to contact the owners and see if they want to sell them or get rid of them. I think that's all I have for Friday.

Another good thing that happened today. I have talked to my dad about a bigger fur shed and we have been trying to figure out how we're going to do it. My boss has a 10x20-ish shed out at his place and while I was out there feeding cows the other day with my dad, we took a look at it and my dad gave me the go ahead to talk to him about it. My current shed is about 7x8 but very small once I take out all of the space that's used up by other things, such as hanging rats, wood stove, firewood, and the bench. I mostly just have a pathway from the door to where I stand. Now that I'm putting up volumes of fur, I need to expand. So I talked to my boss about it today after feeding cows and he said that he's been planning on getting rid of it. He asked if I wanted to do some trading, so of course I said yes. Now I'm going to talk to him once he gets back from his trip. So that will be the project for summer 2024, I have a lot of plans that I have been wanting to implement but have had a lack of space. I haven't figured out how I want to heat it yet if I'm going to keep my current woodstove and just upgrade the pipe and get a fan for it or if I'm going to go to propane.

Anyway, enough ranting, here are the pictures.

Good job young feller.

MUch sign of others trapping?

Thank you! I haven't seen the other guy from last year yet, and no other sign of anyone else really, just a forgotten piece of lath or 2 from this fall.

Nice job! Don't get behind skinning, freeze them whole if you get in a bind. If weather shuts you down you can thaw them and skin.

Looks great, going to be a cold ending to the week so that might allow you to get caught up! Congrats on the shed are you putting it on concrete?

I'm quite a bit behind right now but the weather is in my favor, it's keeping them frozen without needing to use the freezer.

Yeah, I have everything pulled so I'lll be caught up within a few days. The weather will be in my favor for a while. We're not planning on putting it on concrete but maybe a crushed gravel pad and then putting a wood floor in the shed itself. For sure going to have a wood floor in the shed itself so it's a self contained unit.

I got everything pulled yesterday and ended up with 14 rats to boot. Not the worst check considering the conditions. It's been super windy out the last few days so that makes it interesting. I've got 50 or so rats put up so far. Going to try to do another 40-50 tonight after my dentist appointment. I have the floats outside drying with the wind and will pull them into the garage tonight and put fans on them to dry them out more.

Good job YT.

Well, I've been putting up rats for a few days now and have about 40 left. I would have skinned more today but I ran out of hanging room in the fur shed. I should be done within a couple of more days here.

I have all 285 muskrats stretched and dried, should be a decent payday. I've been forgetting to post on here, been working too much on trucks and stuff. I got a beaver from a friend a couple of days ago that I need to skin up, been thawing out all day today since it was sitting in the back of my truck for a couple of days frozen. I'm going to skin it out tomorrow night and try my hand at fleshing and boarding it.

Well, it's my least favorite time of the year. I'm wrapping up my season for the most part tomorrow, selling rats and 1 beaver. I got 285 rats and 1 beaver. I'm going to be trapping nest predators for the bounty since I still need 26 more tails but my fur season is getting wrapped up tomorrow. I'm hoping for at least a 2.50$ average.

Congratulations, looks like it was windy out!

Yes it was, been windy here since Wednesday.