With coils or conibears?

Foot holds.

Just do some small tear ups at different spots on the hut. The rats will be right there to repair them . Have the trap no more then 1" under water. A little lure won't hurt.

I use footholds when I set houses. I have found that early in our season when the rats are active in building houses and structures setting houses has high percentages. I have had open water at times in December when house construction is over and catch percentages have gone way down as they are not on the outside of the house as much unless they are using portions for feed beds. I have also found that when active the rats come on the house with lots of vegetation. That is where I try to use larger traps as they don't plug as easy.

Bryce

I'm gonna try what the beav said. I've seen a guy on youtube use conibears on poles in say 3 feet of water. He put the traps on poles with flagging tape as lure and set them a little under the surface.

Another thing you could do Is place your 160 or 110 BG right next to the edge of the hut. Keep the lower jaw about 2" under water. With the trigger wires on the bottom.

I use coils and stop loss traps on huts and find the trails going through the reeds and do a top edge set with a 110 and nail quite a few that way. I know some guys don’t like stop loss traps but they work for me

Stoploss footholds

I would rather use a 1.75 or a #2 coil spring. You get a high catch and the weight takes the rat right to the bottom. And by replacing the stock pan with a larger pinch pan you have a larger target area.

I guess I will be the odd guy here in that I like 110s, put them on a long stake, rip a hole in the side the size of the 110 of the hut stake them in front of the rip, 4 to a hut and move on to the next one

Back when we had a good number of rats I bought 15 doz northwoods 110s from Ludy Sheda, (tells you how long ago we had a good rat population) and they more then paid for themselves that first year, nowadays it would be hard even getting half those
Set out but I still get a few out

Yes you can and likely will loose a couple to birds of pray but the same happens with foot holds when one fails to do down under the water struggling live or dead floater

Where it’s allowed its a very high percentage set with either kind of trap

Nowadays I can count the rat huts along my line without using both hands so seldom have ant 110s in the vehicle so like the Beav I will use a 1 1/2 size trap same way as it’s likely to take them to the bottom quickly and out of sight of those cruising hawks, eagles and owls

Ludy he was a dandy.

Rule of thumb from my experience. If the house or feedbed is in a choked area of cattails and/or bullrush with shallow H2O, the Stoploss or Surehold wins out. Rats are DOA 60% of the time when I get back. If in H2O of > 18" and adjacent cover is sparse, the heavier (1.75 or 2) trap wins out and rats are DOA 95% of the time when I check. So in my experience - entanglement - has some degree on holding success and trap type. You can tell with experience what type of cover surrounding a house or bed what the chances are of having that rat there when you return. .................................. the mike................ P.S. Poor luck with BG's on the house in the fall as even when set on the trail leading to the peak, my BG traps end up as roof material. Trails around the house (Top edge or whatever you call it now) sets, are good for me but on the house proper not good. ..........the mike (again)

Mary And Ludy where a differnt pair . Funny thing was just digging through some of my old trapping books and I came up with a Old trapping catalog for them. Back from 1995. Do those things have any value?