Found this video about an elderly Russian trapper who uses fykes to catch muskrats in ice holes.
Do you have experice with this or similar methods?

The seems to speak some lokal slang, thus the automatic translations does not work too well.

As far as I understand he says he has improved this system over the years.
It is so effective, that you can easily overexploid a colony.
As he is trapping for qualitiy muskrat fur, he is careful not to do so.

The season in his region starts on October 10th and lasts until May.
This start is too early for him. In October there are still a lot of smaller rats. Therefore he waits until November, when most have reached adult size and have quality pelts.

In the autumn he goes around the lakes and marks trees were he sees muskrat dens.
As soon as the first thin an clear ice is on the water, he goes around again and looks for muskrat air bubbles under the ice and marks these locations.

In the winter he comes back and sets his traps.
When making the ice holes, he is again looking out for the muskrat air bubbles. When he does not find bubbles it is no use trapping this hole.

His fykes have a smaller diamater than the hole.
The muskrats surface between fyke and ice to breathe and when they dive back in, they dive into the fyke and drown.
It is not unusual to catch 4 to 6 rats in one of his older style fykes over about 2 days.

But he has developed a better version with an additional sideward entrance and says this doubled his catches, as less rats shy away from these newer fykes. He sometimes cachtes more than 10 rats in one go.

He built himself a measuring gauge for the optimum depth and optimum distance between ice and trap that he worked out over the years.

I’ve baited them under the ice before with good results, setting air runs from the bank takes them also. Funnel traps in culverts catches a bunch in a short time.

Lower Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta natives used to catch mink in a fyke type trap. Probably caught rats too.

What kind of traps are you using for this? The 'sandard' colony traps?





I found two reports from the 1960s talking about taluyaks, traps made of wire, with which about 80% of the mink harvest there was caugth.
But I could not find a picture or description what these traps look like by now.


https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/162579475.pdf
Methods descriped on pages 53ff

https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/static/...dfs/fur_mammal_snowshoe_hare_1960_61.pdf
One page 27:
"Hi indicated that 75-85 per cent of the mink he buys is caught in these traps..."

Here it is. On just has to search on trapperman.com

These are works of art.

Baited Under the ice traps were 110 conibears set just out from the huts or bank dens. Some guys run single spring 160s in runs also.

110 set between 2 wood laths wired together with a piece of potato or apple on the triggers.