Well, I forgot to post last night. I was working on homework and tired by the time I got done. So here's how the trapline went yesterday. I caught two rats and a mink. I caught nothing at the irrigation ditch, I will be pulling that spot tomorrow. There are no fresh tracks that I can see even, so it's time to get out of there unless something crazy happens and I catch a bunch there tomorrow. On the way to my 2 colony traps, I stopped where 3 culverts were going from a field to a shelter belt. I set a dogproof in front of each culvert so 3 dogproofs total, I'm hoping this spot pays off. So I got to my 2 colony traps and had only caught 1 rat in each of them so only 2 rats. I headed north again and got to my main spot. So I checked the first few sets and had nothing, I pulled my beaver foothold on the drowner since it hasn't caught anything the last couple of days. I then also caught nothing in any of the coon, beaver, or coyote sets. No set off traps or anything. So I worked my way to the 1 colony trap in the culvert and had nothing it that which was surprising. I then went to the last set of the day which was a pocket set. I caught another buck mink! It didn't even take my bait either so I reset the trap and went on my way. I got home and made up 8 more cable drowners and paired them up with 1.5 Montgomery square jaws. I'm going to try to set them all out tomorrow since I'm going to be pulling traps on Monday since we're supposed to be freezing up next Wednesday.

Tonight, I got the 2 rats and mink put up, I also finished setting up my drowner rigs so those are ready to go. I need to make some more mink belly boards since I only have 2 right now and 1 of them isn't the best. Hopefully, with his cold spell, I can get some other work done and get the fur shed cleaned up a bit.

Things get better after freeze up, stick with it bud. Worst case scenario you'll have fun and keep learning, that's what we're all doing. When things slow down, a new area never hurts either. It's nice to see kids out trapping, don't stop

Nice job on the mink!

Thank you

Things get better in the spring for me since that's when I can run floats. I hope to run a mink and weasel box line this year once we get snow. I don't plan on stopping anytime soon unless I physically can't do it anymore.

Well, again, I forgot to write here last night. Yesterday was a very uneventful day. I only caught one rat and an opossum. I could have also lost a few rats, but I'll cover that later. So I started the day by pulling that irrigation ditch spot, I only had a rabbit in the trail set 1.5 but the back half was fully eaten so I assume a mink or weasel went to town on it since it was drug into the cat tails as far as the chain would allow. So I headed north, in the triple culvert, I had caught an opossum so I reset that trap and headed on my way. The next stop was the double set culvert. Well, it seemed the culvert dropped on one side and my colony trap was sticking up out of the water 1/2". when set. It was also halfway collapsed when I got there and the big rock I had on top was knocked off. I'm not a big fan of these collapsible colony traps, sadly I sold all of my nice 1x1 heavy wire colony traps so now I'll just have to deal with it this year and try them out some more, hopefully, it's just a user error. On the other side though, I did have one rat. I stopped and set a dogproof between a recently harvested cornfield and slough in a culvert. I then continued and set 2 dogproofs, one in front of a culvert and the other on a trailer leading from it into the shelter belt, these were also between a small cornfield with standing corn and a slough so almost a perfect spot. I didn't have anything in the 2 blind set 220s that I set at the end of the culverts going from one cornfield to another. So I headed north again to the main spot. I ended up walking a coon box and a dogproof into where I have my 2 Beaver 330s as I'm always seeing tracks. I then proceeded to have nothing in any of my other traps, I did set another drowning rig near the culvert where I have the single colony trap. So that was my day. Here's the picture.

Keep after it!

You are staying busy

Pretty much catching a few of everything

Nice catches.Congrats

Well forgot to post again, been stretched thin between feeding cows, trapping, and finishing up fall cleanups. I hope to finish cleanups tomorrow, so that'll be nice. I only caught 1 rat on Saturday. It was a really good sized rat, probably 3-4 lbs. I caught it in that double set culvert where I now only have 1 colony. I had nothing else in any of the other traps and no set off traps. I will also be pulling traps tomorrow since we're going to get some bad weather here soon. I plan to set out more gear for coyotes and such on some land I set last year. It looks like snow on Wednesday so it should make finding sign a lot easier. I also skinned out my first coyote on my new roller base and I figured out I need to make some improvements. I also broke my dryer that I use to dry my rats, mink, and weasels so I'll need to fix that or find a replacement. Anyways, that's all I have today. I forgot to take a picture of the rat before I put it up so no picture today.

We accept pics of finished fur too!

I got the line pulled today. At the first stop of the day, where I caught that opossum the other day, I had another opossum in a different trap, the same spot. I then went on for the rest of the line, pulling everything with no catches. But surprise, surprise, I had another colony trap that was starting to fold up. But I had to run through the line fairly quickly today as I had many other things to do today. I plan to get some more traps out later this week or weekend probably once this rain blows through. We have probably gotten an inch or more since it started around 6 pm so it'll be a muddy mess for a few days. I also bought my heater for my fur shed so that'll be here soon. I'll work on my fur shed for the next few days. The fur shed is a mess right now and I have piles of traps that need to be cleaned up and stored away. Once I get the heater, I'll probably start putting up the 7 or so beaver hides I have in the freezer. Anyway, here's the picture of the opossum.

Nice catches.Congrats

Good job.

Thank you

Thank you

This weather sure isn't making trapping any easier. Hopefully setting some weasel and mink boxes on Thanksgiving if the sloughs can freeze.

You are doing well. Great to see this.
Jim

I got the last bit of the shed insulated today and got my freezer running a bit quieter, one of the fans inside was caked with dust and dirt. The 11,000 BTU heater should be here Friday and I already got my 100 lb propane tank filled so that's all ready. Just need to take a look at my dryer yet and see what's wrong with it and then also bolt down my roller base. Hopefully setting some new traps soon. I scouted a couple of spots for coyote trapping.

I got 4 traps out today, 2 coyote sets, and 2 weasel boxes. The Ice should be good by early next week and then I'll start busting huts and running weasel and mink boxes.