Nice work on those beavers. Water is high here now. I am hoping this sun and wind dries things out a little bit.

Good catch Jordy. Those should keep Hayes busy skinning!
I got 5 rats today, four at the spot in pic. in BE sets.

Nice catches Walt. Creek here is up about a foot from all the rain and melt.

A friend of mine had a couple of visitors to his cat set. We found some fresh tracks on Monday afternoon and set up on them.

Thankfully this guy took a left and went somewhere else



This guy here went and checked out the rub set off camera but did not commit. I'm sure he will be back soon.

Got a bobtailed buck mink and a rat today. I had to chop a lot of ice to get to a few of my BE sets. Lots of work for one rat but can't think of anything else I would rather be doing!

Good work Walt. I agree with you that it' my favorite thing todo. It's funny you had a bob-tailed buck mink. I had a bob-tailed female Saturday. Keep it up.

Nice work Walt. This cold is sure making a lot of ice.

Cold weather, but they are still moving. 2 sets of tracks came in. One caught, the other left a calling card.
Shoulders and haunches are rubbed bad.

Congrats K Snow. Did you have any other sets in vicinity?

I had another hay set to the southwest about 125 yards away. There want quite enough snow for me to track where rhe 2nd one went. I believe it headed off NW into a pretty wooded draw.

There was another pee post, fresh today, about 250 yards south of the catch, on a t post at a field corner.

Was hoping for otter but I guess this is better than an empty trap. Had a BE 150 set just upstream to try and keep rats out. Lol

nice winter mink

Nice catch Walt.

Good work Walt. I'm going back out after it warms up a bit.

This is the fourth rat caught this week going into this tile which drains a small springfed pond behind and above it.
Upper end of tile is enclosed with wire mesh. It drains into a much bigger pond which is frozen over for the most part. I think the rats have chewed through the drain tile and tunneled through bank to access upper pond which has alot of water cress and doesn't freeze. It's also 6 to 8 feet deep with steep banks. I'll see how many midwinter rats it will produce.

Had a couple BE sets for rats and mink under the shelf ice. An otter exited the water and ran on ice above them.
One set caught this rat which luckily was out of the otters sight. I'm hoping to catch up to the otter in the future with a proper size trap.

Nice rats Walt! Way to go!

Turok

thanks for sharing, nice rat

Walt,

I've had otters do that several times. I end up adding a BE edge set up or downstream from there, and blending them in a bit more. Sometimes I think otter see that square shape of a BG and don't want to go through it. Other ties they see it as a target.

Nice catch Walt. I had 3 rats two days ago but had to chop a lot of ice for them. Seemed much easier when I was in my 50's, lol. I still haven't caught an otter yet or seen any sign. Good luck on them.