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.

Here is a new one for me - I'm sure not all that uncommon for someone like Walt who runs a lot of bottom edge sets. This mink was headed upstream with this big frog in its yap.



Another newer trapper asked for some help filling his bobcat tag. This cat was using a waterway to travel across a large field from one wooded ridge to another. A projection set with some castor laced with catnip was the ticket for this one.



And my favorite time of year, beavers under the ice. I've been able to add 5 new beaver ponds to my list of places to check out every year. Onx is a wonderful tool for the beaver trapper.



Next weekend we have a fur handling day for WTA Dist 5. I want a otter for a skinning demo so I set 2 crossovers on one of the beaver ponds the other day. When we checked last night the otters had passed thru but used a third crossover that we had not set. That one is now plugged with a 330 waiting for their return.

That looks like a great cat.

Nice mink catch. They've really been moving the last couple days.

Nice catches J. Sell! That frog looks big enough to host a fried frog leg dinner !
Currently i have only one set out guarding my friends pond from muskrats. I am unsure if I will make the skinning demo. with some continuing health problems. Either way I have 5 rats and one mink frozen whole to donate if anybody, especially kids , want to practice skinning them.