Where I live the rural municipality (RM) owns all ditches. No private ditches. All ditches can be trapped and the RM prefers it for all the damage rats and beavers do to the roads. Could be different in other provinces but I don’t know. Just info from my experience. We don’t have a lot of trappers in our province, maybe 4-5000 licens sold every year. That being said some people were asking about making funnels. Snapped a few pics and gave some info on why and how I do things. Most of the metal I use is scrap pieces from an eave’s trough business. Always have end rolls they can’t use so the give them to me or I get them for next to nothing. Aluminum, metal whatever I could get for as cheap as possible.


Still have a hundred or more cones waiting to be built into colonies. No muskrats no one buying traps


Wire coat hanger gate. Can be bent in or out for size of hole. Flips up and down like butter. Bad picture cause the hole looks huge , next picture is the same hole
I make the gate clips out of the same material as the cones. Best tip I can give you for this is when you fold it over put a nail where the coat hanger sits. Make sure the nail is bigger than the coat hanger wire. Take a pair of plyers and squish the metal around the nail. It makes the gate flip up and down easy. Built a few traps before I learnt a huge upgrade to the gate.

Two rivets to hold the gate. I always try to put white side out. Gates I always put the attachment to a dark color. Sometimes I forget. The reason is when I put them in a culvert I know the topside of my colony and know the gate is down. You learn a lot of info when you put the colony in with the gate open and check and find no rats

Insides are usually brown, green or black on the metal I get, or I spray paint them a dark color. The rats see the opening in the cone and it looks like a den entrance to them. At least that’s what I believe

Three rivets to close the cone. Vise grip on each end and it’s easy

Wood pattern I clamp my blanks on to drill holes for hog rings to attach to wire cage

Blank pattern I had a buddy who is a tin basher make. Very thick and I trace my pattern with it on to my pieces

Finished cone before I rivet it together

I miss trapping high numbers of rats. Probably have 1000s of pictures on my old phone. Maybe with all the rain we are getting they’ll make a comeback. Got 3 inches yesterday an another 2 today. Forecast says rain for the next week. The been dry here for the last 7-8 years.