March 17, 2012

Top ‘O the mornin to ya!  Happy Saint Patricks Day to everyone!

This is a farm work Saturday and so the trapping will be this afternoon.  And it will be a quick as we can check of traps and get back home.

Weather is calling for high winds all day.  Sustained winds at 35 with gusts to 60 mph.  Possibility of low visibility due to blowing dust and of course out where we are trapping; blowing tumble weeds.

It blew all night so my expected catch is 15 today.

Gotta Go!  Some of the fellas are starting to arrive for coffee and donuts!

Bears Butt

Finished up with the farm work right at noon.  Cut up a couple bags of carrots for bait and headed out.  Arrived at the parking place just at 1 p.m.  Got my gear on, loaded the toy and saw Bob just about to one of the internal gates.  Fired up the toy and went as fast as I could to open the gate for him.  We talked for a few minutes, he had finished checking his Club 41 line and had 5 rats.  Much happier than he was the day before with only two rats.  He still had 70 some traps yet to check on his way up the highway.

I jumped on the toy and headed off to check traps as fast as I could.  I figured it would start raining soon and I wanted to get all the traps checked before that, if I could.  No dust settled under my feet as I went about my lines.  “Stop, hop and jump back on” was the motto of the day.  Of course there was always a little celebration at the set when I caught a rat.

I’ll try and describe it:  Upon seeing a rat in the trap, a fist is made with the right hand, then it is brought up to a point even with the elbow, and then is shoved outward and across the body, stopping just before passing the left side of the torso….and of course a “yes”!  is verbalized out loud.

Can anyone else have as much fun as me?

As I progressed around the lines (plural, as I have three distinct lines) in my rapid fashion, I could not help but notice the weather changing.  The wind was blowing like 90, dust was everywhere and when I drove into the wind I had to turn my baseball cap around backwards to keep it from flying off.  I thought of myself as “Little Riding Butt from the Hood”.

With the burlap sack at my back, I noticed it beginning to press hard against me as I proceeded.  The storm was coming and sprinkles were hitting me.  I stopped long enough to cover my camera with a plastic bag, and to put on my rain jacket.  Off I went in a huff and a puff, down the trail to the next set.  Round and round and up and down until I found myself suddenly back at the truck.  The wind was howling by then.  Dust was an issue big time and my eyes were filled with grit.  I thought to myself (of course who else would I think to?) It is so dusty I would not even open a can of beer unless I was inside.  It would fill with dust so quickly, you would end up drinking mud.

Quickly undoing all that I had done earlier in preparation for the trap checking, and loading the toy in the trailer, the last thing I did was count the rats in the bag.  I dumped them on the ground and then began putting them back in the bag and counting aloud…one…two…three…four…five…You know the drill….toward the end it went like this…twelve…thirteen..fourteen and a toe nail!

I only had two set off traps and one of them held firmly a toe nail from a rat.

14 rats!  One short of my expected goal.  Loaded up everything, battened down the hatches and headed for home.  I beat the rain storm.  Dust was a whole nuther matter.

Since Brek will not be here to skin these rats until tomorrow, Bob and I put our catches in a refrigerator he has.  His bag of rats was already in the fridge when I put mine in and so I went in and ask him how many he caught.  He said………………………………………………………….14!

A great day of trapping if I do say so myself!

I pulled one of my colony traps as a rat evidently got inside and decided he did not want to perish in that environment and so it TRASHED one of the doors.  I traded it for another trap and brought it back to fix the door.  I have a place for it later.  It’s dangerous out there on the trap line.  Large rats waiting to jump out at the unwary trapper in an instant.  Ripping up heavy gauge wire traps with their vicious teeth and claws.  Breaking chains from the trap stake and chewing off the stakes that anchor the trap in place.

Tomorrow is Sunday and a day off from the trap line.  I have gassed the rigs, checked the oil and am ready for an early start on Monday.  I have goals and will tell them to you on Monday morning.

In the mean time I hope you are all enjoying the St. Patricks day evening with a cold brew of green, perhaps some corned beef and cabbage and above all else are safe and sound and in good health!

Bears Butt P.M. report