March 3, Saturday..

I finished my day on the farm by taking a very cold bath in the creek, while dismantling a beaver day that continually gets rebuilt under the railroad track bridge.  The same beaver that kicked my rear end last fall.  You remember the one.  Well he did a good job of placing a stick right where my foot needed to be and down I went, face first and both hip boots immediately filled with ice cold water.

I have come up to the house, changed clothes and am now warm and dry and getting ready to go out on the trap line.

A young man named Stein from North Ogden is joining me today for his first ever excursion on a muskrat trap line.  It should be a good experience for him.  Unfortunately the boots I was going to let him use are now sitting on top of the heat vent drying out.  So he gets to use some old cut off hip boots from past years.   I hope they don’t have holes in them.  Stein will have to just be satisfied with watching me slosh out into the swamp and back.

My plan is to at least set a half dozen traps with him in tow and I have a pretty good idea where we can do that where the water is very low or non existent in placing the traps.  He will get a good idea about what to look for and the little amount of water a muskrat really needs to survive.

My goal on catch rate for today is 8.  My moto for the day “Two to would be fine and make a happy Stein, but eight would be great”!

After today, there should be one more among us who has a story that begins with “Butt and I”!  Or when said really fast “Butt’neye”.

Later!

Bears Butt

P.M. Report

What a day!  Stein and I hit it as usual and of course he had not idea what to expect.  The traps were somewhat frozen in and there appeared to not be any rats anywhere.  We hoped that the next trap would hold a money rat…but no.

We did have three lucky rats that should have come home with us…but no.

But no, seems to be the theme here.

One thing that did come out of the day was the fact that Stein and I had a wonderful day together on the trap line.  No, the rats were not fastened in the traps like I had hoped, but that is trapping.  Every trap is like opening a Christmas present…is it full, or empty?

We saw a lot of empty today.

2 rats is all, with 3 other traps set off….but that is ok…we set 6 traps.

2 at a place we call “lil pond”, 2 at a place we call “big pond” and 2 at a place we call “Stein pond”…for the next few days I will report heavily on the take from these 6 traps.  I hope Stein is reading this.

As we checked empty traps, Bob on the other hand was kicking my rear end….he caught 6 rats today!  Good on Bob!

He also rescued a calf that had been hiding when the fire broke out 6 days ago.  That poor calf had not seen its mother in that many days.  It was so glad to find Bob’s boot toe, even though it did not produce milk.  He was able to save it and that is a BIG deal!  A $300 savings for Pete!

No checking tomorrow and so the next report will be Monday A.M./P.M.  More rats to be caught!

Bears Butt

March 2, 2012 A.M. Report

Well the snow goose hunt that was to happen today with Edjukateer and I fizzled with the blowing snows.  Actually, the person who invited us wants to make sure we have an enjoyable and successful hunt and was unable to locate the birds..so until he does…we are on hold.

This morning I awoke to 3 inches of pretty white fluffy snow and the need to plow the neighborhood again.

Trapping will be delayed until that task is done.

One thing about todays trapping is my newly thought of idea out on the line and my test samples really got the test the last couple of days.  High winds, blowing and drifting snow.  Did they stand the test?  I won’t know until I get out there and see.  I expect I will be trying to find my marking flags and re-taping those that blew away.  A task that haunts our traplines each year.  Without the marking tape we could lose many dollars worth of traps and we don’t want to do that.  I have already lost one $10 trap because the stake did not have a wide enough “Y” on the end of it.

Expected catch today, after two nights, 14….

I also expect the snow to be deep, and the ice to be about 2 inches thick over most of the traps.  Typical spring time trapping.

Later!

Bears Butt

P.M. Report

Moved snow until about 11 and then got ready for the trip west for trapping.  The road west of Corrine looked like it was horrible earlier in the day.  Lots of packed ice and ugly stuff.  There was still some of that to deal with the farther west I got.  But both Bob and I made it ok.

Bob did not want to tackle accessing the internal areas of Petes because the snow was so very deep.  Close to 12 inches and drifted.  I don’t blame him.  So he just ran his road line and that was dangerous for him because he could not pull off the road very far.   The plow guys just made a big pile right on the white line.    He cautioned me about getting stuck where I pull completely off the road and down into some barrow pit stuff.

What I found was deep fluffy snow, no problem for pulling in and/or out.  I ran my lines without a hitch.

Several flags were down and had to be replaced.  3 traps set off with nothing in them.   One of those was set off the other day too…I’ll catch that little critter if he keeps messing with me.

Lots of slushy ice about 2 inches thick that had to be broken.  One of my triggered traps was held open by the ice around the spring.  A very lucky rat.

I was not able to set any traps today because of the plow time.  Tomorrow we have farm work and so that will shut me down from setting any until Monday.

Rat totals for the day…Me 13…Bob 2.

My butt is kicked!  Time for a brew or two.

Bears Butt

March the 1st, 2012

A.M. report on todays activities.

It is currently snowing like it’s no bodies business…which means it is putting it down very hard with big old big flakes and the depth is piling up quickly.

At the next break in the storm I am going to put the plow on the toy and get ready to move the neighborhoods snows from their driveways.  I usually get to do eight driveways and sometimes as many as 12.  It takes about 3 hours to do them usually and so, that being said, there will probably NOT be any trapping today.

Unless of course, the snow stops quickly and the weather map looks like a long clearing is ahead.  But looking out right now, that does not look like it will happen.

Bears Butt