What a looonnnngggg day it was today.  I made it to Bull Run while the ground was still frozen so I didn’t make any unnecessary marks in the field.  The bulls were all concentrated at the gate and I was sure glad I didn’t go through that gate yesterday.  My Good.

The catch rate was unreal again today…16 rats came off Bull Run…that is crazy…3 one day and then 16 the next…oh well I’ll take it.

The Trellis line gave up 4 rats which was a real nice bonus.

Then out to Big Spring…move the traps from the up-stream portion out to where the ice is.  I pulled those 18 traps and moved them and when I did, I did not find any sign of rats from the end of where I had traps until I had traveled almost 300 yards down stream.  So, I went another 100 yards or so before I began setting traps.  I ran out of those 18 traps long before I hit ice and so I need to put more traps out there.

With that in mind I decided I needed to pull the traps at the East portion of Little Spring and I did just that.  The traps at the big water canal were the most likely to hold rats and of course the trap and colony trap I moved yesterday would probably have a rat or two.  I was determined to pull them all.

As I progressed around the big canal waterway, I did have a rat in one of the conibear traps down there.  I was pleased with that.  I was curious about the colony trap I set yesterday because I had to modify the run to make it work.  Modifying runs always has intrigued me and this is what I did.

There was a hole coming out of the bank and it was about 6 inches under water, then the rats would bend their body upward and come to the surface and then plod along in water barely up to their mid side.  I dug the mud out away from the bank hole as deep as I needed to completely cover the colony trap and about 6 inches farther than its length.  I was careful to follow the run as I dug.  At the far end of the colony trap I dug an additional 6 or so inches out and then using some of the material I had dug up, I put some on each side of the end of the colony trap.  In my mind it looked rather natural and would channel the rats into the mouth of the trap from that end.  I had never done something like that before.  Usually you just find a deep run and plop the trap down.

When I checked it today I was very pleasantly surprised:

THREE rats were in that trap!  I pulled the trap along with all the others because of the size of the pool of water and swamp.  Three rats was probably all there were working that spot.

I finished checking Little Spring and came up with one more rat….a total of 25 rats for today!

Bob caught a rat as well and so we ended with a 26 rat day!  Wonderful for us trappers.

While setting traps, one often comes up with a trap that has issues and just can’t be set as it is.  Fixing traps in the field sometimes requires good luck and fortune.  I had such a thing today.  A conibear trap had its hinge come out and I didn’t have another hinge to replace it with.  I needed that trap to be set as I only had a limited number and I had a great place to put it, I had to fix it.

I went back to the toy and started rummaging through the saddle bags looking for something that just might fix that trap.  A piece of wire was what I ended up using.

Here is the trap and you can see the hinge is missing its part.  The wire under my pliers is what I’m going to try and fix it with.  I’m not really sure if it will work or not.  But it’s one of the last traps I have and if I can’t fix it now, I’ll have to take it home and fix it, and that would mean a night out of service…I think I can fix it and catch a rat in the trap when I check tomorrow.

There it is all fixed and it actually set and I placed it in a run that has high hopes of connecting for me tomorrow.

So, I have pulled a lot of traps today and reset just a hand full of them.  But, rest assured I still have 112 traps out and in pretty good spots to catch some fur.

Tomorrow will be a later start than today.  I assessed the damage the bulls made getting over to the pasture they are in and believe me, I am not going to cause as much damage as they did in that field.

Bears Butt

March 6, 2013