An exceptional day on the line yesterday!  60 plus degree weather sure makes for a great day to be out in the fresh air enjoying what is out there and it sure doesn’t hurt to have company to enjoy it.

Wapiti and I were off and running at 8 a.m., at Peterson’s at about 9:15 and going strong on the trap

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And so, that was the story from yesterday….rather disappointing huh?  Since the computer had an issue I will attempt to restructure what I had written….

Wapiti and I got out to Peterson’s in great time and checked the lines.  As expected the older line produced a few but the new line didn’t produce the 50% expected.  We did have quite a good take however..how many?…you are asking me and that was two days ago…I can’t remember, but I think it was 22…don’t hold me to that however.

Now on to Club 41 (Wapiti calls it Area 51)….We have some traps set, but need to cover it with more and believe me there is a whole lot more of the area that needs to be trapped.  We check the existing traps, Wapiti from one end of the line and me from the other.  The bait sets are producing rats like mad on my end and from Wapiti’s as well…when we meet up, his first question to me was “Do I have to pay you a beer for each rat caught at that set”?  I responded no, only the first day…he was relieved.

Our total catch for the day was 37 rats!  An exceptional day on the line to say the least.

It was just after noon when we stopped to enjoy the view and have some lunch.

After our 15 minute break, we were off to set some steel!  There is a small pond of water to our West and we needed to set that.  When we arrived it looked like it was void of any rats.  I have been pounding it the last couple of years, catching rats like crazy, but of course you just can’t catch them all and the run always brings in new ones.  I was in the water walking along looking for runs, while Wapiti was on higher ground looking out into the water for runs.  He spotted one and upon further investigation we set a conibear in the opening about 18 inches under water.  Then went on checking for more spots to set traps.  Wapiti was about 50 yards ahead of me crossing the dam of the pond when a rat suddenly broke from under his feet….he yelled in my direction and I looked up to see the wave of an under water rat headed my way…soon it broke the surface and swam past my position…it was headed in the direction of the coni we had just set…then it veered to the right of the set and dove under.  I made a mental note to go over and try to find the hole it had dove into, when suddenly it broke the surface again and swam toward the coni set.  It stopped next to the stake and just sat there on the surface looking at it, probably saying to itself…”I don’t think that thing was there yesterday”!…So with it sitting there looking at the stake, I took a few steps in its direction…it turned slightly in the water to look at me and then quickly it dove under the water….The next thing was the stake started to shake violently…I yelled out to Wapiti…”WE GOT HIM”!!!!  Wapiti yelled out “YES”!!!  And we both had our hands high above our heads in celebration!

We continued to look for and set traps and then came back to the coni where Wapiti did the honors of taking that dumb rat out of the trap…we now call the pond Pollock Pond….

Can a trapper ever have enough fun?  That made the total take for the day 38!  We were happy at 37 but a bonus is never something to look at lightly!  $10 more bucks!  Now maybe the boss will give us a day off….nope…..

We set about 20 more traps and 6 floats and then called it a day…and what a day it was too.

Back at the skinning shed I called Brek (Skinner Man) and he assured me he would be there to skin…I was so relieved to hear him say that.  We still had the rats from yesterday to flesh and stretch and to add the skinning would have meant we would be working until midnight.

Bob came in from his trap line with a big bag of rats and dumped them on the pile!  19 rats!!!!!!  Wholy Moly…that means 57 rats!  A new record for us!!!!!

You can’t say the run is not in full swing right now!  And Bob never even got over to the traps he has on Pete’s place!

On the down side, Brek didn’t arrive until way after 6 p.m. and we were out in the shed until after 8 p.m….Thanks to Weasel, he came and helped pull down rats and put them on hangers and then took the skinned rats and turned them fur side out and put them on the drying rack and at the same time took the stretched rats from Bob and hung them up to dry as well.  Those tasks take time and he saved us a lot of time by doing that.

I can not go into the expected catch rate for the day to come because that was yesterday (remember this story got 86ed by the computer and I’m re-writing it the best I can today)…..

Speaking of today…let me tell you about yesterday….

Again Wapiti and I got off to a great start…well not really…My computer died on me and I couldn’t get my story written which made me quite upset…I had a headache as well.  We had to stop for gas and it was then that Wapiti remembered he forgot his hat…so back to Willard we had to go…a 30 minute delay…out at the Peterson ranch, Mr. Peterson came to talk and that cost us about 45 more minutes…precious time this time of year….

Oh the life of a trapper………………………………….

I told Wapiti we would probably only take 20 to maybe 25 rats for the day and that we had to pull the upper traps off our lines out here on the Peterson place.  We agreed to pull the first 20 traps of each of our lines…which we did….Back at the truck we counted the rats in the bags….8…..just about what I expected.

Now over to Club 41….we have the 23 original traps to check, plus the 28 traps and 6 floats we set yesterday…what do I expect from those….the 23 should produce about 11 rats…the 28 new ones?…I don’t have a good feeling about the place we set them in, not enough cover to be much good…maybe 7 or 8 rats…the 6 floats however, could produce 7 or 8 rats…But when you add up the numbers 8+11+7+7….that equals 33 and would not be a bad day at all.

I can’t tell you where we caught the rats nor what lines produced how many, but we did end up with exactly that…33 rats!

We then proceeded to set 13 more traps…why 13?  No reason, it was just that I took 8 off my toy and Wapiti took 5…purely random….

Back at the shed, Brek, the savior, was again there to skin rats and went right to work when he got there.

Bob came in about an hour later than we did.  We did stop and talk to him on his line as we were driving home.  At that point he had 11 rats and still had most of his line to check…we told him he needed to catch 17 to get us to the 50 rat point…Then we came on home.

When he arrived, Weasel, (who again had come to help us and drink beer and joke and do stuff the Weasel does best…we welcome the Weasel to join us any time he wishes) went out to carry his bag of 11 or so rats to the shed.  What I didn’t see was that Bob was carrying a bag too and he set it outside the door.  Weasel dumped his bag of rats on the pile of 33 rats and said loudly…19 rats.  Yes!  I said!  That is over 50 rats!  Good Job Bob!  Then there was a slight hesitation and Weasel said…Dad, get that bag out by the door…I turned and sure enough there was a bag laying on the ground…I picked it up, took it in and Weasel counted out 10 more rats!  Bob had caught 29 rats!  My heck that makes it a 62 rat day!  ANOTHER RECORD!!!!

Bob said that 29 rats was the most he has ever caught in one day!!!  And what about the traps that were set off and nothing was in them!  WOW!  What a great day on the trapline!!!!!  We have now exceeded our goal of 500 rats and still have a few days left to trap!

So having a day that started off so poorly, ended up to be a monumental day on the trap line!

I feel better now that these last two days of trapping has been documented here on this site.

The weather for today and tomorrow (I declare tomorrow a day off…I’m tired) calls for warm today, high near 60…with increasing clouds, a chance for rain after midnight tonight through tomorrow and cooler…highs in the 40’s tomorrow….

We have the pleasure of having Conner join us today on the trap line…welcome Conner!

My catch expectancy for the day…Petersons 3, maybe 4 rats…Club 41…9 + 5 + 5+ 2 = 24.

Today we pull all the rest of the traps off the Peterson property and will have a full catch report from those small seeps when we are done…you will find out how many rats we took off there in tomorrows report.  Then over to Club 41 to check traps…no setting today as we are taking tomorrow off.  I also have a commitment to go and see one of my Granddaughters act in a play…I need to get home early to clean up…that is something else a trapper should do on occasion.

Lunch will be processed ham on a slice of bread.  Chips and lots and lots of water.

Bears Butt

March 16, 2013