Another fine day on the trap line for Wapiti and I.  Especially getting back to town by 2:30!  Woooppppeeeee!

Conner, Wapiti and I got away from town just about 8 a.m. and headed as fast as we could for Peterson’s place across the Great Salt Lake…Arriving there while it was still a cool morning.  The sun would soon warm us up to where coats and sweaters would not be needed.

Our objective was to pull the entire line out there and then head to Club 41.  With nearly 80 traps to pull it was going to take some time and we felt the need to hurry somewhat…hurrying to old people is sometimes a joke….We also hoped to catch as many as maybe 4 rats.

We pulled traps and hung them on the toys as quickly as we could, Conner was in charge of the clippie flags on Wapiti’s line.  When a section of a line was picked up we would make a quick look over the line to see if we had missed any traps, clippies or whatever…all traps were accounted for.

Back at the truck we counted 7 rats!  There must have been a mini-run take place down there last night.

And so the total rat count for just Peterson’s place….106!  That is a whole lot of rats from one little spot.  As we came home I called Mr. Peterson and told him the total count and the fact that we were completely pulled out of there.  I thanked him for the opportunity to trap and told him I thought we had not damaged anything but if he noticed anything that he thought we had done, to give me a call.  He thanked us for catching that many rats and invited us back for next year!

On the way to Club 41, Wapiti told stories about “Area 51” and especially about the eagles with 3 feet, rats with pink eyes and glow in the dark teeth and about women who spend much time out there have babies with red hair.  It is a strange place but I’m not so sure it’s that strange.

Off to check the lines out there…again Wapiti and Conner went to the head of the line on the channel while I went to the end…we were hoping for 11 rats.  Upon meeting in the middle Wapiti again said that the “beer bet” set produced another fine rat…that made me feel good…we counted the rats…they totaled 10.  Not too far off from our desires.

Back over to the rig to have some lunch and drop off the rats.  We had a very nice lunch in the warm sun and even took an extra 5 minutes to enjoy it.  Of course Conner would not have been a happy guy if we had only taken our usual 15 minute lunch break…too much to eat in such a short period of time.

While we ate, the owners of the cattle came to feed them some protein so we ventured over to them to greet and meet and jaw jack a bit.  We didn’t want to retain them very long and so the conversation was short…we (and they) had work to do!

Before proceeding to check the remainder of our traps we decided we needed enough to make our total 35 rats…that would mean we would have to collect 18 more of the little buggers.

Down to Pollock pond we went.  The first three traps each held a rat and as I proceeded out to the set in the middle of the dam, it too held a rat.  I had to fix that trap and as I was doing that I thought to myself..”we might just make 18 rats at this rate”….The three of us were checking along and making “Whoopppeeee” sounds to each other as we encountered another rat in a trap.  Conner was the best at it.

When that line was done we had 12 rats….now for the floats…Conner is the math wizard and asked how many floats we had…we said 6…and each float has 2 traps on it for a total of 12 traps…he said we would have to have at least one rat on each of the floats in order to make our goal, but that we could go over by six if all the traps connected….Wapiti and I thought about what he had said and then agreed with him.

Over to the big dam to check those floats….I can see my first one from the road and both traps are missing from view…could it be that I have caught two rats?  A quick walk to the float revealed both traps set off, but only one held a rat…dang!  Wapiti said that his first float was also missing both traps…unfortunately neither of them held a rat, just set off…dang!  My next float was missing one trap and it held a rat!  YES!  Wapitis next float was missing one trap and it held a rat!  YES!

My last float still had both traps and also rats had pooped on it and ate all the bait…dang!  Wapiti’s last float still had both traps and the bait had been eaten, a rat had pooped on a clump near by…dang!

So do the math…31!  Not too bad a day if I do say so myself.

Out of Club 41 and headed for home..it was just after 2 p.m….nice!  Along the way we stopped to see Bob as he checked his line.  He had just pulled a rat from one of his sets and the other trap held a duck.  I got the duck out for him and it went off with a sore foot but otherwise unharmed.

Bob had 12 rats when we left him…could it be that he will once again catch around 30 rats?  Wouldn’t that be cool?!!!!

We told Bob all he had to catch was 8 more rats and we would have another 50 rat day and that we just might top 700 rats by weeks end…THAT would be sweet!

I went to the shed and placed 50 of the dried rats into a paper bag and took them to the freezer.  We have space for about 50 more rats to be put up on stretchers, but we are not going to process today’s rats, but rather will freeze them after they are skinned.  All of us have our butts kicked from this week of trapping and need to take a day off.

I had just finished taking care of the dried rats when Bob honked his horn.  He was pretty happy when he got out of the truck and I came to help haul in his days catch…he had 20 rats!

What an incredible week of trapping!  Tuesday-50 rats, Wednesday – 46 rats, Thursday – 57 rats, Friday – 62 rats and today 51 rats!  That is a whole lot of rats!

Bears Butt

March 16, 2013