Wapiti calls this “Area 51” because it is such a strange place to be trapping rats.  I thought that same thing when I first went into the property, but soon became acquainted with the how tos and where fores of the club.  These rats are not the same as those living in other areas.

Today is our last Wednesday to trap this year.  We are seeing fur slipping and the run is over according to brother Bob.  You will find out in this story why he is saying that.

A good start to yesterdays adventure and we were out at the Club about 9:40…quickly donning our boots and gloves and hit the trail…There was some ice covering most of the water bodies, except where there was a flow.  The traps I checked just didn’t seem to be in the right places.  There had been plenty of rat activity during the night but the traps just were not being stepped on…well, except for one…

Looking closely at the mud trail going toward the trap, you can see foot prints and tail drag marks leading toward the trap…why did that rat not get caught.  Most if not all the good old carrot pieces have been munched up, but no rat caught.  He had to have been all over that trap…let’s look closer…

The spring portion of this trap is pushed down deep into the mud…the pan is depressed and the dog is almost to release the jaws…that was one lucky rat that came to visit last night.  This is the second time this has happened with this trap and so I replaced it with a lightning fast trap that will catch that rat should it re-visit tonight.

As you can see from this picture the water has receded from our trapping area quite a lot.  This trap will have to be pulled today as the water is now over 50 yards from this set.  No rat in its right mind would ever venture that far to get a bite of carrot…but then…this is Area 51!

Wapiti and I checked all the traps we had out before we decided it was time for lunch.  We were stepping fast and furious and when it was all said and done, the rat count for the day exceeded 40…in fact it exceeded 41 (Club 41) by one…a 42 rat day for us!  Had the rats that were dancing all over up on the channel line actually stepped in the traps we would have been over 50 rats…but we will take a 42 rat day anytime!

After our great 15 minute lunch break, we were off and running again to get some traps set.  I must say right now that we did take a few minutes on the channel line earlier to set 5 traps up there.

I wanted Wapiti to see the rest of Club 41 and so we traveled the mile or so down the road to the end…the culdisac (sp)…I told him that we needed to set the dams that were placed up toward the vehicle from this point and we began our quest to find sign and holes.  A rat came out twice for a quick visit while we were trying to find our first set place…I told Wapiti the first rat came out, poked its head up and saw us…it thought to itself…”I’ve got to go tell Eddie what I just saw”…so it dove down and back into the den to tell Eddie….of course Eddie called “No Way!  There have not been humans around these parts for over a year”!  And then of course he had to come out and see for himself…which he did.  Today we hope to have them both caught.

We continued to travel back up stream using the old road way that followed the channel down to the end…when it was time to call it a day, we had set 45 traps.  Again, not a bad day for a couple of old guys in mud up to our…you know.

Earlier when we were finished checking the seep lines, I had caught 10 rats and had one set off trap with nothing in it, out of 18 sets, while Wapiti had 3 rats out of his 14 traps…13 rats in an area I figured had 10 rats total in it…We discussed the area and I told him we needed to pull the traps tomorrow and that we had caught the two little families of happy rats, which were all now quite dead…he thought that humorous…then we made a beer bet.  He thinks there are still a bunch of rats in there and that we should catch half that number again today…6 or 7…I told him then about the happy rat families…our beer bet is…I say we will (might) catch one rat…he says three…a 2 rat catch nullifies the bet…I hope I lose the bet!

Speaking of bets, the beer bet set up on the Channel line produced a big old fat rat again today.

Up at the skinning shed, Bob came in with a sack full of 15 rats…how is that for a total of the day?  57 rats for the day!!!!  We will take it! Our Saviors, Brek and Weasel showed up and did their thing.  We pulled down 60 rats and placed them on hangers and hung the ones we fleshed and stretched.  It was just about 8 p.m. when we called it a day.

Bob insists that the run is over.  Where he has had a lot of rat activity the past few days is now void of rat sign, tracks in the mud and even water….he does not expect to catch even half the number of rats he caught today, tomorrow…we will see.  I do think the run is over myself, but even if it isn’t our trapping days are now numbered into the “under one hand count”…for Wapiti and me…today, tomorrow and Friday.

Weather for today is 80% chance of rain…put on your wet weather gear Wapiti…it is expected to rain all day today, tonight and then turn to snow by tomorrow afternoon.  Not a fun way to end the season, but we have to deal with what we have.

Today we are going to of course check all the traps, but we will also pull the “Seep line(s)”….I hope again that I lose the bet to Wapiti on that line count.  We opted to keep the “Pollock line” going because we caught 5 rats there yesterday and there just might be 5 more out there.  $50 is worth leaving the line one more day.  Any trap we pull from here on out will be put in piles by Bobs garage for fixing and sorting later this Spring…the season for them is over.  Kind of a bitter-sweet thing.

What can we expect for a catch today?  Channel line – 11 (5 new traps), Pollock line – 3, Floats – 3, Old, new sets (I didn’t tell you this before, but Wapiti calls it the Dumb ass Wapiti line) – 5, Seep line – 3 (benefit to Wapiti..I say zero), New sets – 17….42 rats.

So, there you have it for today…a lot of work in the rain…we just have to keep our heads down and our spirits up.

Lunch today will be a half sandwich of bologna and cheese, chips and lots of water.

Bears Butt

March 20, 2013