Ah, some time to rest!  Wapiti and I got out to the trapping fields in fine shape today.  The weather was cool and spitting rain, but not totally unbearable.  We did get our butts wet as when we left the toys to go check traps, we came back to wet seats…such is life.

The lines were all very much off from what we have gotten used to.  The Channel line only produced 4 rats and one of them was damaged.  Three of the 4 rats we caught were caught in 3 of the 5 new sets we made yesterday on this line…but overall not at all what it has been producing lately.  Once we got through with that line we knew we were in for a very poor production day over all.  But that is to be expected during a rat season.  Feast or famine and when the famine comes, it comes all at once.

We continued to make our rounds and had decided to check the Seeps line(s) last as we were going to pull all of those traps.  Remember we have a beer bet on the total number of rats we catch from there today…Zero or one and Wapiti owes me a beer…Two we tie…Three or more and I owe Wapiti a beer.

After checking all the traps except the Seeps traps we only had 14 rats in the bag.  The 45 traps we set yesterday only produced 9 rats!  Remember, newly set lines of traps usually come close to 35% production and sometimes closer to 50%.  Are the male rats so worn out from running that they are laying in their dens trying to regain strength?  While the females are all denned up making nests?  I’m not a muskrat specialist so I don’t know, but they sure have disappeared and I know we have not caught all of them.

Well, with 14 rats in the bag we headed for the Seeps line(s) to pull the traps.  I was very much surprised when I caught my first rat when I pulled trap number 10 of 18…then another when I pulled trap number 16.  I thought for sure Wapiti would not be catching any rats, but the odds were definitely in his favor at this point.  I left the two rats in the traps and hung them off the front of my toy and continued to travel down the line pulling traps…and then it happened again on trap number 16…rat number 3…I’ll gladly pay the beer!  And once I was done pulling the remainder of the traps I headed around the end of the line and back up toward Wapiti’s rig…he was still out pulling traps, but was just about done.  I made sure he would be able to see the 3 rats hanging in the front of my rig and I went about doing business that needed to get done with the traps on my rig.  Soon Wapiti came in with his last few traps and we loaded them up and tied them on.  He then told me he had caught one rat and asked how many I had caught.  I just pointed to my rig…He laughed and we high fived!  4 rats!

So back to the rig we went to put things away and have our lunch!  18 rats in the bag and that is it for the day!  Now one would think we would be disappointed not to have caught our expected 42 rats or even come closer to that goal, but when you think about it, 18 rats is going to be close to $180 when they sell and what’s wrong with that?  Nothing!  Besides, what is Bob doing on his line?  If he does half what he did yesterday we will net 28 rats for the day, and that is nothing but a good thing!

Time ticked away and pretty soon in pulled Bob.  I jumped up and headed over to help him haul in his bag of rats.  I knew it would be a big full sack…I carried it to the shed to dump it on top of our 18 rat pile and then asked him if we needed to count them…he said he had counted it twice…go ahead and dump it…how many, I asked….24 was the response!  YES!  Another very fine day of trapping.  Now the tables have turned…instead of us being the ones carrying the load of caught rats, it’s Bob’s turn!  42 rat day!  Woooppppppeeeeee!

It was about 5 when Weasel came up to help with the rats.  He and I went to taking down the remaining dried and stretched rats and put them on hangers.  Soon Bob came out to help, but he couldn’t do anything until I stretched some.  I started to brush off the rats that were dried from yesterday and when I had about 10 done, Weasel took over that task to allow me to start fleshing them.  Now the process was going great….Weasel brushing them out, me fleshing, Bob stretching and Weasel hanging the stretched hides…a GREAT process.  I was beginning to stress a bit as 6:30 approached and still no Brek…I could just see us finishing the fleshing/stretching and then be faced with 42 rats to skin…it would take us until midnight…just about then here came Brek!  I was sooooo relieved to see him.

He finished the skinning just about the same time as we finished the fleshing and stretching and we were back to our homes just before 8 p.m.  A long day, but a very good one!

Bears Butt

March 20, 2013