I arrived at the trapping scene just before 10 a.m., a light rain was falling, but it looked like it might clear up.  I noticed the cowboys out on their horses going to round up the cattle that were scattered all over South of the Trellis (if you don’t know where the Trellis is from past years stories, you’ll have to catch up on here this year), they were all decked out in their “slickers” and ready for a wet day.

At Pete’s pond I put on my rain gear as well, but of course mine isn’t nearly as good as the gear the cowboys had.  Mine is good until I get wet and then I call it a day, they can’t do that.

As I suspected I had one rat in a colony trap at the pond.  I’m sure I have caught them all out of there and plan to move those traps tomorrow.  I’m sure I can find some places for those colony traps down on bull run.

The bulls at the run were scattered all over the place and munching whatever there is out there that they eat, I can’t see anything that they are eating, but they all had their heads down eating something.  My first order of business was to get the two live traps I took out, set and ready for Mr. Raccoon.  Brek (Skinner Man), skinned the rats and raccoons we caught yesterday after he got home from work last night.  He must have been up quite late as I know how long it takes to skin, flesh and stretch a raccoon and he did two of them.  He did an outstanding job on them too!  The rats were all turned fur out and laid in a pile on the floor.  Now it’s our job to flesh and stretch them…later today.

Anyway, back out to the trap line.

I loaded up the toy with the two live traps and took them out to where I knew I wanted to set them.  I loaded them with fresh skinned muskrat bodies….way too tempting for a raccoon to pass up.  And then I went to checking traps.

The trap I caught the raccoon in yesterday was not set off, nor was the carrot bait disturbed, but there were parts of a muskrat scattered around on top of the toolie pile where the raccoon destroyed things yesterday.  Further investigation showed where the muskrat came from…trap set number 2!  Dang it!  He bit off the muskrats leg and carried the body over to where he could sit and munch without getting too wet.  One of the live traps is right between sets 1 and 2…I’ll get that little critter!

I continued down the line checking traps, the rats didn’t move too much last night, maybe it was windy or maybe I caught them all.  As I moved down the line I saw evidence of a second rat having been the fine dining of a raccoon!  OOOOOOO!  All in all I lost 4 more rats to raccoons and with the one rat from the pond I brought home 11.

In two nights of trapping the raccoons have cost us 9 rats!  That is between $90 and $110!

Bob showed up with the other 5 live traps just as I finished checking the traps I have out.  By that time the rain had gotten worse and worse, my rain coat was soaked completely through and so were my shirt(s), my butt is still very wet right now and I’ve been home for two hours.

Bob left me with my task of setting those 5 live traps in the drizzling rain.  I used rat carcases in all but one of them and I used marshmallows and smelly carrots in that one.  We will see tomorrow how the raccoons handle those traps.

Part of the reason I had to be home early today was to make sure the trapping shed was ready for this season of skinning and stretching.  There was a lot of straightening up to do, and the pile of skinned rats needed to be spread out to dry.  I also turned on the heater to expedite that part of the process.

The weather forecast is calling for a good chance of rain for the rest of today and tonight and then chances of rain on and off through Sunday.  This is perfect rat trapping weather, but it calls for waterproof outer clothing.  I have it, I just need to put it on!

Bob caught 6 rats today.  I don’t know how many Skinner Man and Weasel have caught but I’ll post up here the results when I know them!  As for now!  Get back to whatever it was you were doing!

UPDATE:  Bob 6, Me 11, Skinner Man 2, Weasel goose egg!

Bears Butt

February 12, 2014