I’m getting a later start than I expected, but I’ll just have to deal with that.  I got my new computer yesterday and as yet have had the time to even attempt to learn how to even turn it on….I tried stroking it lightly and saying “I Love You”, but that didn’t work…maybe tonight?

Anyway today is the day that Bob and I head into Club 41.  Bob will head to the South end, while I go North and we should meet in the middle somewhere.  With the lack of water everywhere else, we might find that the club is out of water too.  Our trapping may be about over for the year.

Richard Nicholas did call me and tell me that I had permission to go into the property South of Doris’ and trap that.  Today I plan on going in and setting a few traps there as well.

So, Club 41 is the main goal for today…I have over 100 traps on my rig that need to find water.  A trap on the rig does not catch rats.

I will check the traps on Peterson’s and Doris’ pond after I get through setting traps and so I expect to arrive back home very late…5ish tonight.

The weather is calling for a chance of rain (60%) and windy…not the best of days to be going out trapping, but still it’s a day, right?

What do I expect for a catch day?  Well, Peterson’s is about dried up as far as rats go.  I did manage to set 12 traps yesterday so I expect those to kick out 6 rats.  Doris’ pond has been a real surprise but I think I have all the rats caught out of there.  So 6 rats.  The live traps were not checked yesterday and I expect a skunk and a raccoon in them.

Bears Butt

March 6, 2014

P.M. REPORT

Club 41 is very disappointing…no rat sign and very little water.  I did follow the incoming channel and set 29 traps “just because”.  Bob came in and went to the end of the road and checked for sign, but decided not to set any traps…no sign…no rats.  I still have to go look around a few small areas to make sure there aren’t any rats that have filtered back in since last year, but I just might end up pulling the 29 traps and getting out of there…we will know more in a couple of days.

I pulled all 62 traps from Peterson’s today, and got quite wet in the process…my “new last year” boots from Frogg Toggs developed a crack in the top of the boot….This really PIssssssssssssssssess me off!

The traps at Peterson’s kicked out 5 rats…that was my catch for the day!

At the skinning shed Bob had tossed 4 rats on the floor…a nine rat day!  Well, nine is better than 8 and a whole lot better than none!

Bears Butt

Going into Peterson’s.

The weather today is supposed to be nice!  Highs in the mid 50’s and mostly sunny….different than yesterday and different then they are saying is coming our way tomorrow.  A perfect day to get some traps set.

My plan is to lay a little steel on Peterson’s in the small seep that Wapiti and I discovered last year.  There won’t be many rats in there, but any is better than none.  My goal at this time is to just catch the 3 I need to pay for the gas.

I’ll pull the remainder of the traps in the Bull Arena and prepare to hit Club 41 either this afternoon or tomorrow morning.  I was waiting for a call from Richard Nicholas informing me the neighbor was ok for me to move into his place, but I have not gotten that call…so I take that as either he didn’t get hold of him, or the neighbor didn’t want me in there…either way it’s ok, I have plenty of area to trap.

Bob on the other hand is probably going to get himself into trouble.  He is out of trapping areas and wants to move his traps from the interior of Pete’s to more productive areas and I don’t blame him one bit.  Checking “dead” traps in “dead” areas is not fun and he has a lot of traps in places just like that.  He should have moved them traps a week and a half ago, but he would not listen to me.

Speaking of listening to me, he mentioned taking some floats down to the Trellis and placing them in the pond areas down there.  I warned him NOT to drive his truck down the Trellis…first off the rats have undermined the road, secondly, the gravel that has been dumped in the washed out areas is soft and third, there is nowhere for him to turn around….it all points to getting stuck or worse…sliding into the water or off the embankment on the other side and rolling his truck.  Did he listen and heed my warning?

He also mentioned driving down toward the Goose Club and setting Big Spring….Again I cautioned him that the road to the Goose Club is a mess…always…this time of year and with yesterdays rain he would get stuck big time.  He could drive a little ways as long as he stopped before crossing the stream.  At least going that far would get him closer to the trapping area and he could at least have a “chance” to get turned around to drive out.  Again, did he listen to me?

While we are talking about Bob.  He has a tough time in his old age (75) crossing barbed wire fences and he puts himself into some “sticky” situations.  Well, in this case he has a float that he placed early last Fall “across the fence” and now that it is thawed out he needs to check it daily and put bait on it.

Last week, while in the skinning shed, I suggested he use the pieces of “swimming noodles” that I had cut for my really cool floating colony trap, that didn’t work.  We cut slits in them lengthwise and I said to put them over the barbed wire and cross using them to protect him from snagging up and tearing his boots.  He had a third one that a plumber had left after some plumbing work he had done recently.  So with those three pieces of foam stuff, he created a really cool fence crossing:

Now this is a case of “Using Your Noodle”!!!!  (put smiley face here)

What can I expect today?

7 rats on Peterson’s….no rats in Bull Arena….no raccoons or skunks.

Bears Butt

March 5, 2014

P.M. REPORT

Time went really fast today…I managed to get a few more traps set in Peterson’s to finish off the line there, but don’t expect to leave the traps there more than just over night…It’s time to move on!

After pulling the traps in the Arena, there was not enough time to set any traps on Club 41, so I decided to go to Logan and pick up my new computer.  Weasel gladly joined me.

I was surprised to only catch 5 rats on Peterson’s, but more surprised to catch one in the Bull Arena and even more surprised to catch one in Doris’ pond!  For a total catch of 7 rats.

Back home Bob came in with 11 rats!  Weasels luck it way down and he had nothing.

So an 18 rat day!  We will take it!

Bears Butt

Here we go again, it’s raining like crazy!   But what do you do?  Gotta go check the traps.

Besides getting wet, what do I expect to catch today?

Well, remember I have a skunk and a raccoon in live traps and all those traps need to be recharged with new bait.

Something unusual happened yesterday as well….I have made a deal with Maveryck that since I have to turn my rig around anyway in order to check the live traps, that I would stop at his house and walk back to the shed and check in the bucket for any rats he may have caught.  I will then leave him his money underneath the bucket.  Yesterday the bucket was gone…is that his way of telling me he has pulled his traps?  I’m not sure, so I will call him today.

OK, expectancy:  I set 48 traps on Peterson’s yesterday with very little sign…Usually I could expect about 24 rats from those traps, but with so little sign, I think I’ll be lucky to catch 15 rats…I’m also thinking the whole area may only have about 30 rats total.

Nicholas’ line, all 80 some traps, will only have 4 rats and Doris’ pond and the 13 traps I have there will have one rat.  20 rats for today.  No new raccoons or skunks.

Bears Butt

March 4, 2014

P.M. REPORT

I gave the rain a little thought before leaving home and ended up putting my hip boots on and then putting my rain pants over them…The idea for that was not to have the rain pants draining the rain down into my boots…it worked.  Out on the line, I put my rain jacket over my shirt and then put my second shirt over the rain jacket.  The second shirt soaked up the water and got very wet, but no water was allowed to drain down into my shoulder length gloves.  How smart am I?

So it rained and rained while I was checking the traps at Peterson’s and just about the time I was finishing checking those traps the rain stopped and it actually got warm and sunny!  I was pretty happy and I noticed the birds were chirping alot as well, so they were happy too.

While driving out to the trapping area, there is a turn in the highway and off to the side of the road is a big field with sheep in it.  As I approached the turn I noticed the sheep all bunched up and looking in one direction.  I stopped the car and studied the field.  Suddenly I saw movement about 200 yards out….a coyote!  He must have been harassing the sheep until I stopped.  It ran a little ways and then stopped.  I got out with my pistol, slammed the clip in it and walked to the fence.  After cocking it (semi-auto), I used a fence post and aimed about 10 feet over the coyote and fired a shot.  He took off running for about 100 yards and then stopped again.  I aimed 10 feet over its head and fired again.  That time the bullet must have been pretty close, because he took off with after-burners on and didn’t stop until he was on Club 41 property.

Back at trapping…Peterson’s was just as expected…poor…14 rats got caught and only three traps set off without a rat.

I made the short jaunt over to the 3rd seep and saw quite a bit of sign there.  But I need traps.  So, I made my mind up to pull some from the Bull Arena.

At the Arena, the first three traps held two rats…I thought…Am I going to experience a run here?  And so I continued to check traps.  At trap number eight I decided I would probably not catch any more rats and that I needed to pull some traps.

I went to pulling and pulled 32 traps.  I did not catch another rat until the third to the last trap on the line….a total of 3 rats.  I will pull the remainder of those traps tomorrow in preparation to set Club 41.

On to Doris’ pond, I had one trap set off with nothing in it…that means there is one more of them in the pond.  I’ll probably keep those traps there for two more days.  Unless of course I catch a rat there tomorrow.

Richard Nicholas came over to B.S. about how the trapping was going, especially over on his place.  I showed him my tally sheet…Day one = 23 rats, Day two = 17 rats, Day three = 9 rats, Day four = 3 rats and then told him I was going to pull the remainder of the traps tomorrow and he could move his bulls back in there whenever he wanted.

In our small talk, I mentioned shooting at that coyote and he said he had just come off the mountain to the West and had seen 3 coyotes up there.  I asked him why he didn’t have a rifle with him at all times and he said he never remembers to put it in the truck before he heads out there.

He said he couldn’t believe I had caught 11 rats out of Doris’ pond and asked where they might be coming from.  I told him that during the summer past, there were probably two different families come into the pond from down stream.  He said the owner of that adjacent property would probably give me permission to trap down in there and that he would call him and find out.  Then would call me.  I hope he does as the place looks like it could hold a few rats.  It’s not a big place, but then neither is Peterson’s.  So, if that comes about, I will set some traps in there tomorrow and plan on beginning to set Club 41 on Thursday or Friday.

When the rat trapping was done I made it over to Bull Run to dump out the skunk and raccoon that I shot yesterday.  No other critters were caught.  I loaded the raccoon up and brought it home.

Back home I saw where Bob had 7 rats laying on the skinning shed floor!  So it wasn’t too bad of a day of trapping, 24 rats and one raccoon to deal with tonight.  I have not heard from the Weasel.

In the trapping shed, Weasel came in with Cody with one rat!   Cody skinned a rat last night and insisted he skin his dads rat tonight!  YEA!  Congrats to Weasel and a big YEHAAAA to Cody!

25 Rat day!

Bears Butt

Here we go into week four!  I’m writing this tonight (Sunday) as tomorrow I have to get away as quickly as possible and get on to the trapping scene.

I will be making my lunch (bologna sandwich) tonight and filling my hydration pack with water.  I have this anxiety about the run and I think this is the last full week of trapping…not because of our time available, but because the rats will do their thing and then it will be over.

I talked to Mr. Peterson about his seeps and he said “Come On”!  Since I started trapping his place 3 years ago, his place is looking better and this summer he is planning on doing some excavating around the water ways.

Last year Wapiti and I took over 100 rats off his place and he was very happy for that.  I told him that by myself, this year, I would only be able to set about 80 traps and I did not expect to catch 100 rats.  Maybe between 60 and 75.  He didn’t care, just catch what I can catch.  A rat gone is a rat gone!

So, there is my green light.  I have the traps on the toy and loaded up…I will hit Peterson’s first and then check the traps on Nicholas’ and Doris’ pond after I get some steel laid out.  I figure it will take me two days to set Peterson’s and I’ll have to pull some traps from Nicholas’ to do it.

So, what do I expect to catch tomorrow?

Well, the original 54 traps Bob and I set on Nicholas’ place netted 24 on day one and 8 on day two, so they should kick out with 5 (two nights of sitting, Saturday and Sunday).  The 27 I set the day after Bob and I were out there produced 9, which was low because of the amount of rain we had.  So, I expect to see about 10 rats in those 27 traps…so Nicholas’ place should kick out 15 rats.  Doris’ pond has been a real surprise to me and I expect 2 rats from there….17 rats tomorrow.

Up on the high land where the live traps are set, I expect 2 raccoons.

More to come tomorrow!

Bears Butt

March 2, 2014 (this is for the a.m. story on the 3rd)

P.M. REPORT

A long day out in the field today…left town at 8:15, got back at 4:30.

I managed to set 48 traps on Peterson’s today.  Now in perspective, go back to last years story on setting Peterson’s…If my recollector recollects correctly, Wapiti and I each set 40 traps…Me in one seep and he in another.  And then we set about 15 or 18 traps at the third one.  Today I covered the two big seeps with 48 traps.

They have been doing some digging on his place and trying to reclaim the dam.  There is evidence that they had it dried up and the ground cracked like it always does when it goes from very wet to very dry.  You can see the cracks in the mud under the water.

So my take on it is that we hammered the rats last year with our catch of over 100 from Peterson’s and now there are very few rats left.  The sign is very scattered and sparse.  The water is less as well on both seeps.  I didn’t go over to the third area because I ran out of traps.

Well, once finished setting traps I went and checked the Bull Arena and Doris’ pond….The Bull Arena produced 9 rats….and that is after two days….Doris’ pond once again surprised me with 5 rats!  Go figure!

The Bull Arena with sign everywhere the day(s) I set traps and over 80 traps catches 9 rats and a small pond with 13 traps catches 5…..hmmmm

What I’m seeing a the Arena is that the rats that were there have been all but caught out.  I’ll leave them set for a couple of days more, but I think I have dented them pretty good…It’s time to think about Club 41!

So as a recap:  I caught 14 rats, 1 skunk and 1 raccoon

Bob caught 14 rats and Weasel snared his masked critter…one raccoon!  Way to go Weasel!

Bears Butt

It’s Sunday and our day off from the trap line and it is very much needed after yesterday.  If you read yesterdays story, I said I was in for a relaxing sort of a day…boy howdy was that ever wrong!  Pulling and checking traps in a downpour all day long was a real Bears Butt Kicker, I’ll tell you!

These boots won’t dry out for at least a week and I hope my gloves don’t take that long.  I have a backup pair of boots and my fingers are crossed that they won’t leak.  Tomorrow will tell on that.

So, we had a pretty good week number three and ended with 179 rats!  My 3 rat day didn’t help our cause, but all a guy can do is shrug his shoulders and say…”Oh Well”!

For you with calculators going on the numbers I’ll save you some time and tell you we now have 541 rats!  Just over half way to our goal of 1,000!  If this was a normal year for weather etc. I’d say we had a pretty good shot at making the goal, but I’ve got my doubts right now.  But we won’t stop until the rats stop!

The weather for the upcoming week looks like chances of rain almost daily, but those percentage chances are less than 50% in most cases.  Yesterday’s 90% really hammered me…I felt like Ziggy with that black cloud hanging over me all day.  So, the water table should go down and expose our traps.  When I left the line yesterday, there was nothing that could be done about most of the traps being under 3 inches of water.

Also, with the slickness of the road into the Bull Arena, I’ve already decided to park the rig on the side of the highway and drive the toy in to check the traps.  I feel very fortunate to have made it in and back out without sliding off the road and down into the mud flat.  The only thing that saved me from ending up down there were the deep ruts left by others who traveled that road when it was muddy.  By the way, I did thank God for getting me in and out of there.

I mentioned in last night PM report that I got to see some more Snow Geese, I have to share with you a couple more pictures I took of them.

In this picture you have to look closely, but there are literally hundreds of those birds out in that field.  And as I sat there looking at them, more were dropping in to land.  Then something made a bunch of them fly up and I got this picture.

I know as sure as I am sitting here right now the group of hunters across the road were hoping they would come their way.  I’ve watched those hunters try their best for 3 days out there and the birds are just one step ahead of them.  I have to grin!

Bears Butt

March 2, 2014

The Eagle has landed!  But this doesn’t look like the Space Rover…or does it?

Yesterday was a very long day on the trap line and today will seem like a relaxing day….at least that’s my anticipation.  Yes, there is a lot to do, but not the pressure I felt yesterday.

Today’s goals are to pull the traps on the Trellis line, 68 of them.  I don’t expect to catch many rats from there, maybe 3 at the most.  That line has died out and we did a number on the rats.  When you look at the big picture, until yesterday all the rats we have caught up until then have come off of Pete’s place…450 of them and still counting.  The rats Bob will take for the rest of the trapping season will also come from Pete’s.  My lines will take me off of Pete’s and onto other places.

We have talked and with the swelling of the musk glands and the warmness of the weather, we feel the run is about to over take us.  With that will come the end of the trapping season.  When the run happens, we catch a ton of rats in a hurry and then….nothing…..That is just the way it is.

Changing subjects a little:  I was curious to see what the rats looked like on Nicholas’s place…it’s a small seep from it’s beginning to the end and has been for centuries.  The rats there are all inbred for those many years.  So, will the rats be small or large?  That was my question.  When I pulled the first rat out yesterday I was pleasantly surprised to find it a GIANT!  And so it was with the rest of the rats I caught…the smallest was a Large and one from the mix stretched just slightly larger than 17 1/2 inches and pristine as they come…no bite marks.

I don’t plan on setting any traps today and if you look at the count, I now have over 150 traps out.  One would think I could catch 75 rats right?  Not so.

Today is Saturday, the end of week 3 of trapping.  It was windy and rainy last night and still is today.  90% chance of rain and up to 1/2 inch expected.  What will my line net me?

3 from the Trellis, 10 from the 54 traps I set two days ago on Nicholas’s, 10 from the 27 I set yesterday on Nicholas’s and one from the 13 traps I set at Doris’ pond…24 rats today.  Because of the rain and wind I don’t expect to catch any raccoons or skunks.

Bears Butt

March 1, 2014

P.M. REPORT

Oh my heck!  What a rain storm!  I got so wet I could hardly move!  I put on all my rain gear and braved it out…I did get my traps pulled from the Trellis  and to my very much surprised face…I caught 9 rats!  Almost like a mini-run!

Then 0ff to the Promontory Mountain to check the real line.

The rain was pelting down so hard I could hardly see the road.  Crazy rain!

I pulled into the dirt road and started to spin immediately.  I put it into auto 4 wheel drive and barely made it up a slight incline to some ground with grass and solid footing.  The old truck and trailer barely made it.

I got out and prepared myself for “rain”….I put on all my rain stuff…rain pants, rain coat, rain hat, rain glasses, rain boots, rain gloves, rain happy face…did I say it was raining?

Then I took a deep breath and said to myself…well Butt, you’re here, you might as well go check some traps.  It was raining so hard by now I wasn’t sure the toy would even start and when it did, I ventured toward where I knew the first trap was.  What an adventure.  When it was over, I had my left boot half full of water, my right foot was wet and sloshy, but I did manage to catch 17 rats!  With my hat dripping water and my clothes soaking wet I made it back to the truck and fired the muthu up.  I was freezing!

Over to Doris’ pond, I caught 5 rats!!!  FIVE! Crazy huh?

Heading home I called Weasel to find out if his schedule would allow him to skin rats earlier than 5:30, so that maybe, just maybe we could have an evening with our spouses…He could…At home we started skinning our rats and put up rats from yesterday until about 6:30…perfect!

So the catch for the day!  Me 31, Bob 9, Weasel 1…41 rat day!

And look at this!

Too bad the hunters were on the other side of the road!  HAHAHAHAHA!

Bears Butt