This picture is from the other day, I had set 18 traps out on Fish Springs and when I checked them the next day, I had 15 rats and two other traps set off with nothing in them.  Only one of the 18 traps was untouched!  A great line of traps.

I wasn’t afforded time yesterday to post up anything and so I’ll try and make up for it today.

The trapping went fine yesterday.  I got a fairly early start (9:30 a.m.) with is early for a Valentine Day.  Winemaker is a very understanding wife.  Rather than insist I stick around an be with her for the day, she let me go out and find my “Muskrat Love”!  Having taken off the day before  to go to the big city with her I knew my line would be compromised by raccoon damage and boy howdy was I right.

First off I had to get out to “The Trellis” line to set the floats that Bob made last summer.  There was an article in one of the Fur-Fish-And Game magazines that showed how one guy had made some light weight floats that he used on his line.  Bob picked up on that idea and fashioned some of his own.  Then he bagged them in sets of 3 floats and all the parts needed to make them work.  I loaded up the toy for the trip out on the Trellis line.

I’m so very thankful to have this machine to carry my gear.  So with 9 floats loaded, off I went down the line.

Arriving at my first float set destination I decided it might be a very rewarding thing to post up here some pictures of how the floats look and how they go together.  Besides, pictures are worth a 1000 words and you guys get tired of reading my stuff anyway.

So, the parts include the float itself, two stop loss traps and a stake.

Bob made cutouts for the traps to set down a little into the float and it helps stabilize the trap.  He also put “quick links” on the side of the float to attach the trap chain.  This really helps to quickly attach the trap and also, to disconnect the trap should it break and need replacing.

While on dry ground I assembled one of the floats.

Well, that looks really good.  The objective is for the rat to climb on top of the float to rest or to eat and we have found that a swimming rat has a very tough time not climbing on top of something floating in the water.  We bait our float sets with “anise oil carrot pieces”.  The licorice sent of the anise oil seems to attract the rats quicker than just plain old carrot.  I’m experimenting with different flavors this year and yesterday I put out the typical anise oil and also “banana flavored” carrots.  I alternated the float sets, one with anise the next with banana.  Tomorrow when I check the traps I’ll make note of which seemed to work best.

So, this float looks good on dry ground, how about in the water?

This particular set is in water that is almost waste deep and in my effort to get it in place for this picture, I was inching my way out making sure I was on pretty solid footing when suddenly I stepping in one of the dreaded under water rat runs and without warning I found myself in water over my belt!  If falling through the ice makes you suddenly forget your senses, so does filling your boots with ice cold water!  Back to the float.

Floats will work just like Bob made them, but they work better if you put some mud and other water plants on them as an additional attractant for the rat.  Rats build their own resting places out in the swamp and a good trapper will always place a trap on top of those spots and so to make these floats look a bit more natural it is important to add material that the rats are used to seeing.  Then lace it up good with carrot chunks and there you have a nice little rat rest stop.  The object is to catch them and when they find themselves held firmly in a trap, they jump off the float and the weight of the trap takes them down to a watery grave.  They can only fight the weight of the trap so long before they can’t keep their heads above water.  (Much like we are with our current tax structure.  I wish someone in power would enact a 10% flat tax across the board).

So, with boots filled with water and my butt totally soaked and cold, I waded back to the toy to get the next float.  I set all nine of them and then along came one of the land owners with his son and another young cowboy on horses.  They laughed when they saw how wet I was and I was pulling off my boots to dump them out.  Then he told me to “pull a board” from in front of one of the drain pipes and lower the water level.  I joked with him saying I’ll pull both boards!  He yelled at me as they rode off to only pull one board.  Well, that will help lower the water level quite a bit and maybe I’ll be able to set more traps than just the floats.  I’ll decide that tomorrow.

Well, with the floats out, I headed down to Fish Springs to check those traps.

Life was good to me and I pulled 12 rats from those 18 traps.  Coming back toward the rig, I decided to set a couple more traps and ended up setting 8.  Add those to the 18 on the floats and I managed to add 26 traps to my arsenal.

Then over to Bull Run.  I had dreamed that all four of the live traps had an animal caught but when I checked them….nothing!  And yet, between the traps is the trail the raccoons are using to enter the swamp.  Not one of the rat bodies scattered around the ground was touched.  I don’t get it.

When I went down the line checking those traps I was not a happy guy.  I did manage to bring out 10 good rats, but I also lost 11 and a trap to raccoons!   Bull Run has been quite a surprise this year with the total number of rats it is kicking out.  Bob gave me two more live traps to work with and I’ll put them down the line at Bull Run.  I sure would like to know how to get rid of those raccoons.

It’s nice to have today off to allow my boots to dry.  One is pretty good right now, but the other is still really wet.  I’ll be putting the hair blower in it when I get through writing this.  I also need to make up another few batches of carrots.  I’m going to try peppermint as well as the other two.

Bears But

February 15, 2015