March 2, P.M. report…I think I need a secretary.  My butt is kicked.

Today, Shipley went on the trap line with me to see just what trapping muskrats is all about.  He arrived right on time, about 9 a.m. and we loaded his stuff in the “two weeks into trapping” rig…

I guess I should explain that one.  Once a person starts a trapping season, the rig he is driving, riding, using, “whatever” does not get cleaned until the season is over.  Be it spilled soda, beer, muskrat innards or whatever happens inside the rig, stays there until the season is over….usually 5 weeks.

I made sure there was enough space inside for him and his gear and off we went.  The cooler (without the lid) in the back filled with yesterdays fur less rat bodies.  I had to stop at the local Maverik for some gas before we seriously headed west.  He had to go into the store for some reason….?????…….

On our way I tried to explain some of my trapping experiences with him and some of the quirks about trapping rats…he was cordial and listened intently (maybe he was asleep)…and when we finally got to our destination of first departure on the toy, he sputtered and asked, “why are we stopping here?”…hmmmmm.

So now he is really excited to finally get to go trapping.  I knew first hand that these first two lines would have either nothing or perhaps one or two rats.  But that is trapping right.  Out on the line he was full of questions and of course I had answers…Answers to questions about trapping from a novice like me are easy…I just make stuff up.  Shipley, not knowing, believed everything I told him (I think).

So once we were done with the two “stupid” trap lines we headed up to the Trellis.  No rats were in the bag at this point…just as I figured.  Shipley said he wanted to make a short video about catching rats and send it to his kids and others and my heart jumped a beat.  Why didn’t he say that in the beginning, I could have saved us a lot of time for that one.

We get to the Trellis line and head out in hopes of finding that first rat of the day…my hopes were high for a couple of the first traps, but nothing was held in them…neither were they set off…my mouth was in a downward trend, but my hopes were high.

The thought of Shipley wanting to film me catching a rat had my hopes really high, you should know by now just how much of a ham I really am, but the traps just kept coming up empty.  I have done too good a job at catching the rats on the Trellis line I guess.  And then it happened….at a feed set, suddenly I could see a caught rat, still alive and looking our way…YES!  A rat!

I worked my way over to the set with Shipley gingerly in tow…not actually in tow, but behind me trying to manage the clumps of toolies and nice footing areas and not the deeper water that would cause his boot to suddenly fill with the cold water of Spring.  We finally make it over to the double feed mound set and I see the alive rat in one trap and the other trap filled with a rat that was normal (drowned and dead).  I have to dispatch this rat the usual way  but remind Shipley that perhaps a video showing that would not be  something a family show would like to see.  My real intent of my suggesting that was to “remind him” of his intention to take a video (put a smiley face here).

I dispatched the rat and took care of business with the other and rebuilt the feed mound setting the two rats carefully in the foreground as I baited the set and re-set the traps…he videoed…I don’t have the footage, perhaps he will interject with his own story at this point or another posting.  At any rate, he showed me the video later…and boy howdy…”Do I Look Good”!!!!

On we went and trap after trap held rats…I was beside him and myself as we harvested four rats total from the Trellis line.  I also showed him some of the damage that rats can cause, including undermining the road way and causing it to collapse.  Not a good scene for the owner of the property and roadway.  Rats are cute as little bugs until they either bite your finger nearly off or dig up your road and not allow you to go where you need to go.  They have not heard of, nor would they listen to the verbiage “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you”!!!!

Rats are cute, nice to look at, make nice coats and need to be dead.  End of story.

With the Trellis line checked, we head back to the waiting truck and Bob is arriving at the same time.  We go to chat.

Bob has fallen into a deep spot on his trap line!!!!!  Not so deep as to get to his tracheotomy voice box thingy, but deep enough to fill both boots with mud and water and show clearly the depth of the water up on his chest…he ain’t real happy.  Since this is a family site, I can not tell you exactly how he told us about his ordeal at the spot he fell…I weren’t real pritty.

We B.S.ed a bit (we seem to do that a lot at this spot) and then went on our way.  Bob to go home and dry out and clean up and us up to Bull Run to catch more rats (we hope).

So now we have 4 rats in the bag and we arrive at Bull Run.  To my surprise Shipley never asked how it got it’s name, and I never told him.  We unloaded the toy and launched ourselves in the direction of “more rats”…four rats is not a bad days catch and I did not expect to catch but a few more.  On we went.

At the very first trap checking station (4 traps) one of them was missing.  OH NO!  A rat must have been caught in the trap…along came a raccoon…saw the rat…said…AH HA…grabbed it and the trap and the stake and took off.  We looked all around for 50 yards in all directions to no avail…nothing.  Lost trap, lost rat…I’m not a happy guy (not as unhappy as Bob at this point but still unhappy).  We continue down the line checking traps.  At one point Shipley has had about all he can stand with trapping and falls back into his “teacher” mode.  He is a professional teacher by trade and has taught children for umpteen years about English, Math, Science and Common Sense stuff.  I think his main goal is to expand his teaching to include lots of other forms of life.  Edjukateer is like Shipley in a lot of ways, only not as “civily taught”, Edjukateer don’t got no degrees, where Shipley has lots of degrees.

Shipley has been intrigued as he tries to show these rats the right and the wrong way to approach and get around a locked and loaded trap:

He is trying his best to show these rats the angles of the dangles in order to avoid being caught…..In my mind he has picked a select number of students who either don’t give a dang, or have gone somewhere else mentally for their education.

Shipley was fun to be with today..he even held a couple of rats up for the camera…OOOOOOOOOOO…SOOOOO GRROOOOOSSSSSEEEEEE!

No not really.  He is a trapper at heart, he just hasn’t had the opportunity to show his expertise!

So as one trapper to another, when you catch a bunch of fish or catch a bunch of whatever you are after and you are pretty happy about it, and suddenly you find yourself caught up  in the event…maybe even caught the bug of the sport…you find yourself “hooked” sort of on what you have been doing…you might as well join the ones you have hooked.

Thanks for joining me today Shipley…it was fun and I’m glad the rats decided to play as well.  We ended up with 16 in the bag, with 12 of them coming from the Bull Run line alone.  We lost two rats to raccoons today and one trap as well to them little buggers.  That bites into the profit margin for the day, but goes to show us all that even though we catch a few, there are always those that get away.

I’m taking tomorrow (Sunday) off to catch up on “sleep”, “chores”, “general stuff” and will be back at it on Monday…care to join me on Monday?

Lots of good plans for next week and if you look closely at the calendar (as quickly as the calendar rockets on), there isn’t much time left for us to trap.  I still have to finish my trapping on the Big Spring and Little Spring lines as well as Bull Run, before I head off to Club 41, Bull Arena and Johnson place….I love trapping, hate snow right now and PLEASE don’t stop me and make me plow snow.

Bears Butt

March 2, 2013