Today is Presidents Day and what that means the most to me is the kids are out of school!  YEEAAAA!  At least that is what they are saying.  But bigger than that is the fact that I’ve been trying to figure out a day that Kenzie could go trapping with me.  She asked me about two weeks ago, just after I started trapping this year, when I was going to let her go out trapping with me.  Well, today is the day.  It wasn’t decided until last night, but she jumped on the chance when I asked her.

She has no clue where in the world this trapping place is and so she will learn a thing or two about the geographics of the area around us, to include Stinky Springs and Connor Springs, just to name two.

I am in hopes that she gets to see a trapped raccoon as well.

OK, what are my expected catches for today, after two days of sitting out?  Well, the nine floats I put out each have two traps on them.  I do expect to catch a rat in each of those traps.  There is 18 rats.  The 8 other traps I set should yield the typical 50%…so add another 4 rats.  The traps at Fish Springs have been paying off really well, but I’m catching rats faster there than expected and so I do expect there not to be too much out of those 18 traps…let’s say 6 from there.  That leaves that raccoon infested Bull Run and even though I have already caught a record number of rats from there, I should get 6 or 7 good rats…I’ll gamble with 7.  There you have it, 18 + 4 + 6 + 7 = 35………..That is saying alot!  And then if Bob catches is usual 10 or so, we are going to be in the skinning shed a looonnnnggggg time tonight.

Bears Butt

February 16, 2015

UPDATE:

Boy Howdy was I up in the night when it comes to catching rats!  When Kenzie and I got to the floats……There wasn’t any water!!!!!

Craig had me pull one of the boards that blocked one of two pipes and almost all the water drained out from where it was backed up!  My floats were high and dry and one was even about waste high when I went out to pull it back to find another place for it.  We ended up re-setting them in water that is flowing here and there, but I also am going to swag a bunch of traps out while the water is down.  I should catch a lot of rats before Craig decides the board needs to go back in.  They have moved all their cattle from that side of the road and so his attention should be elsewhere, and that should give me time to catch a bunch of rats.  Those rats will be all confused about where the water went and should be looking to plug the hole!  Mini beavers you know!

So, where I had been figuring 18 rats, we caught 3!  With the way things were, I feel very lucky to have caught 3.

So, on to the rest of the lines and things were looking bleak down on Fish Springs.  Nothing in the first 9 traps and then we picked up 4 rats in the last 9 traps!  YEA!  Coming back toward the truck and with 8 traps out, we caught 4 more for a total of 11 rats.  Then on over to Bull Run.

I told Kenzie where the live traps were and asked her to go check them while I loaded up the toy with two more live traps.  She went that direction but when she saw rat carcasses scattered all around it sort of freaked her out a bit and she spent some time talking to herself.  She did say, as I approached, there was something furry in one of the traps but that she thought it was a cat.  I reassured her it if was a cat I would let it go unharmed.  Turns out it was a raccoon….FINALLY!  She didn’t want to see the results of a 22 flying through its head and opted to go back to the truck….fine by me.

So we went on our way to check Bull Run….final result….6 good rats and 5 more lost to those miserable raccoons!  I did set two more live traps and skinned the two rats to bait them up while out there in the swamp.

Things are looking slim on Bull Run now.  Very little to no sign and it is wasting my time to check it any longer.  I’m going to pull the traps there but will leave the live traps to catch coons.  It will be worth the stop to unload the toy and check them if I can catch a bunch more raccoons.  I hate raccoons about as much as I hate moving snow or dealing with bulls.

Back home, Bob had gone out trapping yesterday and brought 6 rats back, today he had 5 more to add to the collection!

Kenzie, bless her heart, wanted to skin a muskrat and came up to the skinning shed and did just that!  With a little instruction, she had number one rat skinned in a relatively short time and she did a perfect job!  Nose, Whiskers, Eyes and Ears!  Then she put another one in her lap and did that one just as good!  She earned herself an easy $1 for doing those two rats!  Good Job Kenzie!

Bears Butt

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

An update as to our beaver issue.  We have been very busy with the hay, but that doesn’t mean the beaver has been standing by watching.  Nope!  He has been his regular busy little self.  Last week we thought he was done in for sure as the land owner next to our field shot him 3 times with his 12 gauge shotgun.  Bob watched as the beaver rolled and flipped after each shot.  Well, as of even last night, he had re-built his mess over the spillway where we take water to irrigate the fields.  I was there at about 10 p.m. and cleaned off the spillway.  I also shined my headlamp across the pond hoping to see his little beaver eyes, but nothing.

Meanwhile, there are traps set in one of the ditches as well as the creek.  We have caught 5 raccoons but no beaver.  One of the traps had a big wad of grass stuck in it, so that was a close one for Mr. Beav.  Last night Bob had a raccoon in a trap that had died and Mr. Beav used its carcass and the trap as part of his new dam!  Beavers don’t care.

So, are we dealing with more than one beaver?  We think, yes.

The beaver activity is getting to be an all year event so far and it’s our feeling that they are getting more active right now as they are running out of time to get their dams built and a food supply stashed under the deep water before winter sets in.  Even though our day time highs are near 100 degrees, the little beavers know it won’t be long before the waters freeze.  It’s a bad thing that the beavers in the bay were treated so good after the discovery of the fuel line spill last year.  Little Beaver Heros…..They would have been taken care of real good for a lot less money if I would have been in charge of it.

Bears Butt

July 27, 2014

No time to do anything other than check the beaver traps yesterday as we were busy with the hay for the season.  But a quick look revealed one jump trap set off below the snare and the snare was again tripped.  The two coni bear traps below the snare set were untouched.  However, when Bob went down by the railroad tracks the two traps down there were gone!  Including the big log that they were tied to.  He didn’t have his hip boots and so as he searched around he could see the big log stuck inside the pipe down stream and when he ventured that direction he could clearly see a rear leg of a beaver in one of the traps sticking out the end of the pipe.  He had chewed it off.

There is little doubt that he continued downstream and ended up in Willard Bay.  I don’t think we will be bothered with that beaver ever again.  However, we also know there is still a beaver in Neff’s pond because as I went down to get ready for the hay early in the morning, I saw the large ripples moving out from the bank which were caused by a fairly large animal jumping in off the shore.

The drama continues!

Bears Butt

July 20, 2014

UPDATE:

We just came up from resetting the beaver traps and Tracker removed the foot from the trap down by the Railroad….it was a raccoon foot….not a beaver foot!  So, the title of this should read…Another Raccoon tagged!

Bears Butt

Hey!  Do you see what I see?  Ya, a trap!

The beaver has been back for a few weeks AGAIN and we thought we had him pegged.  Unfortunately, Weasel’s shot must have only discouraged it for a week or so because it came back and almost flooded out Neff’s pond and ultimately our field.  Luckily, I went down there and was able to dislodge the beavers plug before too much water came over the bank and washed out the dam.  Since then it’s been an everyday ordeal to try and put that bad boy in his grave.  There are three of us attempting to trap him, while everyone who goes down to the field is “carrying”.  Without a gun, I had it within 20 feet of me.

Since all the hardware has been set, we have only caught one raccoon, but the beaver has set off one conibear twice and used it in his small dam as filler.  I have had a snare tripped twice and Bob has had his jump traps buried in moss and then set off twice in another location.  We think the second location is the results of raccoons.

So, here we go on week number 3 of trying to catch that little guy.  We are pretty sure we are dealing with only one beaver.  Oh and the third party trying their hand at catching it, is Tracker.  He is armed with a very wide and not so tall conibear trap.

Today we moved two of Bob’s traps down next to my snare.  Those were the ones under the moss.  A moved trap gathers no moss.

Wish us all the luck in the world because if that bad boy washes out Neff’s pond it’s going to make one heck of a big old mess of the farm.

And for all you concerned citizens, we have an official OKie-Dokie from the State Fish and Game to catch this little S.O.B.

Bears Butt

July 17, 2014

This was the scene this morning down on the farm.  The Beaver had rebuilt his rebuilt, rebuilt, rebuilt, rebuilt dam once again.  It is obvious by the size (only 1/3 the height of pipe) and would be back to finish the job tonight.  However, I dismantled this bad boy and got the water level down to a manageable stream again.

I made two more calls to the DWR and finally got hold of the person I needed to for a permit to trap him!  He’s MINE!

I’ll try it for a couple of days and if I don’t have success, I’ll turn the job over to Bones.  She has a trap that catches beavers overnight.

Wish me luck!  Remember the beavers of the past have all kicked my butt!

Bears Butt

June 9, 2014

Well folks the auction is over for our Muskrats and Raccoons.  What a trip!

I can’t tell you everything about it, but I can tell you this!  More than 24% of our rats went for over $10!  That was a nice surprise and the top price paid to us was $14!  We’ll take it!

We learned quite a bit about the auction process and are going to do it again next year.  We have made some quick assessments of this years auction and one of them is that we need to be a little less “expecting” when it comes to the bottom line.  Listening to the live broadcast today the auctioneer pounded out the numbers and the gavel.  There were strings of rats that got broken up because of buyers not wanting all the lots within the string.  I didn’t think that could happen, it was my understanding that the bid on the whole string….but what do I know?  Nothing.  It was very interesting to listen to and the dialogue between the buyers, the auctioneer and the main man calling the shots as to a sale or no sale was fun to hear.  We even had some of our rats not sell.  Raccoons too.

We also concluded that because they had nearly 4 1/2 million mink that sold at this auction and only 250,000 or so muskrats that the mismatch or inequity of the balances caused the prices paid for rats to be down from what we figured they would be.  We also didn’t know until just recently that the weather in both China and Russia was warmer than usual.  You wouldn’t think that would drive the market price for furs, but it apparently does.  It was the same with this auction and with every line of furs so far sold.  What will Lynx Cat sell for tomorrow?  They have been getting good prices in the $500 plus range for years, will it hit that at this auction?  I highly doubt it.

So, we have learned something and are very glad we aren’t the buyers of the skins we sold.  We made quite a bit of money and we don’t have to hit the bar and cry in our beers because we bought rats for too high a price and then just got ripped at the auction.  The price you pay for getting greedy.

Bears Butt

May 19, 2014

Heeeaaaaaa!  Heeeaaaaa!  Gottagoodonehere, waddaya gonna giv fer it?  One!  Gottta one, gimme two, gotta one gimme two!   Gotta two gimme twoanahalf, gotta two gimme twoanahalf now!  Gotta twoanahalf now gimme three!

I thought it would a a good learning experience for you folks to see just what we have at the rat auction in Canada going on.  I logged into our account and downloaded our graded rat listing.  Remember that we graded our own rats and were trying to be as tough as we could on it.  Our thoughts were to be hard on ourselves and then see just what they came up with at auction.  Well, here is how the grading went:

OurRatGrades

(Hopefully you can see the pdf document)

I then took our grade list and compared it to their, just in the size departments and then by damage.  In the 3XL-XXL our grade was only 8 hides in the XXL and none in the 3XL, where as they graded us with 22 rats in that bracket!  Up 14 from our grading.  In the XL bracket we counted ourselves as having 119, the auction house gave us 157!  Up 38 rats.  That tells me we were quite hard on ourselves.  And then I got to the Large size, where we had ourselves looking at 504 rats….the auction house banged us with 351, down 153 hides.  But then 52 of them were graded Bigger than we had figured, and 82 were graded smaller.  ERROR ERROR….52 were graded larger, while 101 were graded smaller and even though you can’t see it because it’s on a page number 2, they put 62 of those smaller sized hides in with the 84 medium sized ones we had graded.  I feel pretty good about our grading as compared to theirs, but it’s obvious we need to do more of this grading stuff to get a better handle on it.

As we understand the process, they received our rats (733), documented the receipt and assigned the whole batch to my account number.  Then they carefully went through and graded each pelt by size, grade and anything else that was special with the hides.  With over 200,000 muskrats to deal with you know they didn’t take a whole lot of time grading them.  But, then each rat was classified in specific groups, some only one rat was put into that group, others 2 or more.  The most rats we have in any one group is 107.  Each of the classified groups is then called a “Lot”.  And that is what you are seeing in this first file.  Our rats broken out into “lots”.

If you are interested in some of the grading classifications here is what they look for:

Grading

So, a GDFL grade means, “Good, Well furred, Solid, Heavy, Supple feel fur that was caught in the Fall of the year”.  It’s my understanding that the desire is to have all Good Quality and very large at the same time.  But we all know that can’t happen.

Ok, once everyone has had their furs graded and put into lots, they take all the common lots from all the shippers and group them together into what they call “Strings”.  So, we are not the only ones with these lot numbers.

Here is that listing:

StringNumbers

Looking at our lot number 481610, we have 2 hides in that lot, but in the string there are 1600 rats classified as 3XL-XXL I-II and graded GDFL.

What does it all mean?  Well, I’m just going to have to guess.  When Lot number 481610 comes up before the bidding audience, they are going to start waiving their signs and the auctioneer is going to be sounding out the dollar figures and at some point in all the confusion the gavel will fall and the last one with his bidder number in the air is going to buy all 1600 rats for whatever the last dollar figure was called out.  If they go for $5 each, well we will get $10 for our two rats,  minus the commission for the auction house (9%).

Let’s look closer at the lot number and grading of our rats.  Notice the Asterisk (*) on some of them.  I wrote to the auction house and asked them what that meant:  Their reply, and I’ll type it like they wrote me back:

“We have a wild fur label “NAFA Northern” as part of our promotional program.  It is a quality designation and the only skins that qualify for the label are SEL and I quality skins.  These are indicated by the asterisk (*)”.

I take that to mean those furs are “something special” and when you calculate all the furs with the asterisk in our batch, we have 339 in that category!  That’s 46% of our furs!  Tell me the extra care in drying and the combing didn’t pay off!

May the gavel fall on a high price!

Bears Butt

May 16, 2014

Well folks, remember these days?  With all that is going on I had to get my head into something else.  Not that the stuff going on is a bad thing, it’s a necessary thing, but I can only take so much of it and had to have a diversion.

So I went to the North American Fur Auction web site and logged into my account!  YEA!  They have our furs and better than that they have graded them and posted up my information on the site!

This being all new to me, I looked over all the line items listed and it looks like they lost 6 of our rats….RATS!  So, we will only get paid for 727…if anyone buys them.  I suppose that is perfectly acceptable since they have over 200,000 rats to deal with in this auction and they grade every one of them….how would you like to have that job?  Not me!

Just a quick glance at our listing of grades, it looks like we have 2 hides in the 3XL-XXL that have *SEL next to them….SEL, by there definition is SELECT–Winter or Early Spring skins with Good Weight, Clean Leather No blemishes or imperfections!  (Those are some I caught)….hahahahaha!

Also looking down the list most of our hides are graded GD (Well furred, solid, heavy supple feel–There you go Weasel!  Great job!), which is above their AV (Well furred but not as heavy as GD) grade.

Of course since I’m a novice at all of this, they tossed in a few symbols that aren’t on their list of grades.  Why not…..keep us in the dark some.

Over all however, I’m very pleased with the report!

Monday is the sale for the rats and I’m keeping my fingers crossed as to how the sale goes.

They also listed (and I printed out) the totals for each category….one in particular (I don’t know what *SEL means but I’m going to assume the * means special and pay more guys and the SEL means Select)  So we have 2 in the 3XL-XXL *SEL category and totally there are 1404 of them in the auction.  Let’s hope they go for $50 each!  Hurt me!

I’ll let you know more as I gleen the info from all of this paperwork and let you know what I’m finding out!

Happy Auction time folks!

Bears Butt

May 14, 2014

Well it looks like Bob is just about finished with his part of the cleanup of the trapping stuff.  He announced yesterday that he was putting the “fixed” traps into bags and putting them away until next trapping season.  That pretty much wraps up what has to be done with the “end of the line” trapping.  Each season takes its toll on the gear needed to do the trapping including the chains, chain loops, dogs, triggers, springs and everything else that deals with it.

Bob also purchased an additional 36 traps to add to his arsenal and so they had to be tagged with his trapper number, cleaned up, adjusted and made ready for the next season.  New traps are always a chore as most don’t come ready to use.  There are always some adjusting that needs to be done to get them to lay flat, which means bending the main body of the trap, or the dog mounting bracket.  A trap that doesn’t lay flat is one that most animals won’t get caught in.  A little trick that trappers figure out over time.

Last week “our guy” called Bob about the rats and Bob informed him that we had sent them off to auction, I think I told you that, but he called again after that to tell Bob he was prepared to give us $10 something (Bob couldn’t remember what the something was) for our rats.  When Bob told me that I laughed.  And said that if he was prepared to offer over $10 for our rats that we must be in for a real treat at auction.  There is no way in heck he would give us $10, if he wasn’t expecting to get $13 or more.  We will see.

So, now it’s just waiting for the auction time…May 14!

Bears Butt

April 11, 2014