The swamp was hard on this old body yesterday.  I came away as if I had worked a full day on the farm, maybe even worse.  At archery last night I was so sore, I was exercising between ends.  When I got home and settled back into the big chair/couch with a cold one, I could barely get out of it to go to bed.

I slept really well until about 3 a.m. and then the soreness kept me awake until the alarm time of 7.  oooooooooooooooo.

So, here I sit with back aching, sore legs, shoulders letting me know they are there and the thoughts of 44 traps loaded up with muskrats!  During the night (early morning) my dilerium dreams showed raccoons chewing away on the 44 rats, having the time of their lives.  In a couple of hours I will know just how true that dream was.

Goal for the day (raccoon eaten or not), I expect to catch 18 rats and I need to set another 20 traps or so.  There is a new area that I believe is open to trap (open meaning no ice) and I can see two pretty good sized rat houses out in it.  How I am to access it is still to be determined.  I’m too lazy to just hike across country to get to them.  I’ll see about setting traps near them.

More updates to come.

Bears Butt

February 10, 2015

UPDATE:

Left the trapping area at 2 p.m. today, my butt is REALLY KICKED right now!

When I started checking traps, I had decided that if a raccoon had gotten a trap, I would pull the trap.  They remember where they got a free meal and would be back tonight to do it again and with them pulling and tugging on the stake, eventually they get it loose and take off with rat, trap and all.  No sense increasing the amount of loss, with rats about $5 and conibear traps about $10.

Well, my first trap had a chewed up rat it in…I pulled it.  Trap 2 had a chewed up rat in it…I pulled it.  Trap 3, same thing….Trap 4, ditto!  This is not looking good.  As I drove the 4 wheeler down to the stopping point to check the next three traps I was thinking I might as well pull the entire line, but then trap 5 and 6 both had good clean rats.  There is hope afterall.

Well, I didn’t pull any more traps, but as I encountered chewed up rats I put the trap in a place different than where they found the rat.  This is crazy.  And I went for about 20 traps before I came across one that was not at least set off.  I was amazed at how many rats I had caught up to that point.

How is this for a catch out of an 11 trap string?::::

When it was over I had 24 good rats, one rat that might be salvageable and 8 others that the raccoons had chewed beyond use.  That is 33 rats!!!!  Out of 44 traps!  Amazing percentage.

Well, I went to setting some more and managed to set 13 more traps.  So with the loss of 4, I net gained 9 traps, for a total of 53 now out.  Tomorrow the catch rate will only be about half what it was today, but that is normal.  I’m also going to set out 4 live traps up at the head of the spring where I pulled the 4 traps.  I need to thin out the “herd of raccoons”.  Besides, Brek is in the business of catching and skinning raccoons so I’ll help him out.

Back home, Weasel and Brek helped skin the pile and we were done in less than an hour.  Brek timed himself on skinning a rat and it only took him 40 seconds!  Amazing.  It takes me at least 2 minutes.

Tonight I have to go to the archery range and put up another score for the league.  The rest of my week is pretty much booked.

Butt