WOW!  My behind is kicked!  I can’t believe how out of shape I am!  And all along I thought I was doing pretty dang good.

I stopped at Pete’s place and looked over the pond.  Very little sign, but what was there I set.  I placed two colony traps in two deep runs and that should just about take care of all the rats there.  I did set 3 other connie bear traps just because.  I’m guessing 10 rats at the most are living there.  We will see and it should not take more than 3 days to find out.

From there I moved down to Bull Run and looked it over from the roadway while I ate a bologna sandwich…mmmmmm…Bologna!  As I sat there I could see all of Pete’s bulls are out in that area….YUK!  I have decided that since bulls are a phobia of mine, I need to address them right up front.  I really am afraid of them, but I still need to trap this area.  18 bulls is what I counted today and I think that is all of them.  One red one…what’s so significant about a red one?  I REALLY DON’T LIKE RED ONES!  Red ones are what bad dreams are made of.  So as I sat there enjoying my sandwich I made my mind up to just go ahead and set the traps in there and deal with them.  Pete has said many times, “They won’t bother you, heck we have a tough time rounding them up, they just go away from us”.  Well I’m about to see if that is true.  I bit the bullet today, loaded up the toy and opened the gate…drove in and set 18 traps.  That is just the beginning of setting this area as I usually have close to 100 traps before I reach the end of it.  Normally the end is where the gate is that holds the bulls on the other side of the fence…not so now…they don’t have the gate closed down there, so I might as well trap the entire length of the the drainage.  Unless of course a bull takes me to lunch, at which time someone else will have to pull the traps.  I’m making a very good detailed map so someone can come behind me and gather all the traps up should my worst nightmare happen.

So, 23 traps set today!  The sign on Bull Run was unbelievable!  Rat crap on almost every bump along the main stream!  Tons of holes coming out from the banks on both sides!  It was really easy to set those 18 traps.  I expect the rest of the run will continue to show the same kind of sign all the way to the end, or at least to where the ice is still covering everything up.

I saw very little raccoon sign as well, which is good, but I’m prepared to take care of those pesky guys when I find sign of them…I have snares and one live trap, as well as a bunch of number 3 leg holds should I need them.  I hate to set leg holds because of Pete’s dogs and his helpers dogs.  Leg holds will be a very last resort.  Snares I can “loop down” and “set low” to keep dogs from getting their necks in them.

So, let’s call this my “prediction” post for tomorrows catch.  23 sets, which include two very good colony traps…I’m saying the colony traps will each catch 3 rats and the remaining 21 traps will net me 10 more rats….16 rats for tomorrow!  That’s a pretty high expectancy!

With gas prices right now at $2.90 or so, I need to catch 2 rats to pay for one day of trapping.  That is basing the rat pelt price to net us $10 each this year.

By the way, Bob managed to set 14 more traps today and he caught 2 more nice big rats.  I’ll tell you the rats out there are huge.  Tomorrow I’m strapping on my pistol and carrying it loaded!  One man all alone in a swamp with cat tails and phragmites higher than his head, it wouldn’t take much for a couple of rats to tackle him and pull him under!  I hope if that happens my pistol can shoot good under water!

Bears Butt

February 10, 2014