Today is Saturday and it marks the end of week number two of trapping for this season.  Yesterday was a record catch for me at 40 rats.  The weather was cold and windy (see yesterdays update) and will effect the rat movement for last night.  We are seeing more sign that the run is going to happen in earnest really quick and perhaps yesterdays catch was the run in full force.  You never know with these little critters.

Today we have a 50% chance of rain.  I don’t mind the rain so much as the wind.  Keep the wind out of the equation and things are pretty good.

I’d like to get my trap line checked and then go off and do something different today.  We will see what happens.

Expected catch for today is half what yesterdays was.  I’m guessing at 20 rats and that would make for a pretty good days catch.  The skinning shed time will be all consuming today with over 40 rats to put up, but that is just the nature of the business.

An update will come later.

Bears Butt

February 21, 2015

UPDATE:

I headed out early to get the traps checked, knowing there were going to be several hours worth of fleshing to be done later on.  As it turned out, I caught 13 rats and was home by 12 p.m.  A quick call to Weasel and he was quick to arrive at the skinning shed where he went right to work combing the rats that were drying from yesterday.  Unfortunately most of them were too wet to put up and so they went back on the drying rack and will have to be processed tomorrow.

We managed to put about a dozen up on stretchers and skinned the rats I caught today.  We also pulled down 50 rats from stretchers that were dry and put them on hangers.  We now have plenty of room for our catches for the next day or two.  We also skinned the 13 rats and put them with the others to dry.

When you think about trapping fur bearers it’s easy to think trapping is just going out in the field and catching animals….it is far from just that.  Catch, skin, flesh, stretch, take down, put up, comb and who knows what else.  It also involves more than just that with certain fur bearers like fox for instance.  Timing is everything with turning them.

Now I wait for Bob to get back from the line.  When I left the trapping area I ran into him just going out.  He was in for a very wet day.  The storm was blowing through just as I left and it was hailing like nothing else I’ve ever seen.  I hope he is safe out there and comes in with a large load of rats.

I’ll update his success on here when I know what he caught.  Bob came in about 4 p.m. with 8 rats!  Two of them got put up!

Butt

Took yesterday and went to Uncle Donalds funeral.  It was a great service.

Now back to trapping.  Remember that the other day I set a whole pile of traps out.  I now have 106 traps set and ready to catch muskrats.  Those same 106 traps have sat for two nights and with between the number of traps and two relatively warm nights, I really expect to catch a pile of rats today.  I’m saying 30 and that might be conservative.

We will have to wait and see how the catch goes and I’ll update you on how it went later today.

Bears Butt

February 20, 2015

UPDATE:

The weather was cold and windy.  By cold I mean unseasonably warm for this time during a normal year, but for lately I had to bundle up with most of my gear and then by 10:30 I was taking stuff off.  I ended up wearing my coat all day however and the wind was blowing pretty good all day as well.  But, as I ran my lines my blood was pumping pretty good as the traps seemed to all have had some kind of activity.

Back home the count was 40 rats!  That is the most rats I have ever caught by myself in one day!

I had also had 2 raccoons hit my traps.  One was able to back out of the trap because a leg bone had gotten between the door stop and the door.  A second had gotten into a trap and ate the contents of the bail and then left without the door going off.  The reason the door didn’t trip was mud and debris under the trap keeping the trip lever from pressing down to fire it.  I didn’t have any muskrat bodies to rebait with and so I used small boxes of raisins.  I’ve never used raisins before and so it will be interesting to see if they work.

Bob came in with 6 rats and so we had a very good day of trapping.

On the downside is all the time it takes to skin, flesh and stretch and tonight (Saturday) will be the big night for doing that.  My back hurts just thinking about it.

Butt

Monday was Presidents Day and the kids had the day off school.  So, since Kenzie had not gone out on the trap line with me I asked her if she wanted to go and she jumped on the chance.  It was a great day to be out in the field…pretty warm, about 50 degrees, a little bit of wind but not too bad.  We did get to see some pretty big dust devils however.  Kenzie was a great help especially finding my floats which were high and dry from the water going down in the ponds.  It was a very fun day.

She even posed with my brand new Studio C sign:

We ended up catching 17 muskrats this day and I told her I needed a picture of her holding one or two…..she said I would eventually get a picture of her with one….but it didn’t happen until we got back to the skinning shed where she said she wanted to give skinning a try.  Her dad (Weasel) took this picture.

Kenzie did a very good job at skinning two rats!  She never did the typical girl thing of EWWWWWing or anything like that.  She just mustered up and did the job!  And I must say they were both skinned perfectly!  Good job Kenzie!

While we were on our way home that day, we stopped in Corinne to get a soda pop and we parked right next to the big historical sign that gives a brief history of the town of Corinne.  For those of you who don’t know about the small town of Corinne, it was a major hub in its day.  With the site of the Driving of The Golden Spike, just a few miles to the West of town, it quickly became a town of major proportions.  It’s location next to the Bear River and in a part of the valley that afforded access to trails (roads) in all four directions, it became a hub for moving goods to the mining areas of Montana and dry goods to Oregon and other points West.  Rails and wagons.  With the type of men who work those kinds of jobs, it also brought gambling, drinking and of course women of a shady style to town.  Corinne came very close to becoming Utah’s state capital.

So, here we parked next to this big sign that tells a similar story to what I just described to you:

So, I quickly read the sign out loud so both of us could hear the story at the same time.  It’s funny that I have lived here my entire life and have never stopped to read this sign before.  I’m sure I’m not alone in that regard.

Anyway, back to the sign and its story.  If I was a person assigned to making a sign like this one, I think I would make dang sure I was spelling and punctuating each word and sentence properly and if I didn’t know something I would certainly ask someone.  As I read this story in my quickest way, when I came across one certain word, both of us began laughing at the same time.  You see Kenzie was reading silently as I read aloud, we came across the word at the same time.

How do you spell decision?

Kind of imbarrassing.

—————————————-

Well, today is Wednesday, what do I expect with todays trapping?

Yesterday I pulled the 53 traps on Bull Run and managed to set out 25 more on Fish Springs.  I also moved 10 traps on Fish Springs down the line a ways.  It was quite a busy day for this old man and to only catch 9 rats yesterday was actually a good thing as it got us out of the trapping shed earlier than we usually are.

My floats just haven’t been paying off like they usually do and I haven’t figured that one out yet.

So, from the float sets I should catch 3 rats.  The West Trellis line and Arrow Head should produce 2 rats and Fish Springs should kick out 12….total 17 rats expected today.

Also, I will be setting some traps around the float sets on the Trellis line.  It will be a busy day again today.  I have archery lessons tonight and tomorrow a funeral for Winemakers brother, Don.  I’ll be taking tomorrow off from trapping.

Bears Butt

February 18, 2015

UPDATE:

It’s a very good thing I set some traps yesterday, without those traps out, I would have only caught 2 rats today.  As it turned out I ended up with 15 rats.  No traps on the Trellis were even set off.

I managed to set a bunch more traps today and now have a total of 106 traps out.

Butt

A long day ahead!  I’ve decided to pull my traps on Bull Run and make an attempt to re-set them on the Trellis line.  I’ll leave the 6 live traps on Bull Run and hope to catch a million raccoons there.  I’ll leave them out there until I’m done trapping for the season.

My expected catch today is, 3 at Bull Run, 3 at Big Spring, 3 on the West end of the Trellis and the two at Arrow Head and 6 from the floats.  15 rats.

Gotta Go!

Bears Butt

February 17, 2015

UPDATE:

Maybe Bob is right…the run just might be over!

I pulled the 52 traps over on Bull Run and caught a bonus 4 rats….AND A RACCOON!!!!   YEAAAA!

Hit the rest of the lines and it was poor trapping.  Ended up with 9 total rats!

I did manage to set 25 more traps out on Fish Springs but none at the Trellis.  Tomorrow I’ll set more traps on there.

With only 9 rats to skin (Bob took the day off), Brek ended up skinning 6 in the time it took me to skin 3, we finished in the shed before 5 tonight.  A good thing to have behind us.

Butt

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