Just thought I'd share how I make mine, and how they work.

They are basically all the same and work fairly well. They all have a path for the rat to swim onto, and attached bait. All traps become submurged in water. (I add needed grasses to edges so rats us paths)


This is a more natural looking one. The bait is suspended and stuck to the float. The water will sobmurge the traps.

This one works pretty well. Very simple and light.

This one is very light and small. Works great. Has a wire trap support,, and elevated bait.

These last three work well, and are the style I use most frequently. They are pretty light and easy to stack. They also have secured bait and the right sized guide paths.



Here is one that is alittle bigger. Have not yet tried it. Hope itll work.

For people who dont think floats work- I beg to differ lol

They look like they should work just fine ... they don't have to be pretty or fancy .... just catch rats. Thanks for sharing ..
Garry-

Just out of curiousity what size traps are in the picturea? To bad I cant use those around here.. That set would be a waterfowl magnet lol. Happy trapping and rack up those rats

They are all number ones. Coils, longs, double longs, jumps, and stoploss. I just put some weak springs on some weak single longsprings to beef em up a little bit and make them basically #11's. If waterfowl are an issue, I will use apples, and/or carrots. I also have some with screen over outside, so birds cant get to em.

i dont think u even need bait, but it probably dont hurt

It helps alot. One time I set some out on an overflowed pond, and drove by literally two minutes later, and had a jumbo rat. the visual part helps alot. Gotta love that.

Sometimes I will also add some rat lure on there to entice the little buggers.

You can catch some rats using floats.All I ever said was there are much better, more productive sets to use for muskrats such as feedbeds,dens,runways,pocket sets,bottom edge,blind,and toilet sets.

Depends on where your trapping. I like these floats where I trap. Because its out of a boat, and in three feet of swamp. Lot of ground to cover, and these are super fast.

thanks for the post riverman.

im going to steal the V float, but modify it so it fits a conni. all the water i trap is tidal, and that should work for incoming, and outgoing tides.

Do you use a hole cobb or break it in half? I have always broke them in half. I also use small pieces of PVC ( 6 to 8" ) with really sweet, bait/lure. Those all look really good, I especailly like the H pattern with the wire screen. I have made some of those out of 4x4s in the H pattern. They work really good. Jon

I'll out trap floats 10 rats to one.I love it when my competetion uses floats.The river fluctuates here also.You can catch some rats using floats but you catch alot more using other sets.

I have come to understand how even a few hundred miles, and conditions totaly different than anything I have encountered, can make a huge difference in what works best.

Brucet is right concerning our Maine conditions on average in the fall. Natural sets are easy to find and I will blitz a spot and be gone with the rats in two days. I have trapped against trappers trying to use floats exclusively and cleaned out the rats while they were wondering where the rats went.

It in no wise means the floats are not the ticket elsewhere. Only that it depends on your local conditions. It is good to have everything at your mental disposal to use as you encounter varying circumstances.

All the Minnesota trappers I've seen videos of,and read books from, I've talked to, and seen posts from that put up big numbers of muskrats use sets other then floats.I know my methods in Maine will also work just as well in Minnesota.

I've got trapping friends in New york that also tell me the same thing as Minnesota.Again I never said you can't catch muskrats on floats but theres ways to catch bigger numbers.Colony traps is one I forgot to mention.Long stakes mark your sets well during high water.I'm also willing to bet I'd have more muskrats in those flooded out sets before the water got to deep, then your float sets.Theres little tricks you can do with an upcoming water rise.I've trapped muskrats myself over 40 years.

Colony traps where they are legal.Also yep, your right.Float sets are the bread and butter of muskrat trapping.All the big number muskrat trappers are liars.They just make videos and write books to fool people.They actually all use floats.Thats all I've ever used is floats to catch my thousands of muskrats over my lifetime.

I'm gonna try the third picture on this year! Thanks for sharing!

I have some customers that will only let me use floats as they don't want traps around the shorelines(kids,pets) They do work, but are involve alot more prepin to make them into muskrat catching machines.
I'd rather set 110's in the runs anyday. Its just a matter of setting where i know they'll be compared to where i want them top be.

I guarantee i can operate 5 times as many floats as you can bank sets in the river in the same amount of time...In the River Quantatee not Quality is the key to puting up big numbers,and some floats are way more effective than others(Not all floats are created equal)!!!!!

Nice photos. Gave me some ideas. It is good to have different tools in your bag to adapt to different conditions. Sometimes there are not big numbers available and you need to use what works to catch what is there, depending on conditions.

This line of thought is what holds back alot of trappers.Quality sets in large numbers where there are large numbers of muskrats puts up the big numbers.Poor quality sets even in numbers will never equal good quality sets in numbers.