Dumbest rule besides 3 feet away from a muskrat hut is ending beaver trapping March 15th. Let people trap in the spring, way overpopulated on the river. From Lansing, Iowa up the Minnesota side to La Crescent I can count 75 beaver lodges I can see while driving along the river.

I officially folded my trapping tent on Tuesday of this week. Poorest season in 25 years and maybe Mother Nature knows more about our geopolitical markets then we thought. Will wait now for hard ices. Supposed to warm up next week, might melt some of the 6 inches or so we have. We can sure use the moisture but we have not had this much snow this early for a decade and this is nothing compared to the eastern great lakes. I doubt that 10 degrees this weekend will freeze the ground much or at all with the snow on it. When that wet snow melts everything will be a mud bath.
Not only were my numbers of rats much, much lower their size is much smaller, hides thinner etc. Don't know where those kits came from with that few older rats around. I think a lot of rats in my area moved from all the dried up sloughs and most of my river line is reed canary grass so finding good food may have been an issue. Also all the cattails in the two sloughs I could trap are brown. I don't know what the roots are like in brown cattails. We had really high water for 2-3 years and many of those areas the cattails may have died.

Bryce

Walt,

I didn't have any with mange but they had a lot more ticks than normal. I only trapped the coyotes for 15 days and then switched over to coon for 9 days. I didn't trap in the water at all other than to take a problem beaver out of a culvert. I did catch some red fox this year and I hope it's a result of the 40 coyote I took out of the area last year. You did a great job on the rats. I do miss the rat trapping but I'll do some after deer season to scratch the itch.

Tomorrow is the opener for deer hunting in Wisconsin and I will be in my shed skinning Beaver rats and mink. The last two days I have caught another nine rats and two mink on my little road line. The past two nights I have taken five beaver out of four sets on my damage control on a local Creek. Two were young of the year one 2-year-old and two were the adults. We will see how many are left as soon as it warms up next week. I had a mink eat the head off of a muskrat yesterday so I reset the 150 in the little Channel and today I had a buck mink in the set. Justice was served.

Dang Walt next time you give a seminar I’ll be in the front row.

Got three more mink and four more rats in my bottom Edge sets. The rats are slowing down some. Reset my four traps on the damage complaint Creek for Beaver yesterday and caught two more beaver overnight one adult and one young of the year which makes seven caught out of three nights with traps set. The next couple days will tell the t a l e of what is left. Good luck to all.

I was randomly selected to submit my Fisher jaw for tracking age, status and health. I've participated in these types of, fisher, bobcat and otter studies in the past, you never receive any feedback. It was interesting to see that the letter mentioned that "Age data from your fisher will be posted to your GoWild account approximately 1 year from the date of submission".

Well it looks like there are no more Beaver left on my damage complaint unless a few moved out of the area after I started catching their relatives. I have caught four more rats but no more Beaver sign and have picked all my traps up due to some unforeseen health problems. I will check on this area in a few weeks as it stays open all winter and see if there are any moved back in that had gotten spooked and left the colony. The 7 beaver I caught here came in the first three nights with traps set and nothing in the past five nights. Good luck and stay safe.

I said last year I wouldn't miss another opening weekend again. We'll, I did. Work was busy and with poorer prices predicted than the year prior, a couple bags of muskrats unsold from last year waiting for the next go round, I opted to continue working until the itch needed to be scratched. Yesterday the itch needed to be scratched so I thought I'd place a few traps for otter in a location that always produces. While there I tucked in 4 bottom edge sets on a few points that always produce rats and mink. Checked today, 2 mink and a rat in the bottom edge 150's. The 2 330's set for otter were untouched. Was fun to be out and I look forward to catching some muskrats through the ice with my kids soon.

Normally I skin everything day of or day after depending on species- froze the Fisher during deer season because we were too busy. Got the jaw sample mailed today and she was a healthy female tip to tail base 33"- well beyond a NAFA LRG with a 6-1/2 board. When we were closing up stands, I noticed additional Fisher tracks in the cubbies that had traps pulled and the sardines were gobbled up.... this was really positive for me because I've eaten the last 2 fisher tags I received.

First night in the fur shed this year! My little guy likes it as much as my girls did when they were his age. We skinned a beaver as well and have bait for our weasel boxes.

Couple weasels! Fun with the kids!

Happy and excited kids. There's nothing better.

Picture dump from this fall. Some good times with the boys. 12 and 9 year old.

It looks like you and the boys had quite a fall. Congratulations to you all and keep up the pictures please.

Going to try some rats again today, before we lose too much ice and then late next week with several really cold nights we don't want to be going through that many inches of ice.
We set up an area a week ago yesterday and pulled Friday. I could not go out Thursday as the cold I am getting over really took its toll. We did get 91 rats in the 3 checks. Not many bigger rats or kits, just a bunch of xl rats and larges.

Bryce

B r y c e, when using baited body grips what is your go to bait. Are you using an artificial attractor on the trigger or an actual vegetable type of bait. Also what is your preferred depth when using a b a i t e d body grip. Do you set more towards the top of the water column or more towards the bottom and let's say 3 to 5 ft of water.

I forgot to mention this is for under ice muskrat trapping haha.

We never use bait. We put a strip of duct tape on the trigger about an inch down from the top so it is about an inch or more above the bottom and then v the trigger and center it in the 160. We don't use any 110s now.
We have tried red, green and orange and the orange is by far the best for us. We also took an inch off some of the 160 triggers so we hope for fewer misses. So far it seems to be working. We will have 30-40 out by tomorrow so we will see. No pushups to set so all body grippers. We also set the trap with the trigger on the bottom. About 1 out of 3-4 of the rats are caught by the head so we feel they are biting at the tape.

Bryce

I use parsnips or carrots- I like the duct tape idea.