Cold and snow

[bblwi]

We finally got enough ice to walk in the marshes and sloughs so my partner and I set out 30 traps and in 3 checks we got about 40 rats. It snowed last week about 5-6 inches and we started to go through as the ice was melting beneath the snow. I pulled 5 sets today before the foot of snow is coming as I set out the slough Thursday as was going through in places today, so I pulled with a couple rats. With a foot of snow that will weight down the ice and push it into the water and melt. May be a while if before we can walk on the ice again. Some good rats sign out there but maybe we will have to let them go.
With 17 -18 inches if this one is a foot that about does my canines for the season too as getting to the locations becomes are real issue.

Bryce

[mustelameister]

Don't give up hope on that ice, Bryce. We've got -15 coming Sunday, high below zero. That should build some ice, depending on how much snow you've got on top. Then middle of next week low 30s for highs.

[trappnman]

the sloughs just froze up here in last 10 days. we got maybe 6-7 last night-

but from tues on looks above average rest of month

Lee told Lori yesterday hes paying a $2.50 average on rats

[mustelameister]

I've got a specialty buyer in the area that will pay $4 for large on up 'rats put up. He's looking for several hundred.

[bblwi]

$ 2.50 seems to be about an average for put up rats. A local trapper that traps a big marsh typically catches 500-1,000 rats per year and for decades has sold them in the carcass to a local buyer. Last year he worked out a deal to get $4-$5 in the carcass. This year he as offered $1.75 in the carcass or $2.50 put up with the kits out. He took the $2.50 and is putting up rats for the first time in a long time.
I have a lot of smaller rats this year as production has been good but that means more smaller and younger rats, especially early in the season.
I don't know how it works for you guys but in my area with our boggy marshes (lots of peat and mucky soils) if we get a big blanket of snow on thinner ice say 2 inches or less it melts and softens up. For us a warm spell to melt it all and start over would be the best.
Bryce

[braveheart]

Here is a question for you rat trappers.I have been getting some rats everyday on all the males.The glands are swollen like Spring glands and some are small but they are all showing.I have trapped for a few years but have never seen this.And it is not the nuts like some people say are glands?

[trappnman]

I bet in 1000s of fall/winter rats, I've just had a handful, and those are all late January early feb rats.

we get that as well Bryce-

[bblwi]

It is interesting now to see all the huts in the small sloughs and even some ditches that had 0 to a hut the last decade. There are 3 sloughs I don't trap that I drive by frequently. One s about an acre, the last years one to none for houses this year 5. Another is bigger, say 8-9 acres. Four years ago 4-6 houses, the last 3 years a couple, this year about a dozen. One I want to trap yet, ice allowing, had 2 houses last year, this year I can see 6 and I have not got back into it yet.
Bodes well for the future if we can keep the water through next summer.

The one area we caught about 40 rats in on a small section of a big marsh, when we walked through we did not see too many active feeders but did see runs and with the snow we could not see the bubbles. We set those runs and when it turned cold those rats really moved we had several doubles in those runs. Again this was about the 8th-12th of December and many of the rats were larges and even some mediums. First check was about 18 mostly smaller rats. The last night before pulling when it got 8 below we got 12 bigger rats.

Bryce