Muskrat
Medley
Article from May
- June 2007 Buckeye Trapper
by Matt
Robison
With last season’s prices and the unusually warm weather
we’ve had so far this year, muskrats have gotten a lot more
attention this season from old and new trappers alike. As I’m
writing this, we’re coming into January. The muskrats are
looking very good, and as we move into the mating season they’ll
really begin moving.
Easy Muskrat Attractors
Many trappers rely mainly on blind sets for muskrats, but in
deeper creeks or ponds where dens and trails can be harder to
find, it’s often easier to use lure or bait. It will also
help attract those muskrats that are just passing through during
the breeding season. Of course, here in Ohio, using bait or lure
gets a little trickier after January 31st, since we have to take
care to avoid catching raccoons.
There are some time-tested muskrat lures out there, but you really
don’t have to go any further than your kitchen cupboard
or the dollar store to find effective attractors.
It’s no news to anyone that apple slices will catch the
attention of a passing ‘rat. But they’ll work even
better if you store them in a plastic bag with some anise oil.
And adding anise oil to fish oil makes it even more attractive
to both muskrats and raccoons. Cherry syrup, the kind used with
ice cream or snow cones, is effective when used alone or mixed
with fish oil. You can buy it pretty inexpensively from bulk food
stores. Spearmint or peppermint toothpaste works too, and you
can get it for a buck a tube at your local dollar store. The mint
scent holds up well and the white color also provides visual appeal
as well. Just squeeze out a couple of inches onto a root or a
stick positioned over your trap and smear it around a little so
it’ll stay there.
Muskrats will often check out anything white to see if it’s
food. Slices of apple, turnip, potato, or parsnip will bring them
over, but often so will a piece of Styrofoam or PVC. I haven’t
been successful yet in using white rubber grub tails for mink,
but they have helped me catch muskrats when the traps are set
so the grub tails are wiggling in clear, flowing water.
Easy Mud Bank Set
In places with deeper water and vertical mud banks, it can be
tough to find dens or slides. One easy way to set these places
is to use your shovel or the side of your boot to mash down a
platform from the mud bank. It only has to be big enough for a
muskrat to land on. It should be at the water line or just below
it. Just bed a #1 or #1.5 foothold trap firmly on the platform
and place your attractor above it. If the water is deep, just
stake the trap in the mud below the landing. Otherwise, use a
stop-loss or other guard trap, or use a drowning wire or tangle
stake. This simple set will take rats in many places that are
hard to set and it’s quicker than digging pockets. And if
you mash down a longer platform, angling upward from just below
the surface, you can move the trap up and down when the water
level fluctuates.
Finding Active Bank Dens
In the daylight, surface glare can make it pretty tough to spot
bank dens. A pair of sunglasses can really help cut through the
glare and reveal them, and it can actually be easier to spot holes
after dark using a flashlight or headlamp than in the daylight.
Have you ever trapped a pond that is peppered with muskrat holes
but only ends up producing a few muskrats? Ducks and geese or
wind and wave action during the day can keep the bottom stirred
up so that you may not be able to see the mud trails or shiny
gravel that are telltale signs of muskrat activity. You can waste
a lot of time setting traps in inactive holes in a place like
that. However, checking those areas at night when the ducks and
geese are asleep may allow you to see fresh muskrat activity.
A skim of clear ice really helps preserve muskrat mud trails and
other signs of muskrat activity. And of course the bubble trails
that form under the ice along runs with a lot of muskrat traffic
are about the best roadmaps anyone could draw for you.
Setting Muskrat Lodges
In marshes and some ponds, muskrats may build huts out in the
water out of cattails and grasses. These domed structures are
usually easy to spot, but deeper water and soft, muddy bottoms
can sometimes make setting them challenging. A hut can have several
entrances down near the bottom. In deeper water, the easiest way
to find them can be to feel for them with the toe of your boot
as you move around the lodge. Once you’ve found an entrance,
it’s often easier to drop a colony trap in front of it than
it is to try to reach down to position a body gripper or footholds.
A trap hook made from a broom or shovel handle with a hook screwed
into one end can be handy for placing and retrieving colony traps
in deeper water. Shoving a strip of wood lathe or construction
stake down through the mesh of the colony trap will help stabilize
it and also make it easier to find without tripping over it. Position
the lathe toward the middle of the trap, lengthwise, and along
one side so it doesn’t block the doors, or block muskrats
that enter the trap. If trap theft is a potential problem, make
sure the top end of the lathe is just below the surface. You’ll
be able to spot it when you’re out there, but it won’t
be as likely to attract unwanted attention from the shore.
Also look for the spots where muskrats climb up onto huts to eat,
and set foothold traps there too. You can put bait or lure on
top of the lodge, but it’s not usually necessary. Raccoons
and mink will often swim out to check the huts too, so fasten
your traps solidly. Again, in shallow water, use drowning setups
or stop loss traps.
I’ve never had much luck with floats or platforms positioned
near huts, but I have caught muskrats by stacking baited 110 body
grippers on a long construction stake, and pushing the stake into
the bottom very close to the outside of a hut. Rats easily find
the traps as they swim around the hut, and you can make multiple
catches. There are several ways to attach the traps to the stake.
Some people insert the stake through the coil at the end of the
trap spring and then slide a wooden wedge up between the coil
and the stake to secure the trap there. If you do this, tie or
wire the wedge to the stake or trap. Or you can slide the stake
between the arms, closer to the jaws, and wire one spring arm
firmly to the stake. Bait the traps by pushing chunks of apple
or potato onto the trigger wires.
Don’t forget to check the banks for holes too. It’s
not unusual to find some muskrats digging bank dens in the same
ponds where others are building lodges.
Muskrats in the Movies
Last year, an independent filmmaker named Amy Nicholson made
a documentary called Muskrat Lovely, which delves, among many
other things, into muskrat trapping in Dorchester County, Maryland.
I was a little apprehensive about how trapping and the folks who
do it might be portrayed in the film, but I was pleasantly surprised.
It tells the story of an annual event that takes place in a community
that most trappers will easily relate to. And along the way the
documentary does a pretty nice job of showing the place that muskrat
trapping holds in the area’s history and culture. It also
shows how muskrats are caught and used there today and why trapping
is allowed in the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge there. Here’s
a synopsis from the film’s web site:
“Every year in the town of Golden Hill, contestants gather
for two important competitions in the National Outdoor Show. Local
high school girls compete to become “Miss Outdoors,”
queen of the show and its representative for the coming year.
On the very same stage, the world’s best muskrat skinners
compete to see who can skin the fastest.
“MUSKRAT LOVELY is a documentary that follows the events
leading to the 50th crowning of “Miss Outdoors.” It’s
an ironic and tender look at the yearly event of a close-knit
community in a remote area of the Chesapeake Bay. A place where
men still make their living off the water, and the opportunities
for glamour are few.”
The film is humorous without stereotyping the people of Golden
Hill. The demonstrations of trapping, skinning, and preparing
muskrats for eating by local residents are pretty matter of fact.
One of the girls who enters the beauty contest skins a muskrat
herself during the talent portion of the show, and she looks just
as comfortable doing that as she does in the more typical parts
of the contest. She explains that she always washes and blow-dries
them first, taking obvious pride in how her pelts look.
Muskrat Lovely was featured at several film festivals since it
was released in 2005. It has also been aired on PBS stations.
You can read more about the film and even buy it on DVD (the cost
is $20, which includes shipping) at the film’s web site:
http://muskratlovely.com.
Nicholson doesn’t seem to have any agenda other than to
tell a story about people for whom trapping happens to be part
of their lives. She told me that the documentary has drawn some
heat from antis (so I guess you could take that as a recommendation).
I read reviews of it from a variety of publications, again expecting
the worst, but they were generally positive.
A lot of people are working very hard to protect our right to
trap. And without those efforts we would surely have lost it by
now. A lot of great literature and multimedia information has
been developed to educate the public about the value of trapping
too. As I watched Muskrat Lovely, I was thinking about how trapping
can also benefit from non-partisan exposure like this too. Some
people who aren’t likely to be exposed to factual information
about trapping anywhere else are going to see this film, which
was made by someone who is neither a trapper nor an anti (like
most of the public). And when they watch it, they’ll see
trapping shown as a part of the lives of real people living today,
rather than described by someone who is either attacking or defending
it. And a little humor goes a long way too. We need all the help
we can get! ###Matt Robison, 3100 Shroyer Rd., Kettering,
Ohio 45429, (“Creekwalker” on the OSTA forum)
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