Muskrat hut

[3nails]

 Is there anyway to trap a hut with colony traps? I found some in waist deep water on a lake. It's too deep to find runs so I'm scratching my head about it.

[bob maier]

Any trails thru weeds/cattails around huts? If so set your colonies just under the surface and cover with vegetation so the rats dive into the traps. Hard to say without pictures. If you had small cage traps you could set them on the side of the huts.

[3nails]

I'll try that with the colonies and post pics. I wonder if my small cage traps would work, they reak of mink!

[bob maier]

The mink smell needs to go, could take them to the car wash and power wash them. You could also try scrubbing with soap and water.

[pnwmtnmn]

Unless he wants to catch more mink....

[Machias]

You could try the barrel set, make sure it's legal (I think it is).

BARREL TRAPS. Fifty gallon steel drums with sides perforated from
the base to the center with the tops cut out and replaced with a plastic
cover slit across the center.The barrel is weighted with rocks and submerged so
that eight or ten inches extend above the water level. An inclining
board from the water or one placed from the bank provides access to the
top. Muskrats lose their footing and slip through the slit area and
are then drowned.  I have seen them with a couple of wooden ramps
as well as something to hang a piece of bait like a carrot or apple over the
slit in the tarp.

[TheNoob]

can you put a pic up of that type of set.

[Machias]

I don't have any photos, basically you cut the top out of a 55 gallon barrel, plastic or metal.  Cut some holes along the bottom to help sink it.  Put rocks in the bottom.  Put a plastic tarp over the top.  Cut an X in the middle, 10 inches long.  Put a couple of wooden ramps on the rim leading into the water, so the rats can climb up onto the tarp.  I have seen them with a U shaped piece of metal across the top so you can hang some bait right over the X.  Rats swim up to the barrel, climb up onto the ramp and walk up to the tarp, try to reach the bait and fall through the X.  Then after a while they drown inside the barrel.  I have seen as many as 10 rats caught.  Lots of guys don't put the X in for a few days and get the rats coming and going with a bunch of bait.  Then when they have made it a feed station the put the X in the tarp and the rats start falling through and drowning.  Here is alink to some great sets for rats.  Scroll down and look at the two floating sets for rats that are legal in WA.

http://manitobatraplines.webs.com/trapsets.htm

[bob maier]

Don't think it would be much fun hauling around 55 gallon barrels.

[Machias]

It's not a set you move around much.  Right place it's an excellent set to net quite a few rats.