The great, big, rat hunt!

[PastorJoel]

Well, I had set out rat traps near my chicken coop.   Several times they ate the peanut butter and lived! Tonight I tied granola bar chucks to the traps with fishing line.

I feel like a big game hunter again (deer season was too long ago)

 
1 confirmed kill, a mature female
1 unconfirmed kill.  Lots of blood, I tried to follow the trail in the dark but no luck.
 

  Die rats!!!

If I have any kills in the daylight I will post a pic.

[Loki_762]

Put a red light out by your coop and leave out your bait where you have a good shot.  Get your pellet gun ready, and drill the little buggers when they come out to the bait. If you don't want to sit around and wait, get a driveway alarm from Harbor Freight and leave it near the bait. It will beep when you have a visitor. I've gotten lots of rats this way - it's a ton of fun.
Chris

[PastorJoel]

Put a red light out by your coop and leave out your bait where you have a good shot.  Get your pellet gun ready, and drill the little buggers when they come out to the bait. If you don't want to sit around and wait, get a driveway alarm from Harbor Freight and leave it near the bait. It will beep when you have a visitor. I've gotten lots of rats this way - it's a ton of fun.
Chris

No safe shooting lane, believe me, I thought about that.

[Bill W]

Well, I had set out rat traps near my chicken coop.   Several times they ate the peanut butter and lived! Tonight I tied granola bar chucks to the traps with fishing line.

I feel like a big game hunter again (deer season was too long ago)

 
1 confirmed kill, a mature female
1 unconfirmed kill.  Lots of blood, I tried to follow the trail in the dark but no luck.
 

  Die rats!!!

If I have any kills in the daylight I will post a pic.

Wait about 30 minutes before you follow the blood trail.  Gives them time to die or stiffen up.  Oh wait....that advice is for deer.


Best time I ever had was when my dad and uncle took me to the local dump at night.  Shame dumps aren't sanitary and don't still exist.

[ghosthunter]

Ahhh the memeroies.

My first big game as a child was hunting rats after school in the family chicken yard.
Laying on my belly under burlap bags for hours ,shooting rats. Ahh the best fun.

Use bacon chunks as bait.

[TONTO]

  I changed up to a Big Snap-E trap. It's a plastic trap simple to set, easy empty, and they're not going to get the bait. It's a rat killing machine, but even though I was constantly dumping dead rats I wasn't keeping up. So I put out some rodentex, not a sign of a rat for a week now

[brew]

i remember a time about 38 years ago when my cousin had a rat problem in his chicken house...we waited until after dark to go and shoot those buggers with a 22 semi rifle and a 22 pistol.  he was adament about not shooting a lot of holes in the chicken house so my brother had the rifle and my dad had the pistol.  opened the door and turned on the light and saw two rats running around the eaves. my brother killed the first rat with the second shot from the rifle.  my old man, who was many beers into the night, kept banging away at the second one with the pistol---after about the sixth shot that rat fell to the ground and upon further inspection he had not hit it...must have had a heart attack and died as there was not a shot in the dam thing....i never got to take a shot but still remember it like it was yesterday.

[PastorJoel]

Wait about 30 minutes before you follow the blood trail.  Gives them time to die or stiffen up.  Oh wait....that advice is for deer.

 

Last night I was cutting up a bunch of venison for some meat loaf () and had some fatty scraps left over.  I attached those to the traps with tooth picks and had one big rat this morning!

3 down, many many more to go!

[Special T]

Any kind of poison  and chickens is bad stuff. We have lots of rats where we live and it's the main reason why I don't get some birds. I keep poison out all the time.

[salish]

We have a pretty healthy rat population in north Seattle, too. In past years I've used a brand of rat poison that has been removed from the market (D-CON in the little trays). It seemed to work well. I'm no longer using poison because I have dogs and I'm concerned about them catching and eating a rat who has ingested the poison. My understanding is that canines can become sick and die as a result from ingesting a poisoned rodent.
So, I'm currently using RatX, a non-toxic bait. The jury is still out on how well this stuff works. I may supplement it with this Big Snap-E trap I'm reading about in this thread. I've had mixed success with the traditional Victor rat traps.

[pianoman9701]

When I was growing up in NH, we used to go to the dump and shoot rats with .22s. Tons of fun.

[Dr. Death]

Use the bucket & water trick....

[Buckmark]

If you get a booner post it up 

I should of done a full body mount on this one, real trophy as the whiskers are outside the ears.

I shoot them if i can, but if you are only using traps the Tomcat rat traps work real well, get a dozen and set up a trap line.

[PastorJoel]

I didn't get any rats last night but I did get my dog's nose.  Thankfully the tomcat didn't break anything.  (trap bait is still venison scraps, no poison for the dog to get into)

[drakehntr]

I get them by my coop too.  Traps were mildly successfull, but also killed a lot of tweety birds.  So i now go out some eves with a headlamp and Remington .22 fieldmaster.  It just shoots birdshot.  Lots of fun and i have killed a ton of them.



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[crowinghen]

Put a red light out by your coop and leave out your bait where you have a good shot.  Get your pellet gun ready, and drill the little buggers when they come out to the bait. If you don't want to sit around and wait, get a driveway alarm from Harbor Freight and leave it near the bait. It will beep when you have a visitor. I've gotten lots of rats this way - it's a ton of fun.
Chris

great idea! I've done all of the above except for the driveway alarm!

[brew]

those are some Boone & Crockett rats ! by the looks of things you have to wear the Danner style romeo's to sneak up on them    better not post too many pics or the F&W will start making you buy a tag for them

[sandman76]

My boss scored this booner today

[dreadi]

Don't see many Fieldmasters around.

[lokidog]

If you get a booner post it up 

I should of done a full body mount on this one, real trophy as the whiskers are outside the ears.

I shoot them if i can, but if you are only using traps the Tomcat rat traps work real well, get a dozen and set up a trap line.

That looks like a pack rat not a Norway rat...?

[Bill W]

If you get a booner post it up 

I should of done a full body mount on this one, real trophy as the whiskers are outside the ears.

I shoot them if i can, but if you are only using traps the Tomcat rat traps work real well, get a dozen and set up a trap line.

That looks like a pack rat not a Norway rat...?

Maybe it's like elk.  Cascade vs Roosevelt.  The east side rat has the bushier tail and the westside the bigger body diameter.

[JakeLand]

If you get a booner post it up 

I should of done a full body mount on this one, real trophy as the whiskers are outside the ears.

I shoot them if i can, but if you are only using traps the Tomcat rat traps work real well, get a dozen and set up a trap line.

That's a wood rat they are a lot different

[Pygmy]

Spot and stalk at the dove pen...44 mag with shot shell


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[Fieldp66]

If you get a booner post it up 

I should of done a full body mount on this one, real trophy as the whiskers are outside the ears.

I shoot them if i can, but if you are only using traps the Tomcat rat traps work real well, get a dozen and set up a trap line.

Whiskers outside ears killed me.

[ELKBURGER]

If you get a booner post it up 

I should of done a full body mount on this one, real trophy as the whiskers are outside the ears.

I shoot them if i can, but if you are only using traps the Tomcat rat traps work real well, get a dozen and set up a trap line.

Whiskers outside ears killed me.

[deerhunter_98520]

Here you guys go....looks fun to me 

[nwwanderer]

At 3:43, is that a pig?  Yikes, this guys feed bill for the rats is more the than porkers.  Good study on shot placement and did they have a couple of five gallon buckets to cleanup the carnage?  Excellent practice with benefit.  Thanks for the post

[Boss .300 winmag]

That's a rat hotel, must be a pig feed lot.

[PastorJoel]

Do these critters hibernate or something?  I haven't seen any in a few days.

[lokidog]

Cool video, I sure wouldn't want to be the one having to pick all of them up though.

Not as bad as rats, but I've trapped 9 mice in the last 8 days in our basement, nothing last night though, yucky things. 

[PastorJoel]

There will be backstrap tonight!     

[nwwanderer]

Get a stick, tape your pant legs shut and pickup that blue tarp.  How fast are you?

[PastorJoel]

Get a stick, tape your pant legs shut and pickup that blue tarp.  How fast are you?

LOL.  It took me a minute to get the "tape your pant legs shut" part.     That tarp is actually very very small.  I don't think any are under there.

[PastorJoel]

I stepped up my game tonight and got out the old trusty pellet gun.  I am pretty sure I missed...  Maybe it's not so trusty after all.   

My problem is that I only have about 1 second to find them and shoot from one side of my chicken coop fence to the other side before they make it into some blackberry bushes.  I might need to go fully auto.

[haugenna]

When I was younger we would empty the corn crib and there would be rats running everywhere. We shot some but it got a little western and we put the guns away and got out the riding lawn mower.  Parked it in the open and the rats ran under it for cover. Ground them up pretty good.

[nwwanderer]

Put one through a 55H chopper once, one foot rat became a three foot rat.  That is a JD combine for those away from the farm

[PastorJoel]

I have run into a serious problem and need some advice from my fellow hunters.

After getting a backstop set up and a good pellet gun, I have, inadvertently, killed all of the rats.  Now I have nothing to hunt.   

If anyone wants to live-trap their rats and let them go in my chicken coop, I would be glad to shoot them for you.   
 
Maybe I should develop my rat habitat to draw more in, you know, like how deer hunters make feed plots. 

Perhaps I could high fence my property and really get the population going.
 


 

[2labs]

Trophy hunter! .....

[ghosthunter]

Ahhhh brings back fond memories .
After school when I was a little guy. Shooting rats in the chicken yard with my Red Ryder.

[biggfish]

I got a opossum running around here looks to be 20#+ if I can catch it it'll be all yours but a pellet gun may not be enough

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[PastorJoel]

I got a opossum running around here looks to be 20#+ if I can catch it it'll be all yours but a pellet gun may not be enough

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Deal! 

[nwwanderer]

Look close, they just see you coming, hone those skills.  Pesky little monsters