No Muskrats?

[Bacon]

Not sure the reason or if it really matters, but I have noticed this spring I don't see any muskrats anywhere. Not one. Usually there are at least a couple in every slough. Don't know what that means or what happened to them. At least they won't be tunneling into road beds and causing a bunch of damage.

 

[lunkerslayer]

Up here there are sloughs that hadn't been muscadoodles for awhile that have them this year.

 

[Davy Crockett]

Plenty up here, We still had a couple feet of ice on the ponds when a fox strutted through the yard with one in his mouth , Not quite sure how he pulled that off.

 

[KDM]

Not very many around VC, but go west about 30 miles or so and you start seeing huts quite frequently. They've been scarce around here for quite a few years. The general consensus among us outdoor trapping types is that a disease came through 5 or so years ago and really did a number on them. Don't know if that's true, but there sure aren't trappable numbers in my area.

 

[Magpie]

It's because they turn back into coots in the spring.

 

[luvcatchingbass]

Have noticed last couple years in my area the sloughs I used to see a lot on have been pretty scarce. I am not saying that is a bad thing though

 

[Wildyote]

Muskrats are very susceptible to Tularemia. It will pretty much wipe them out in an area in a short amount time. The disease is common in rabbits. The liver will have strawberry looking growths on them.

 

[feather_duster]

also heard same rumor a disease wiped them out.....those were the days in the early 2000s driving up and down gravel roads with the .22

 

[raider]

come to think of it, i haven't seen any muskox this spring either...

 

[Allen]

Yeah, I don't know which virus the NDGF referenced when talking about muskrats a few years ago, but they said the rat population has always been cyclical with respect to numbers due to disease outbreaks.

I'd have thought they would have rebounded by now so there may be another issue I am not aware of that's keeping the population low. 5 years ago they were so plentiful I considered getting back into trapping them.

 

[Bacon]

My son and his friend trapped them 2 yrs ago. Plenty around then. They were enough of a problem that the county was issuing special license to shoot them in the summer. They were causing road damage. Now none. Must have been some disease. That would make sense.

 

[dean nelson]

Well the cause off the drop in the area my cousins trap a few years ago was very obvious and it wasn't disease or at least just disease. When rat populations boom shortly there after so will the mink population. By the second year the mink were getting more of their trapped rats then they were. Mink just swim up into the hut and catch them by cornering them in there. Then add in periods of shrinking water that always cause a fair few of them to be in to shallow of a pond to survive winter and you end up with a lot less muskrats for a while.

 

[WormWiggler]

I watched a muskrat travel across a location in the dead of winter 2 years ago. Colder than hell out. I always wondered where he was going and why. I tried to confront him but he had a lot of hate in him and I needed to keep my legs from being chewed off. I speculated the body of water he had called home had froze to the bottom and he was looking for new digs. He had a set route in mind, wonder if the little bastage survived

 

[Davy Crockett]

Well the cause off the drop in the area my cousins trap a few years ago was very obvious and it wasn't disease or at least just disease. When rat populations boom shortly there after so will the mink population. By the second year the mink were getting more of their trapped rats then they were. Mink just swim up into the hut and catch them by cornering them in there. Then add in periods of shrinking water that always cause a fair few of them to be in to shallow of a pond to survive winter and you end up with a lot less muskrats for a while.

When I was a kid that was a golden opportunity to make some real money , Leave the half eaten muskrat in the trap and set another trap on the ledge and catch the mink.

 

[dean nelson]

When I was a kid that was a golden opportunity to make some real money , Leave the half eaten muskrat in the trap and set another trap on the ledge and catch the mink.

Yeah they are a bonus but surprisingly there often isn't much difference in price between them and rats these days.

 

[LBrandt]

Getting a live mink out of a rat house was interesting to say the least. The big males were a sumbitch to deal with.

 

[Davy Crockett]

Getting a live mink out of a rat house was interesting to say the least. The big males were a sumbitch to deal with.

Haha As if getting them out of the house wasn't bad enough , My Dad had a rule that all small females had to be turned loose. That was borderline child abuse.

 

[LBrandt]

Needle teeth bastards. Always carried an extra pair of large leather gloves to slip over my normal leather gloves and it still hurt if you got nailed.