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I went out and pulled the rat sets that I had soaking for a day when we went fowling on Sunday. Overall, the entire hunt and trapping adventure was basically a bust. I really didn't expect the rat effort to pay for its self but was disappointed in my ratio. At least I didn't get blanked and recovered all my gear. One set was a 110 where I had driven the stake down below the water line. Another trapper came after me and flagged the hut so that was a bit of an awkward moment messing around near his flagged stake (his set didn't look very good). I thought first he had taken my trap (SD doesn't require any id on traps) but I just had to kick around more to find my wood. The irony of the whole situation was the rats I did get I got in what I thought was the most marginal slough. Funny how that happens.

My 2 very expensive mrats. At least they weren't dinks.



I think after getting this emotional scratch itched, I'm not going to mess with more than an occasional setting for rats unless the situation is primo in either an open water or ice hut trapping situation such as I had in the open water season of 2011. Slough mud and me aren't friends anymore for so little return.

Plan to lay out some cubbies tomorrow afternoon. Sounds like a nice day to do it. I was going to put in legholds on Vets Day but big storm coming in that will start with thunderstorms and maybe go to snow. No point getting rained out on the first night steel is under the dirt. Probably adjust my Thursday vacation day to Friday and maybe things will have dried off a bit by then.

I ended my evening by driving up to the country buyer who I used to sell to before going to the auctions. He's a big Fur Harvester guy. I was buying some rebar stakes and other supplies from him that would cost a lot to ship but really I wanted to drive around rather blindly on numerous gravel roads getting to his place in the dark (his place is on a "county highway" that is gravel). He thinks a guy can still makes a "few nickels" this year on the better quality fur but thinks next year will be worse. He thinks the US economy will follow the rest of the world's softening of growth. We'll see if that happens but that may be the year that I sit out again. As Dirty Harry said in Magnum Force, "A man has to know his limitations"...

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"And God said, Let us make man in our image …and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, …the fowl of the air…and all the creatures that move along the ground.
Genesis 1:26

Nice rats

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NYSTA member

Live Free or Die

good catch,

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buck creek coon hounds ... [><] .. >>>>>>--------->

Well stated R.

Im not much for mud and muck rat trapping anymore either. Between my age, back condition, and sheer laziness , I cannot hardly bring myself to do it. I know that around here, in a few weeks ice will come on thick enough to support me, yet thin enough to chop through quickly and easily. Its a time frame thing for me much like the other fur I chase. I just monitor the ice once it forms, and the instant it will hold my fat butt, I go like a crazed maniac after mrats, until the ice becomes to difficult to work, or I run out of rat ground. Once that happens, i move on to other fur. The ice has spoiled me severly, to the point I wont chase them without it. We get a few huts around in the right situations here, but far and wide, our rats, like our beavers, bank den for the most part. But even so, silty situations are hard on me. Without ice, at a minimum, im murking up the water so all setting is by feel, where as on ice, everything remains clear and easy to deal with. Plus I dont need them uncomfortable waders bogging me down.

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I was wondering when you guys would get lazy like me. LOL

Nice job PC!

Amak, you may have to consider moving much, much farther north to find enough ice to hold your butt up...........like Canada

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A WISE MAN PROFITS BY THE MISTAKES HE MAKES.
A FOOL NEVER SEES THE ONE HE MAKES. (Harold Warp)

I'm slowly getting legholds planted. I've never been a fast set maker and now I'm slow and old. But beautiful weather Friday through Sunday to be outside working. Abnormally nice for this time of the year but it will get more seasonal next week.

I released an "other" alive from one of my coon cubbies this morning. This set was in a grassy drainage-creeklet in Thor's alfalfa field. I have found several others alive in 160s compared to no coons, grinners, or skunks. Maybe because their length to width ratio maybe more linear than a coon or skunk and they don't get hit in the right spot or just that they can be out cruising at any time of the day whereas the fur bearers are mostly working at night, often early in the evening. For all I know this sucker was only in the set for minutes but it did manage to eat/spill all my bait and flip the box over.

Unfortunately, others are just part of my rural landscape that has been greatly altered in the last 150 years. Most of the common furbearers around here do very well in a mostly farming, introduced occasional tree patches, and exurbaia. South Dakota has far more raccoon now than it EVER did pre Euro-American farming settlement. Throw in introduced exotic pheasants and introduced others and whatever else we could identify, and we have a different ecosystem than the one that was here before. Ecosystems, "good", "bad", or ugly will function either with and without people being involved but we surely are in multitude of ways. The animals-are-all-cute-and-huggable crowd will never understand that the present ecosystem needs to be managed and others are now a substantial predator in this landscape. But people don't want to manage others because of the cultural attitudes of society. So much for these people being "green" or they're only green if the critter isn't huggable...

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"And God said, Let us make man in our image …and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, …the fowl of the air…and all the creatures that move along the ground.
Genesis 1:26

Well, I picked up some fur today, all in my legholds. So much for fox/coyote in my fox/coyote sets. I didn't realize how poor the stinker and coon pixs were until after I got them on my computer, Should have waited for the masked bandit to raise its head.

Medium sized skunk



big boar grinner. That's a #3 old Victor Jump for scale.



19 lb. boar coon (on my thrift store bathroom now garage scale). He should go 3 XL.



Still trying to get 4 more lehold sets in before dark. Nice break sleeping in a bit for the weekend back to the 3 hours before light check on Monday am.

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"And God said, Let us make man in our image …and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, …the fowl of the air…and all the creatures that move along the ground.
Genesis 1:26

Good luck with your check tomorrow.

Not to be critical, but I find if my canine footholds are fifteen to twenty feet, sometimes up to thirty five feet, out from the fence lines, I get fewer skunks. Still try to stay upwind and use something that stands out from the field, like a large clump of grass. Snares are the exception and stay on the fence lines at crawl unders, but I do stake away from the fence and use extensions and kill springs.

Also, I see a good snare location to the left of the coon, near the open ground. Set up on the point of weeds, as this is where the canines will move around the downed tree and heavy weeds. Set up both sides of the weed patch. For trails in the tall grass, snares are the way to go.

Great job on the catches PC. Keep it going!

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Ready for the 2017-18 Trapping Season!

Why would he want to avoid skunks? They are in demand and selling fairly decent for big white stripes. I would rather a skunk now than a wired hair worthless yote lol

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NYSTA member

Live Free or Die

Thanks Rem. The weather is supposed to get nicer again by the weekend and colder (opening of East River deer season) so I might take you up on the snare options in those locations. Raining and 49 when I left the house at 0420 this morning and rained on me most of the time I was out. Supposed to be rainy for the next day and half.

I don't have a problem working with skunks. I think their essence smells like strong garlic close up although I've never been sprayed and had enough essence around to make my eyes water. I'd rather smell strong skunk for a couple of hours than bad farts or bo. My problem with skunks is the wifey's (and general society's) issue with the smell. If I can smell it, she can smell it twice as much and absolutely hates it. I must have gotten some essence on my general hunting/trapping coat, jeans, and/or boots this morning because when I took them off in the garage, the smell was lurking. Of course the car smells even more because the green hide is still in there unwashed in a ziploc bag and another bag (which needs to get ditched in a c-store garbage on the way home tonight that actually cared pepe le pew.) I didn't think the little bugger sprayed Sunday morn when I capped him but he was basically sitting on his tail and so when I took him out of set this morning, yeah, greenest was there. So now after supper, I'll have to try to wipe down my coat with the de-scenting 3 source solution, rinse my jeans in the bucket, dip the soles of my boots in, all before I actually wash the skunk hide. Yeah, I like skunk fur when its done but its generally a pain to work with given my living conditions.

Have much more problems with "others" this year, 3 more today although 2 were in legholds and got released with my catch-pole, a very handy thing. They love zeroing in on canine lures. I just wish they were the paying kind come Dec.-Jan. although my part of the state doesn't have a season on their bigger kin. I talked with one of the maintenance plumbers at work who has a country residence and he keeps them thinned down on his place with lead poisoning but the void always gets filled. They are everywhere...

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"And God said, Let us make man in our image …and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, …the fowl of the air…and all the creatures that move along the ground.
Genesis 1:26

congrats on the catches.

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Those who trade liberty for security shall have neither.

"Take ye heed,watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is".

Rev. 6:8 and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was death , and Hell followed with him.

"Why would he want to avoid skunks?"

I just don't like them plugging up my canine sets, even though I do gang set. I'd use bodygrips, in cubbies, to target skunks.

The weather between Monday morn and Weds. afternoon was lousy. We picked up over 2 inches of rain, something rather unusual for the middle of Nov. This morning it was 28 with a stiff cold wind when I left the house. I think have made a strategic mistake with the leghold component of my sets by not stockpiling in 5 gallon buckets dry dirt from badger and pocket gopher digs to be used to remake sets rained down and now frozen although temps above freezing over the next couple of days may unthaw some of the lighter covered sets. We might get some snow tomorrow so I might take Fri afternoon off and re-lure the better looking sets. We'll see what happens.

I got my first coon in a coon cubbie this year, a 15-16 lb. boar. He is certainly a lighter colored coon than the one I caught on Sunday about a mile away. Funny how the genetics can be different so close together. I've had a couple of reach through of my 160s this year by critters, the first that I can remember. There was another one closer to a road that could have been a reach through miss as well or a not-so-sneaky Johnny sneakums as both springs were latched. I've seen 1 get re-latched by a critter bouncing around but 2 are suspicious. Maybe Thor found something and removed it as I haven't gotten to the set in a couple of days. Or maybe someone thought they needed a coon more than I. If so, I hope he sells it on the round and gets $2 for it. So it goes...

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"And God said, Let us make man in our image …and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, …the fowl of the air…and all the creatures that move along the ground.
Genesis 1:26

It snowed 3+ inches yesterday up where I'm trapping, about 7 inches at home, and well over a foot on the south side of the metro. Down in the teens last night, heading for single digits tonight. We tried to make some snow sets out of my frozen legholds sets. We'll see how it works until Thanksgiving morning.

Sometimes I feel like Carl the groundskeeper from Caddyshack with the bishop in the rain storm, always optimistic against the weather this past week...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3lshY4PwI4

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"And God said, Let us make man in our image …and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, …the fowl of the air…and all the creatures that move along the ground.
Genesis 1:26

Keep working on them NonPC, you are off to a good start.

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Actions Speak Louder Than Words

I'm running my legholds, at least this set and duration, through tomorrow AM. I didn't get out for a full line check this morning because we had a meeting at the high school at 0800 about one of my sons and didn't want anything unexpected to come up and slow me down. So on the way to work, I drove past a couple of the parcels and discovered a perfect k-9 paw catch in one of my #3 Victor CS "snow-sets"!! Too bad the foot belonged to dog of one of Thor's neighbors, a little Aussie healer mix . I think my $25 catch-pole that I bought 4 years ago has been a great trapping tool investment. Got pup out of the trap although it took a while to get the cable loop off of his head because he kept grabbing, sort of biting the pvc pipe. Once out, doggie looked at me and I said, "go home" and he was off like a bolt of lightening without any sign of gimping so I'm sure he won't forget his time in my set but nothing worse of wear except maybe he missed a feeding. It has been the first year I've set this alfalfa field drainage and 3/4th of my catches there have been domestics so I won't be setting there again next year!

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"And God said, Let us make man in our image …and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, …the fowl of the air…and all the creatures that move along the ground.
Genesis 1:26

I was going to pull my legholds today but snow squalls and swirling wind made me think I'd save the gas and do it tomorrow before we head out to hopefully score some venison (we have a 48-hour trap check in SD). But wifey made me feel guilty about someone's domestic potentially being in one of the legholds so I headed out to the most problematic area.

Its interesting how much an "inch" of snow can drift when its being driven by a 15-20 mph sustained wind. The temp was holding at about 20 F so not overly warm but not overly cold but with the windchill it was enough to make me wish I was somewhere else walking across the fields. By the end of my couple of hours the wind had either moderated a bit or I had warmed up to it. Nothing happening in the 18 bodygrip and leghold sets I checked and/or pulled. Little sign of any wildlife right now, although the fresh driven snow would have filled in most tracks by the time I saw them. Didn't kick up any deer or pheasants, only saw 1 bunny around Thor's old falling down farmhouse and heard some geese in the clouds.

This is the first year I've double staked single legholds and I think it worked pretty good. They seem to pull put pretty decent using my crowbar and 2 x ...piece of lumber although the ground isn't frozen very deep yet.

This afternoon after our feast, I'm going to skin out a decent WT buck head that a guy I know wants to have done as a European mount for his son. And I also have a decent size boar possum to do that Stinkbait killed raiding his chicken coop. He'll never recover the cost of the couple of adults and the baby chicks that old mr. grinner killed by sellling his hide (if it does sell at auction) but at least we got the last laugh

Happy (US) Thanksgiving everyone!!

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"And God said, Let us make man in our image …and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, …the fowl of the air…and all the creatures that move along the ground.
Genesis 1:26

Sounds like a miserable beginning to a great day! Hat is off to you in making that check. Better days will come, hang in there. Sounds like snow and weather may dictate snares?

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Yeah, Amak, may have to figure out some sort of snare line. A friend of mine's friend gave a yote snaring demo at the SD Trappers Convention and he hangs cable about anywhere he thinks a yoder may take the path of least resistance, including in road ditches with no cover but just a potential trail. I've thought about it but it makes me nervous as well. He lives outside of a town of about 7,500 people but it gets rural pretty fast. He can feed his cattle and then go run his coyote line, including snares in the ditch, without probably too many users of the road going by, either during the night or in the morning. I live in a 200,000 metro area and where I trap (or is within a decent travel time for a pre-dawn cruising radius is still in exurbia with a good number of people driving around.

I'm not too worried about most exurbanites about taking snared yoders or fox but they might be freaked to see one wrapped around a couple of kill stakes in the ditch in-line with a fenceline travel of mr. Wiley. What I'm worried about is the guy who lives in an ex-farm house who knows about fur and is willing to take a dead (or finish off one) yote tied up in the ditch. We can't hand a snare to a fence without the landowner's permission in the state and tracking down who actually owns what for rural parcels in this county is an interesting feat (the little old lady living in a home or small town but her ex-neighbor has been farming the ground for years--who actually controls the say-so of permission?). Still, the best solution might be to get permission to set a trail snare just inside of a fence (or no fence) in the right angle of another fence line. Still easy to check in a minute or 2 from the road but more out-of-sight from Johnny-fur-taker.

I might see if I can team up for a day or so with the friend's friend and see how he does it. I tried hanging about a dozen snares for a considerable time last year but spent too much time walking in to check them to be a true checkable every morning line.

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"And God said, Let us make man in our image …and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, …the fowl of the air…and all the creatures that move along the ground.
Genesis 1:26

Yep, I get it R. Snares are just so much harder to conceal initially. I had trapped certain grounds for a couple years using footholds with only a few incidents of folks messing with the sets. I hung snares in virtually the same locations this past season, and folks maliciously tore them out a number of times. Didnt look like any catch was made, they just didnt want them there. Snares are hard to see unless you are close to them, then they are easily seen, where as I can conceal a bedded foothold and set, that only the most experienced eyes can detect. Empty Snares are worthless to Johnny sneakum, so that only leaves maliciousness. As far as folks seeing taken animals, the snared critter can be hid if the conditions allow it, much in the same way an animal in a foothold can be concealed, except that a dead critter is less likely to catch thieves eyes from movement or the neon flashing sign of eyes glowing in projected light. Either way, Ive had plenty stolen....though there are more effective deterrents, nothing is bullet proof when sneakum is involved.

Snow, makes tire tracks and foot travel very easy to see and follow. A guy can do some checking from a decent distance, and by not changing your coarse of travel, it can throw off sneakum in thinking you never stopped....unless you have to approach the set...then there is no help. If they then wish to be a thief and robbing criminal, they will do so. Around here, seemingly normal folks that would be offended to be called a thief, suddenly become a thief without much thought at all. Im thinking around 1 in 50 may not touch the set, while the other 49 will steal or molest the set. Sad, sad.....
What really gets me, are most of these offenders are hunters. Why else be out in the woods in winter stomping around? I certainly think the larger portion of trappers are not guilty. They dont think about the benifits trappers are bringing to hunting, nor about the fact that im constantly seeing deer stands, duck blinds, ground blinds and the such.....all without ever becoming a thief or being malicious. If they were smart, they would realize the WRONG person to p.o. is a stealthy and wise trapper who is in the woods every day.

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I'll hijack my own thread...

Dawn Sat. morn found me as a 3-some in a 2-person elevated box deer blind in south-central South Dakota (Aurora County). I watched sitting in the corner as my kids took control of the situation when deer appeared, perhaps sort of like my dad's situation when he hunted with me (my dad went blind when he was 10 years-old but was a pretty hardy outdoorsman in spite of not being able to see). It ended up being a bit more adventurous than was planned but overall Tony managed to put venison on the ground for a new batch of deer sticks. Alas, it was a buck-fawn but some time its Hobson's choice.



P.S. I did fire a rifle this year at a deer (first time in about 4 years) but because we just have anterless tags, may fire it again before the snow melts...

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"And God said, Let us make man in our image …and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, …the fowl of the air…and all the creatures that move along the ground.
Genesis 1:26

Jacker.

Cool job on the enjoying life part of things. I see stands but have never sat in one.