Trapping Muskrats [Archive]

iowarotax

11-06-2007, 07:39 PM

I take a couple of months off each year to trap. The first few weeks I trap mainly muskrats. Then I concentrate on mink. Heres a few pics of the last few days catch. I usually catch 1500 to 2500 a year. My best is 4500 3 years ago.

hublake

11-06-2007, 07:55 PM

Thats alot of skinning and stretching.

iowarotax

11-06-2007, 08:00 PM

I actually dont skin them, I take them in whole and the fur buyer does it. I could never keep up with the numbers. Last year the money was good. I averaged over $5.00 a piece. This year I am only getting $1.50-$2.00. I started Saturday morning and have caught around 600 so far.

Orangecnty250r

11-06-2007, 08:56 PM

why the price fluccuations ?????

slugger

11-06-2007, 10:23 PM

dang I may have to break out the canoe and chest waders and get me some toy money. I am not sure if the prices are better in mn or not. care to share the name of the guy who buys them whole?

what type of trap do you use or do you set up snares and a drowning rig??

slugger

iowarotax

11-06-2007, 10:37 PM

The price goes up and down because of the demand overseas. 90% of the muskrats are still being held from last year. The big fur buyers have 5-6 dollars in the muskrats and now they are only worth 2 or 3.They are hanging on to them trying to find a buyer. Its a big game of speculation....... I sell to Ed Kabele in Spirit Lake Iowa. I use leghold traps and the weight of the trap itself drowns the muskrat.

iowarotax

11-09-2007, 07:39 PM

Heres a couple of pics from today. I almost got 200 today. ALOT OF WORK!!

225DX DUDE

11-09-2007, 08:03 PM

Whats the diff. between muskrats and minks? I never knew that people trapped them and sold em. Do they live in swampy areas?

iowarotax

11-09-2007, 08:23 PM

Heres the two, mink and muskrat. They both live near swamps sloughs, rivers or any water. The mink loves to hunt for the muskrat. They can swim just as well or better than the muskrat.

85hondaatc125m

11-09-2007, 10:18 PM

Wow, thats alot of Muscrats you got there, me and my brother hunt them too but are lucky to get 25 of em a year, but we dont trap them though, we just park the truck besde the pond, and sit on the back with a couple .22's, looks like you did a good year so far.

T3 LOPES

11-09-2007, 10:48 PM

Thats awsome to see that there are still people out there that trap. When I was a kid I did alot of trapping. Red and grey fox , coon , muskrat and mink. I always used conibears in there runs and at the entrance of there dens. I never new someone could trap 4500 rats in a season. Good job ! Makes me want to pull out the old gear and get to work . Glad to see your doing so well. Lopes

Howdy

11-09-2007, 11:50 PM

I trapped about 25-30 years ago when you would get up to $9 a piece. Then fake fur took over for a few years and the price dropped to $$.50 - $1. a piece. I sold out my traps and quit trapping. But yes, 100-200 rats a day was enough to keep you happy.
Howdy

Kintore

11-09-2007, 11:56 PM

Thats funny, I work at a Redi Mix factory that feed mink on a large barn scale!

Rm250RF900R

11-10-2007, 02:02 AM

yeah a old family friend used to trap the hell out of these woods for mink. Now your lucky to see even one. But back then you had to do what you had to do for money. He had a huge mink farm. Thousands of minks. The stories i could tell. He must of made some money. Rest in peace though.

iowarotax

11-10-2007, 07:35 PM

Ive trapped since 1980. I only missed 4 years, because I was in the Marines. Ive seen the prices up and down. Mink used to bring $20.00 back during the depression, now they are worth $8.00. With inflation, they should be worth $200.00.

iowarotax

11-12-2007, 07:37 AM

Heres a couple of pics from Sunday. There is about 185 muskrats in my boat. Also my new pup "Buzz". My trapping companion "Otis" was over 16 years old, died Sept 10.

iowarotax

11-14-2007, 03:57 AM

I had a engine break the crank in half today. I was almost a mile from the boat ramp checking traps in the a real thick part of the slough. It started knocking real bad. I shut it down and push poled to the open water without cattails. I started it up and nursed it back to the ramp. When I got close to the ramp, I gave her full throttle and locked it up. I had a spare in the garage at home and switched it out and was back checking traps 2 hours later. The 6.5 Honda knockoff ran for over 3 years. Now a real Honda is on it.

iowarotax

11-26-2007, 07:14 PM

Well. ice has taken over N.W. Iowa. Now Im trapping the muskrats through the ice. Im catching 60-80 a day. Also trapping a few mink. Im over the 2500 mark. Im gonna try for 3500. Muskrats that is, not mink.

Louis Mielke

11-26-2007, 08:02 PM

What do you think the muskrat population is arudn there? you get many people bitching about "trapping poor little animals". You know tree huggers and peta and stuff?

iowarotax

11-26-2007, 08:29 PM

The two sloughs that Im trapping this year probably have 5 or 6 thousand muskrats each. There are another 30 sloughs/marshes in this area alone. Not to many people trap, so the populations always stay up. Plus they have 4 or 5 different litters a year. No one ever messes with me or gives me grief. If they do, I tell them they have some nice leather shoes and a leather purse. That usually shuts them up. The populations have to be controlled. The human race has crowded all the wildlife into select areas.

dickieg89

11-26-2007, 11:05 PM

Thats a lot of skinning. How many strechers do you have? My carpal tunnel bugs me after skinning 1 deer, i can't imagine that many rats. keep posting, i don't trap but enjoy reading about it.

Aka_am

11-26-2007, 11:40 PM

wow! lol I saw a muskrat like a week ago..people still catch these?

Bryan Raffa

11-27-2007, 09:11 AM

I was sitting in a ground blind over the weekend on a creek ..and a black mink ran by me ..verry cool to see in the wild ...about 20min later the little guy was dragging a fish up the creek just as big as him.. Funny as hell..watching him struggle with this fish.he was a very determined little guy..LOL

we had a problem here a few years ago with muskrats.. they were chewing the power steering lines off boats here on the lake..everyone had to replace with stainless steel lines.. they have been pretty mutch wiped out here..

iowarotax

11-27-2007, 10:20 PM

I have a couple hundred strechers but I sell the muskrats daily. I dont have the time or the energy to skin them. Im very lucky I have a fur buyer in town. Once and awhile I will skin and strech 50 or so and send them to the auction. But its sure nice to cash in every day and not worry about the price going up or down.

iowarotax

11-30-2007, 05:52 PM

Heres a couple of pics from yesterday and today. 5 degrees this morning and fresh snow. Im only catching 40-50 a day now.

firehart

12-02-2007, 01:37 PM

My wife worked at a mink farm here in Idaho when the kids were little. She hated it. Her job was to clean the hides. They smelled just as bad as skunks.

iowarotax

12-02-2007, 07:08 PM

I only caught 25 rats today. I plan on moving to a different part of the marsh this week.

slugger

12-02-2007, 09:22 PM

I only caught 25 rats today. I plan on moving to a different part of the marsh this week.

a few questions for you
how many traps are you running (placing) a day or at one time.
are you catching more that one rat per trap. (in the live traps any way)
are you using mostly "live" traps or do you use leg hold and conibear traps also?
how many traps do you have?
how many times a day do you run your trap lines? or rather how often do you check the traps.
is this basically a full time job for you or is it a hobby that you do in your "spare" time?

I have been thinking about trapping muskrats since we have quite a few "ponds" and marshes here and I see their houses all over the place in the marshes and I am wondering what kind of start up capital I would need to make it worth the time and work.

thanks for the info
slugger

iowarotax

12-03-2007, 07:16 AM

During open water I can set as many as 400 traps in a day. I have had 750 out on a slough at one time, but it was almost too much to handle. When Im on the ice , its a totally different way of trapping. I use 110 conibears in the runs and use 1 1/2 longsprings up in the small feeder houses. Those are not live traps you see in the pictures. They are called colony traps. You set them under water and the rats drown right away. On the ice I only run 100 or so traps. I have 800 muskrat traps. Also 350 mink and coon traps. I check traps usually once a day, but sometimes on the ice I run them twice. I take a couple months off every year to trap. So its a full time job.