Digging Muskrats

By Bob Noonan

     Muskrats dig constantly. It’s their nature. They dig underwater, at the water’s edge, and up on the bank. They dig for plant roots, they dig bank dens, and they dig holes from the bank tops down to the water for escape routes. They dig cavities under overhanging banks, for sheltered places to rest and eat.  

Rats have fairly small territories, so they quickly notice any changes in their habitat. Especially the dark, fresh dirt of new diggings. And because they’re territorial and will defend their property against invading rats, they immediately check out new diggings. Their eyes are barely above water level when they swim on the surface, so any digging right at the water’s edge is noticed instantly. That’s why the pocket set is so deadly on rats. They simply have to check out the new hole in their backyard.

The pocket set has to be made correctly to be effective on mink and coon. The trap has to be positioned properly, the bait has to be out of reach, and all that. But a pocket can be pretty sloppily made to catch rats. Just a foothold in front of a hole. The trap doesn’t even need to be sunken down in a bed, or super stable. It can stick up off the bottom and even move a bit when stepped on. Muskrats will climb on top of anything.

When rats were averaging $6 back in the late 70s I paid closer attention to them on my mink and coon lines. I quickly discovered I could catch rats in front of almost any type of digging at the water’s edge. I started out trying to dig regular pockets, the usual round hole going back in at least 6-8 inches, but that wasn’t always possible in rocky, rooty, or hard clay banks. I did the best I could and set the traps anyway, and quickly discovered that hole size, shape, and depth wasn’t all that important. The rats checked them out, and seemed unable to miss the footholds set in front of them. Finally I was just hacking cavities in vertical banks, trying to keep them about 5-6 inches wide or so and getting as much depth as possible, but not wasting a lot of time on it. Some cavities were only 2-3 inches deep. The attraction, obviously, was the dark, freshly disturbed dirt at the water’s edge.

I also discovered how very effective a good rat lure can be. I’d poke a dry stick in a bottle of Hawbaker’s Muskrat #1 or #2, shove the un-lured end in the dirt at the back of the cavity, and usually take a rat out of the set the next day. Hawbaker isn’t the only manufacturer of good rat lure; there are some phenomenal recipes out there.

Trap placement didn’t seem super critical, but I did put the trap fairly close to the opening, and made some sort of flat base for it. This was usually pretty easy to do with the wet dirt and mud available. I tried to have only about an inch of water over the trap, to compensate for water rises. Rats would fire the traps even in 5 inches or more of water because they sat down in front of the cavity. They’ll also often step on a trap when the water drops and it’s exposed.

There were plenty of gradually sloping banks where a hole straight back into a vertical bank wasn’t possible. I dug trenches the width of the trap a foot or so back into the sloping banks, with an inch of water in the bottom the whole length. The back end of the trench was higher, and I pushed the lured stick into the back wall. I set footholds in the water in front of where the trench started at the water’s edge, and caught rats.

One day just before dark I had 3 traps left, and was in a rush to get them set. They wouldn’t catch anything in the truck. The bank sloped about 45 degrees back from the water, so I just stood in the water in front of it, faced the stream, and with the right heel of my hip boot I gouged a 2-foot groove out of the bank, cutting and pushing away vegetation and debris and exposing bare dirt. When my heel ended up in the water at the base of the bank, I’d pushed down enough dirt to have created my flat base for the trap, just the right depth underwater. The groove looked like a rat slide. I set a foothold in the water at the base and pushed a lured stick into the groove about 6 inches above it. I made 2 more grooves and set the other 2 traps, and was in the truck by dark.

Next day the sets held a couple rats. I began to use the set more often, and loved its speed, simplicity, and effectiveness. I was pretty smug about having invented a new set until I met an old timer with a few thousand rats under his belt. “Sonny,” he said, “that’s the old heel stomp set. Just stomp a gouge in the bank and set at trap at the base and you’ll catch plenty of rats.”

Hawks and owls are major rat predators, and to hide from them rats like to feed and rest up under overhanging banks and root systems. Small rafts of floating cut grass or water vegetation up under there are dead giveaways of rat activity. So are droppings. Sometimes footholds can be set right on the floating vegetation. Check these areas out for digging against the bank at the water’s edge, where they’re looking for roots. Sometimes all you’ll find are a few fresh claw marks in the bank. That’s enough to tell you rats are present. Take your spade or trowel and carve out a half-moon cut into the bank, big enough to provide a flat shelf for a trap bed just underwater. Set the trap on the shelf and push a lure stick into the bank above it.

When possible I always did try to dig at least a shallow hole against the back wall too, to focus them a bit better. Again, trap positioning isn’t as critical with rats as with other furbearers. Just make sure it’s pretty much in front of the attractor. I’ve seen rats shift and shuffle around considerably while feeding or resting. If your trap is reasonably close to the attractor they’ll find it.
Some trappers like chunks of parsnip or apple for bait, and it definitely works. I’m sure rats are drawn to the white color. But for me it’s another item to carry, and lure alone seems so effective I don’t bother with bait.

Rats and mink are easily drowned in footholds, if you have at least 6-7 inches of water beyond the trap. All I do is run a foot or so of 16 gauge wire from the end of the stock trap chain to a stake out in the stream. For a stake I usually cut a sapling the thickness of my thumb or a bit more, off the bank nearby. I leave the top branches on and shove the butt end into the stream bottom. If coon are a possibility I anchor the trap better. More than a few times, though, I’ve had a coon get in this setup, pull the stake and drag it up on the bank, and tangle up within 10-20 feet.

If there’s any doubt about drowning depth, use a stoploss.

If you’ve got beaver in the area, use dead stakes or they’ll lug the whole rig off.

I like #1 ½ size traps and larger because they catch rats higher on the forearm, and the weight drowns them faster. More than once I’ve seen muskrats caught in a #1 swimming around on the surface out in the stream, at the end of the wire. The trap simply didn’t weigh enough to pull the animal under quickly. Also the #1 catches lower, and if it catches on the wrist, a wring-off can happen.

Larger traps work great for rats. The #3s and #4s actually become bodygrips of a sort, reaching very high. Today’s big coils have a lot of power and consequently a lot of pan tension even when the pan is loose and floppy, and rat traps should fire fairly easily. The old Victor single spring jump traps, in the #1 ½ through #4 sizes, have big floppy pans and fire at a touch, especially when dipped or waxed. They’re ideal rat and mink traps. However, these big traps should be avoided when coon are a possibility, because they may damage the foot.

This is essentially a foothold set. The foothold is a great rat trap, underutilized and unappreciated these days. Trappers who grew up using only the #110 Conibear on rats should try putting some footholds in the water in front of some digging at the water’s edge. That dark, fresh dirt really draws them.

Bob Noonan is the publisher and editor of Trapper’s Post.