Help with rats in Ponds

[KYtrapper17]

I have permission to trap a golf course. My buddy who works there told me there were muskrats in a pond. I looked the pond over and it looks ratty. It is grown up all around it. There are also little faint trails leading from the banks to the water. I told my trapping buddy about them and he said it was prrobably rats. I plan on going to set this golf coursew up in a day or two. I was wondering how should I go about setting this pond up? I was thinking about making 4-5 pocket sets around it and luring them with my rat lure. I am not dead for sure that there are rats in this pond, but if htere is would the pocket sets attract and catch em.

Thanks,
Zach Ellis :wink:

[Bogmaster]

Zach, I have done rat jobs on golf courses several times.Your pocket sets will work,but I would look for dens and feedbeds.Sometimes the course owners are not exited about someone digging in their ponds,so you may want to think twice about digging pockets.   Tom

[jim-NE]

you want to keep the weather in mind and where you step when trapping golf courses late in winter, too. even if the grass looks "green" you can kill it if there was a frost by simply walking across a green to get to the rat pond. thats why carts aren't allowed after a certain time of year on courses located in colder regions. i've seen this effect on lawns, even. someone walks across a lawn after a hard freeze early, and there will literally be "black" footprints across that lawn where each step killed the grass.
i'm sure that if you have permission to trap that course that they have gone over all those concerns with you ahead of time, but just in case they didn't I thought I would pass this along from my experience with manicured, golf course greens.

[KYtrapper17]

Thanks Jim. I never thought about that and they never mentioned it either. I will have to watch :wink: