good question, bogmaster.
areas where I trap and have traditional held very nice populations of rats, this year couldn't find even a toilet let alone a hut or bank den. lot of mink tracks though.
however, Wagon Train lake near my home has an area off limits to trapping (area near the camping area, swimming beach, dam area, etc.) and when I was jogging Christmas eve morning along the top of the dam I counted hundreds of little black dots all over the edge of the ice, and many active huts in the habitat tree tops, etc. But in backwaters where trapping them is fair game, no rats. Go figure.
I believe it is a variety of predator-related pressures in my area. I have seen a noticeable uptick in my mink catches over past several season from these same areas, many were taken in underwater runs meant for rats, too. I have seen hawks sitting on top of the old huts, and coon tracks around every hut when the weather warms up a bit in winter periods.
I also have a huge population of feral cats on two separate areas I trap, a big problem for any prey species, in my opinion.
I use rat carcases for bait and catch just about anything on them.
We have also had some serious drought conditions in past several years here, that we are just now starting to come out of those cycles anyway. The little pothole ponds and lakes really took a beating, and shoreline food sources such as cattails, rushes, etc. dissapear with the water, so to speak.
One landowner doesn't like cattails on his pond...interferes with his fishing he says, so he used roundup on them. No more cattails, but that had to have some impact on his fish and the other creatures that use that pond, too.
Who knows, Bogmaster. There have been some incredible rat trapping seasons for me around here...but this past year was definitely one of them, and too bad as prices had finally really punched through a psycological barrier for me to pursue them with some real efforts, too. It was a lot of work for not much return at all this year.
I've had beaver years like that too, though. Some years they are everywhere and catches are fun...other years you look hard for sign and work for every one of them. Maybe they have cycles like coyotes and fox populations, too. Both of them I felt were really up this year around here, and they too visit every hut at least the tracks lead to the huts that I saw.
Jim
