Fall Muskrat Season

[HunterDave]

This will be my first Fall trapping muskrats and I don't know what to expect in the way of what kind of time frame I'm looking at for open water trapping in the Edmonton area. My wife and I would like to go to Vegas for a few days before I set any coyote snares but I don't want to mess up my Fall muskrat trapping.

Do you fellas start trapping rats right on October 1 and are the pelts prime enough to make them worthwhile?

Would there be much difference in the quality of the pelts between the first week of October to the last week?

[Hitman1958]

Why don't you wait till the winter when there good and prime . There not prime and there not very big October 1

[HunterDave]

Originally Posted by Hitman1958

Why don't you wait till the winter when there good and prime . There not prime and there not very big October 1

I was kind of hoping to get them in open water with float sets and at den entrances with colony traps. Come November when the lake's frozen it'll be a whole new ballgame

I keep hearing that Fall rat trapping is awesome but having never done it, I can only imagine what it's like. If it's anything like Spring trapping, I don't want to miss that window.

What kind of value is there in a juvenile, October muskrat?

[bill9044]

I got a couple rats late October and they were not full prime. There was 1/8 inch of ice on the Slough and they werent full prime. To quote nube trap the rats on shallow ponds and sloughs that you know won't survive the winter. I am also east of Calgary your area may differ.

[C Taylor]

You'll double your hourly wage if you wait until there starts to get a bit of ice around the edges. Compared to oct 1

[The Spruce]

Originally Posted by HunterDave

This will be my first Fall trapping muskrats and I don't know what to expect in the way of what kind of time frame I'm looking at for open water trapping in the Edmonton area. My wife and I would like to go to Vegas for a few days before I set any coyote snares but I don't want to mess up my Fall muskrat trapping.

Do you fellas start trapping rats right on October 1 and are the pelts prime enough to make them worthwhile?

Would there be much difference in the quality of the pelts between the first week of October to the last week?

Dave,

There is still good value in the pelts, but you will find that your average will dip greatly in the fall just due to size of rats. There will be a ton of medium/smalls, a few larges, a few XL+. Best time of year to put up shear numbers hands down. I usually wait until second week or so, depending on weather. Trap a couple rats a week until they start to turn (black stripe on smaller rats will start to break up). Once this happens, fully deploy. That's how I trap them. If you have more areas to trap then you can handle, start on the 1st and watch the numbers pile up.

Spruce

[nube]

Didn't think the season started till Oct 15?. I plan on nailing a bunch as soon as I can on certain ponds and shallow areas. Price will be about $1 difference between fall and spring rats from what I see from the past sales I have had.

[HunterDave]

Originally Posted by nube

Didn't think the season started till Oct 15?

You're probably trapping rats in zone 7 and I'm trapping them in zone 4. Zones 6,7 & 8 start on Oct 15 but the rest are Oct 1.