davethe

Resurrecting my thread from some years ago. Caught outside the chicken shed, using peanut butter bait. Fecking teeth on that. Daughter's size 5 for scale.

A few broken up pieces of ewe nuts and chicken feed (both are high protein). I went off the practice of smearing peanut butter on the treadle after spattering it all over my face with accidental triggers during setting.

I've not had a whole lot of success with rats previously, but I've caught 4 over the last 6 nights here now. This morning's was quite a chunk. The arms on one side of the trap came unhooked holding onto him.

Oh, I see. I'll switch, once I've used up this near kilometre of mono. (I'm not made of money, you know.)

I find my fishing line knots slip off the triggers now and then, so every few months I have to sit down and go through tying most of them back on. I might try both methods, a cable tie on the trigger then tie the line to that; the cable tie would be too big to slip through the gap in the trigger. (Obviously I'm just showing off that I'm made of money to be considering this.)

A mouse seems to have moved in to where the rat used to live, and he doesn't seem to weigh enough to set the trap off. I'll have to re-set and try extra delicate tap trapping.

My first ever catch was an aquatic mole in a flooded tunnel.

Got two moles in a hayfield today though.

Not caught anything since, not even on camera. Perhaps I should fill in that hole (so I can see if it gets dug out again) and choose a different spot.

I might have tapped the treadle to a slightly higher sensitivity, perhaps. But otherwise took heart from the fact he wasn't scared of going in there and put fresh chicken feed pellets out each day. It's all set again for tonight, although I have read that the death throes of the first might dissuade the second.

Got 'im! Unfortunately no video, I guess it was on its cooldown "time between videos".

At this point I think I'm just feeding a rat. You can see him sitting on the treadle eating the bait underneath it. I did the gentle tapping thing but it still doesn't react.

Well that's annoying. The little bugger climbs on the trap and seems to pull the peanut butter off. Safety catch is definitely disengaged though.

Beautiful, thank you.

Nope. A few old ones doddering around, but nothing and no-one I know how to use 'em ratting.