Fat rats

[bigjohn]

I was contacted by a home association earlier this year about removing rats from the associations lake.This lake is surrounded by houses with the typical manicured lawns and the banks are mostly riprapped.A few of the homeowners had railroad tie seawalls constructed and that's what caused their problems.
The banks are long and sloping,with a silted in bottoms that doesn't allow the rats tunnels to hold up,so the find places in between the ties to burrow in,causing the dirt to settle behind them.
I set 3 colony traps submerged against the ties and picked up 8 rats the first check. Those rats had been feeding on some type of clams along the ties and I've never seen such fat rats! I mean fat like coons.Every one of those rats stretched 17 inches or better.

[jiml]

Nice. Way to help out the community and get a little return at the same time.

[tryinhard]

Thanks for the idea John! I've got that same situation at one of my docks. Did you just place the colony trap against the wall or did you have it at an entrance?

[bigjohn]

The rats are traveling along the bottom of the walls. Just set tight to them and pushed a rebar stake to keep in place.Couldn't find any runs on the side I'm trapping. They are suppose to contact the rest of the homeowners and tell them I'll be trapping their side too.Had 3 more this morning.This is just on a stretch of about 100 feet.

[tryinhard]

I caught 7 from 2 holes in the styrofoam on a dock last year. The dock owner has since refurbished the dock with new wood but left the old styrofoam pretty much intact. I'm hoping they are still using the dock but there is a weedbed that runs from this dock to the wall. I'm thinking they are using it to travel. Either way I'll be setting hoth locations. I was originally planning to bottom edge set with a 110 along the wall but I think the colony is a better option. Thanks again!