Growing up with a father and uncle that trapped muskrats, I tagged along until I was old enough to set a small trapline on my bike, toting as many colony traps as I could carry. Most of the ditches back then held water throughout the year, and carried some sort of muskrat population. The visible runs through the ditches were easy to spot, and equally easy to set up with colony traps. It almost seemed too easy setting four traps, and I would come home with four to eight muskrats on each check. I was kind of spoiled. A few years later, I was soon armed with another tool for muskrats and colony traps: my driver’s license. With the world (actually, a small Ohio county) as my limit, and another 30 colony traps added to my collection, the catches steadily increased. It was nothing to bring home 20 to 30 muskrats each night.
Later I decided to join the Navy, and
