Smoked muskrat

  • Some of the links on this forum allow SMF, at no cost to you, to earn a small commission when you click through and make a purchase. Let me know if you have any questions about this.
SMF is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.
I grew up hunting and trapping muskrats for their fur, plus they're burrowing degrades the ditch banks and can create problems. I never knew they were edible. I just wiki and found out they taste like rabbit or duck. I feel bad now because I have killed more than a hundred from age of 11 to 14.

Story time....
Our property had one main canal and several offshoots running through it, the main canal was at least 15' deep on average and 30'-40' across, these ran straight out of the sierra mtns. The muskrats were all burrowed into ditch banks and the couple of ponds we had. During the winter the canal stops flowing and the water goes down to about 3 feet on avg. I had a raft that I could pole up and down the canal between the different locks/drops. At night the Muskrats would come out in force 30 - 50 in about 100 yard stretch. One full moon night, I got on my raft and anchored in the middle, there were Muskrats already out, but as soon as they saw me they dove and went into their holes. After about 15-20 minutes they began to reappear. So I decided to just sit still on my raft I had a little seat setup and I sat their motionless. It was a really bright full moon night and looked like every single Muskrat with in 100 yards started gliding toward the raft. They were really curious, about 30 or more basically surrounded the raft, watching to see if I would move. Eventually one then more crawled up on the raft at the very edge, about 10 or 12 were either on the raft or pulling themselves out of the water to get on the raft. Others were crowding behind trying to get on. Slowly some of them came right up to my boots, sniffing around. I can't remember why I moved but I did, and in a flash those on the raft went flying into the water and all the others dived.

It was a neat experience, I just thought I would share it.
 
LOL----Good story.
It's good you scared them off. I think their plan was to all get on one side of the raft, and dump you.
eek.gif


Back in the early eighties, I used to trap about 40 muskrats per year (when the pelts were getting $6 to $7 per). Then the prices went down to $1.50, and we moved to a house without a stream & 4 ponds. No more trapping.

BC
 
I've never tried it but hey, they're vegitarians like ground hog.
I don't kill anything with my bow unless it's goin to get eatin.

And Delta, I'm with you on the huntin trappin thing. I grew up too huntin and trappin and I couldn't tell ya how much food I actually threw away. Hate to think bout it now.

--ray--
 
SmokingMeatForums.com is reader supported and as an Amazon Associate, we may earn commissions from qualifying purchases.

Hot Threads

Clicky