Muskrats in SK

I remember getting 15.00+ for a nice heavy muskrat pelt in the 70's, sounds like they are around the same price now. I've eaten muskrat at fish and game suppers and the meat is ok.
 
saskboy said:
SO...... I have been shooting $13 exploding targets all year, man I waste money!
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Saskboy, shoot them in the head, it only takes about two minutes to skin them and put them on a board...50 skins will buy you a new rifle.
Gotta like that!!!
 
saskboy said:
I blast the hell out of them, I get a letter from the R.M. to shoot the hell out of them and beavers too.
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Thats for you RM, not everyones RM. lol. which RM are you in? You can lose your rifle and pay a hefty fine over a little muskrat. If you dont know dont shoot.
 
hawk-i said:
Have you actually seen a cow break a leg in a muskrat run...I grew up on a Alberta farm and never seen or heard of it, also never see a horse or cow break a leg on a gopher hole but i guess it is possible.
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Saw it happen first hand 3 times in 18 years of living on the farm when i was younger, found one of the cows drowned in the dugout as when the front leg snapped it fell into a spot where the bank was steep, couldn't get back out with three legs.

On the farm the rule was if you spotted a muskrat then youspent the time to kill it! plain and simple.
 
kyle700 said:
I know a few people buy a fur licence and go after them varmint style with 22-250s, 204s etc. I plan on eating one this fall and seeing how they taste. I keep hearing they're great.
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Really?? I shot "rats" for years back when they were actually worth something and never used anything bigger than a .22 long rifle and even then had ricochets. You have to be very careful and I'd be reluctant to shoot a 22-250 at a muskrat on or in the water. You do understand they hardly ever leave the water, right?
 
crazydave said:
Saw it happen first hand 3 times in 18 years of living on the farm when i was younger, found one of the cows drowned in the dugout as when the front leg snapped it fell into a spot where the bank was steep, couldn't get back out with three legs.

On the farm the rule was if you spotted a muskrat then youspent the time to kill it! plain and simple.
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I grew up on a farm with lots of cattle and lots of sloughs and muskrats. Never heard of anyone ever losing a cow to a muskrat run in 50 years - plain and simple.

I have seen cows that got stuck in the mud on a slough and died there because farmer joe was too cheap to provide an alternative water source, so his cattle had to wade through belly deep loon #### to get a drink of water. Farmer joe blamed it on coyotes but he probably would have blamed it on muskrats if he had thought of it. I always thought it was animal cruelty myself.
 
jethunter said:
Really?? I shot "rats" for years back when they were actually worth something and never used anything bigger than a .22 long rifle and even then had ricochets. You have to be very careful and I'd be reluctant to shoot a 22-250 at a muskrat on or in the water. You do understand they hardly ever leave the water, right?
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I'm no ballistics expert but I believe that a 22LR ricochets more than a 22-250.
A 22LR hits with just enough force to cause the bullet to bounce with minimal distortion especially in the solid RN variety. Where as a 22-250 impacts with so much force that a varmint style bullet literally flies apart, each tiny piece having minimal kinetic energy to travel very far or do much damage.
That being said I'd be much more picky about which direction I was facing before taking a shot at the water with a rifle. And I'd want a highly frangable, low grain weight bullet, or better yet a shot gun....since there is not going to be much rat left after a 22-250.
 
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ciphery said:
I'm no ballistics expert but I believe that a 22LR ricochets more than a 22-250.
A 22LR hits with just enough force to cause the bullet to bounce with minimal distortion especially in the solid RN variety. Where as a 22-250 impacts with so much force that a varmint style bullet literally flies apart, each tiny piece having minimal kinetic energy to travel very far or do much damage.
That being said I'd be much more picky about which direction I was facing before taking a shot at the water with a rifle. And I'd want a highly frangable, low grain weight bullet, or better yet a shot gun....since there is not going to be much rat left after a 22-250.
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A .22 ricochets and loses most of it's energy because it starts out slower and usually won't go too far. A 22-250 ricochet has the potential to travel way out there. Using varmint bullets that blow up on contact should minimise that hazard but it depends on the angle and the bullet - some of them don't "blow up" so reliably. Beaver hunting with a centerfire you can occasionally see the bullet skipping after it's already gone through the beaver.
 
jethunter said:
Really?? I shot "rats" for years back when they were actually worth something and never used anything bigger than a .22 long rifle and even then had ricochets. You have to be very careful and I'd be reluctant to shoot a 22-250 at a muskrat on or in the water. You do understand they hardly ever leave the water, right?
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Shot a few with 223 never had ricochets no matter if they were in water or not. Also almost all the ones I have seen were out of the water walking to the next pond. I have shot beavers with 22lr in the water and never had a shot bounce off the water just a nice splash.
 
jethunter said:
I grew up on a farm with lots of cattle and lots of sloughs and muskrats. Never heard of anyone ever losing a cow to a muskrat run in 50 years - plain and simple.

I have seen cows that got stuck in the mud on a slough and died there because farmer joe was too cheap to provide an alternative water source, so his cattle had to wade through belly deep loon #### to get a drink of water. Farmer joe blamed it on coyotes but he probably would have blamed it on muskrats if he had thought of it. I always thought it was animal cruelty myself.
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Consider yourself lucky your cows never got injured, as for placing blame on cows dying from muskrat holes i have seen it happen more than once.

There was no loon #### at the dugouts, no tooth marks from coyotes, just big knee deep holes with hoof prints going to them.
The only good muskrat is a dead muskrat!
 
I have seen a muskrat tear up a dog a bit, they are scrappy fighters when they are cornered. When i was kid our farm dog thought he had cornered a defenseless if slightly oversize gopher , but she got her ear split almost in two for being careless. Muskrats get pissed off and will actually attack you when they think they are cornered, and they can jump about 2 feet straight up and latch on with those sharp rodent teeth, as the old dog found out the hard way.
 
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