I hate rats.

I haven't used my boat this winter, so I went out today to get it ready to use.

A rat had decided my boat would make a good winter condo and moved in. It torn up some of the carpet and made a mess, but I don't think it tore up anything important. Not yet anyway. All the electrical seems to be working.


Did I mention that I hate rats???


Rex

Rex, thank goodness the electrical seems to be working. If you haven't already, you might want to visually examine all the wiring you can get to fairly easily. You don't want to be in the middle of the lake and have a dead short you didn't know was there pop up and ruin your day.

The reason I say that is I had some field mice move in under the hood of my pickup one winter. They chewed the insulation over the wiring to my headlights, which didn't cause a problem until I was driving along one night and they went out. At 70 mph. Not fun.

I suppose I should be offended that no rats think my boat is fancy enough to use for a condo. Apparently mine isn't even a Motel 6.

It could be worse, at least they didn't give you the bubonic plague...that we know of.

that sucks, me hate rats too, also hate cats, but I guess they is better n rats.

I found out a couple of weeks ago that our dock Raccoon has been crawling up into my front hatch. Apparently he had decided to use it as a latrine. The smell about knocked me over.

I'm sure this was payback for the battle we had early one morning. He boarded my boat with me in it. He started eating all the dead shad on the floor left from catching bait. He was full on ready to fight. He might of won the battle except for my trusty paddle. Last week another guide left half a sandwich in a soft sided cooler under his dash. The Raccoon took the entire cooler!

Scott, I remember that racoon battle story. I understand the boat as a latrine concept. I spend the afternoon cleaning it up.

TXRR, I looked at all the wires I could reach, but I'm worried.


Rex

I recall hearing that putting mothballs in bilge & under console etc, will keep snakes & vermin away.

Failing that, you could always pee in the boat yourself.

Scott, I've found that the definitive author on raccoon behavior is Clower, J. and that his definitive work "Just Shoot Up in Here Amongst Us" describes the tenacity of Procyon Lotor*. Here, he describes the possible outcome of forcing a raccoon out of a tree into the jaws of a pack of hounds:

"Th' 'coon has the option of whuppin' all 20 of them dogs and walkin' off if he wonted to."

Here is the original text for those of you who would like to broaden your academic horizons.








*By the way the Latin means "one who washes", so you should have made them clean up their own mess.

COnsider yourself lucky, Rex. When we lived in a Chicago suburb, we had ground squirrels set up camp in our air conditioner one winter. Come late spring, we tried to turn on the AC, promptly shorting out both the fan motor and the compressor. Those little buggers cost us $5k.

I just got a mental picture of what would happen if they didnt short it out before you turned it on. . . what a mess.

We have a bottle of coon pee cover scent we like to keep around the hunting lease for the rookies. Man that stuff is RANK!

1 cc of antifreeze injected into a quarter of a hot dog.....bye bye coon.....

Sounds like some fine, fresh tying materials on the hoof around there.

Quote:

. . . fine textured brown to light gray fur makes fine dubbing . . . � FAOL

Just be 115% that no pets get to it. Kidney shutdown is nasty and expensive to (attempt to) reverse.

The Rat:

• Select a size 14 Kamasan B160 hook and tungsten bead, placing bead on the hook and tying in brown tying thread I use UTC 140, secure the bead in position and take the tying thread along the hook shank to a point over the hook barb. Select a few barbules of Coch y Bonddu hen and tie in as a tail. Split the tying thread with your dubbing needle and tease into the loop of thread some Mouse Fur, create the rope by closing together and spinning the bobbin holder. Wind the fur onto the hook shank building up towards the bead to get a tapered effect on the body. Place some varnish on the thread and whip finish infront of the bead, trim the surplus thread. � http://www.gwilymhughes.com/flydressing.asp?MenuId=64

That's some buggy dubbing, lads.

AND, in most cases doesn't work!!!