Muskrats - It's what's for dinner

Big Fin

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Spent this week out chasing muskrats. We decided to do a three-part YouTube series on the fun. First is setting the traps and showing how to do it, second is checking the traps and showing what worked and didn't work, and last is showing how to skin/stretch and get them ready for auction while salvaging the meat for dinner.

First video below. Other two videos will follow over the next few days.

[video=youtube_share;m7EikevlIDY]https://youtu.be/m7EikevlIDY[/video]
 
Cool video. I love trapping.
 

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I love the trapping episodes that you do Randy. I don't trap anymore but seeing these brings back memories of running a line with dad years ago. He mostly focused on racoons but dabbled with fox, coyote, and muskrats. For muskrats, he mostly used floating sets. I remember one year when he seemed to catch nothing but possums. He was taking so many in to sell he got the nickname of possum king and it stuck with him forever. Good stuff.
 
Listened to your podcast with Mr. Marcus. Glad you got him to laugh a few times. He cracks me up. Real interested in having a Gallatin Valley 'Scrat cook off if that ever becomes something.
 
I really need to try trapping Muskrats. Been on my list of things to try ever since you made the last video. Great stuff Big in!
 
We tried muskrat in college on the fryer. It tasted pretty decent actually. We also cooked the hind legs of a beaver and that was pretty good too (if you have a beaver eating joke, I'm sure I've heard it).
 
Man, I need to get the ol skrat traps back out again!!!
Don't think I'll be tasting any of them, though.

Great video. Thanks Randy.
 
It does sound like fun to be trapping muskrats in open water, we'll be froze up here for a couple months.
 
I've never done any trapping but showed the videos to my son he's six. He was totally into them. Thanks for the post and info!
 
I was actually quite surprised. The parts that are the equivalent of a backstrap and a sirloin were quite tasty and the marinade had made them almost too tender to pick off the grill without falling apart. Those pieces almost had a sweet taste to them. The equivalent of the round steak got a bit tougher, though flavor was still pretty good, especially the outer layers. The equivalent of the shank was very sinewy and strong in flavor.

I would eat the backstrap sirloin parts over an old mule deer buck, any day. That's not setting the bar too high. It is a lot of tedious work to trim the sirloin and backstraps away from the small carcass that is a muskrat. If they were larger and it was not so much damn work, I would be eating all of them that I caught.

Eating the rounds off a hind quarter.
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Fantastic videos Randy. Maybe some year the hunttalk hunt will be a big trapping session.
 
I was actually quite surprised. The parts that are the equivalent of a backstrap and a sirloin were quite tasty and the marinade had made them almost too tender to pick off the grill without falling apart. Those pieces almost had a sweet taste to them. The equivalent of the round steak got a bit tougher, though flavor was still pretty good, especially the outer layers. The equivalent of the shank was very sinewy and strong in flavor.

I would eat the backstrap sirloin parts over an old mule deer buck, any day. That's not setting the bar too high. It is a lot of tedious work to trim the sirloin and backstraps away from the small carcass that is a muskrat. If they were larger and it was not so much damn work, I would be eating all of them that I caught.

Eating the rounds off a hind quarter.
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Country boys can survive! https://youtu.be/3cQNkIrg-Tk
 
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