A week or so ago we had some warm
weather days and decided to go camping. We camped near a local river
and did some hiking ( or four-wheel-drive wheelchairing) and
photography. It was great to get back to doing outdoors things after
a long winter. We made it down to the river, and although fishing
season is not open for a few weeks here we did get to observe the
wildlife.
One of the things that is kind of fun
to do when you are near most water with bulrushes, is to call for
muskrats. Believe it or not, I read about how to call muskrats when I
was in about grade 9, and I paid enough attention that class to
remember how to do it. This is basically a piece of that goofy, useless knowledge that takes up the empty spaces in your head, of which I apparently have an ample supply of. To make the call, all you do is hold your lips tightly together
and clench them with your teeth, and then suck air through the corner
of your mouth. The high-pitched squeal is much like blowing on a
piece of grass, and this is the sound that muskrats make. Using this
technique you can call a muskrat that is several hundred yards away
and it will come right up to you. I have been using this technique
for years for entertainment, and unfortunately I used to use it when
I hunted them for fur as a teenager with great success.
The following is a video that we took
of me calling a muskrat while we were out camping the other day.
Okay, hunting, fishing, glider piloting, but muskrat calling? C'mon Kary! I'm beginning to think you Canadians have strange ideas of entertainment. Don't think muskrat calling will knock Dancing With The Stars off the charts...although it's probably far more entertaining.
ReplyDeleteOut here on the Oklahoma plains we don't have much opportunity to call muskrats. But boy can some of these rednecks call hogs! Why shucks some of them boys has been knowed to call a hog from a fer away as Arkansas...and they's got some real hog callers over there Bubba!
When you start domiciling with alligators, I'm calling the shrink for you!
Knock yourself out!
Lol, ok, a bit wierd I'll admit. But it does show that I paid attention to at least one of my grade 9 English classes. I did use this knowledge to my advantage though, in those days I was working for about three dollars an hour, but I was able to get five dollars for one muskrat! Using this technique to call them in, some nights I was able to get up to 40 muskrats! That funded a lot of extracurricular activities in those days, making $200 a night!
ReplyDeleteHey whatever you can earn a buck doing is fine I guess. Growing up in a southern city (Jacksonville FL) inner city ghetto, didn't have critter pelts available. Next best thing was hub caps. Amazing how many times you can sell the same hub cap to a guy from whose car they happened to "pop" off.
ReplyDeleteNo wonder PETA is after you for decimating the muskrat population! Now I have to pay $5 to visit an endangered species park to see a muskrat!