Hopefully someone can help me with this.
My 1/3 acre pond was pumped dry and redug 2 years ago. The surrounding land which was to become my front yard was all regraded to prepare for seeding. The redo happened in June and by late August one night I heard splashing in the pond and saw a lone muskrat swimming back and forth. He/She didn't seem to care that I was watching and it was between dusk and dark. There was no vegetation, no fish so I assumed the muskrat was gone.
The yard went in about that time and had a very good 'catch' I watched carefully, no tunnels or holes.
Sometime the next summer we found a bank caved with a tunnel near the water edge but no sign of muskrat activity. We filled it in and late the in the fall didn't see any activity.
This past fall I thought I saw one other tunnel on the other side but no fresh dirt, no sign of the muskrat all day, or at night, even when I'm out there after dark.
By this time there are weeds and fish so I easily can see how they/he/she may have come back.
last spring we got our lab/aussie shepherd mix puppy and by this fall he is old enough to chase anything that moves. We have 20 foot long ruts where he is digging and chasing after moles, voles, mice who knows what.
He now is at these holes, he clearly smells something and is enlarging the entrance holes and kicking out a lot of fresh dirt as he digs. He hasn't found anything that I know of and if the muskrat come out during the day when he is on the prowl I think he would go after them. He is in the garage at night so they are free to do as they wish at night.
For whatever reason the pond is down quite a bit this spring (see pictures) I took the opportunity to try to rake leaves and big mats of FA out of the shallows which are now dry and now you can see more of the muskrat holes/tunnels then you could before. I'm wondering now if their whole existence may be coming and going under water and they may have been there much longer than I thought with no visible presence during any daylight hours? Could that be? I can see the pond easily from my front window so any ripples or swimming ducks, muskrat, etc I can spot right away. I haven't seen any sight of them in the past nearly 2 years!
Questions....
The dog might be smelling 'old smells' but if they are in the hole he is digging in, can he get to them? Are they in the tunnel just further under the pond bank? I don't want to know how much of my pond banks are wrecked now as I see the tunnels go way back!
Are they strictly nocturnal so that I won't see them?
Have they been feeding under our thick ice pack and heavy snow all winter and I was unaware of it?
I've read on this forum I need to trap them? Advice on which trap and if I need bait? I assume it goes right at the underwater portion of their main in/out run? I guess setting traps is the only way to know if they are still around!
I'm worried that the dog will get in the traps. He is in the pond constantly and has his nose everywhere. The best solution I can think of is to set the traps at night when he is in the cage and make sure I go and remove them in the morning before letting him out? Other ways to 'dog proof' them? Maybe put a tote over them or something?
Once water levels come up I imagine this may be harder to do?
If a muskrat is in one of these holes and I fill it in, maybe put some metal fence mesh over it to discourage dog from digging, will the muskrat be buried alive?
On a separate note, I'm sure it was good to remove the leaves and mats of FA but what an enormous job, my back is killing!
Every inch of the bottom in the shallows had a very thin matted coating of FA embedded in the mud that had to be scraped off and lifted up with a pitchfork, then scoop big scoops of FA and leaves into my trailer. I may not get a chance to do this again as the water levels usually cover this area that I'm working in. I know removing nutrients by the trailer full is great by way of removing FA but I seriously wonder how the FA ever goes away on its own? The dead FA supposedly floats but I have mats adhered to the bottom. I'm not sure aeration or even a outboard prop stream would break them up.
The kids had a riot with their insect nets and checking out what was in the water now that ice is out. They confirmed that a few nice size crayfish made it through the winter, several times the rake came up with a sluggish turtle that had been in the mud, also a few sluggish tadpoles, and lots of minnows. A few adult GSH are by the minnow trap. We also somehow had some goldfish offspring, we saw 8-9 4" goldfish. That may have been part of the 'bucket stocking' event that occurred by my helpful neighbor last fall
The tunnel branches near the bottom of the picture, this was under the water line, but then goes deeper under the bank of the pond. Some of the fresh dirt may be the dog trying to get in there:
You can see in this picture the pond is down about 10-12 running feet from grass line to waters edge. The dark at waters edge is me pulling as much heavy FA mats and leaves as I can and dumping it there to dry. The rest is dry leaves that had fallen in the shallows and are still embedded in the soil. You can see another large hole in the bank on that side.
Now that my pond is down this far I wish I had a loader and a big supply of limestone rip rap, or a couple skids of cement blocks to make some shallow structure. The bottom is slippery clay/sand and I can see that if I had gone around the edges now with pea gravel that in no time it would be covered up with leaves, clay, muck etc.
Water is quite clear on the other side of the pond where I'm not stirring up the bottom, the dirt/clay settles out pretty quickly.
A few heavy rains with the street runoff and the water level will be about 10 feet away from the base of the evergreen tree and then 3-4 days later settles down to about the edge of the grass again.
When it is up over the grass the toads and frogs love to lay eggs in the water logged grass
