Help with Beaver Trapping

[Bill B.]

I'm going to start off by saying I know a lot about some things, but when I don't know squat about something I'm not afraid to admit it. Guess what? I don't know squat about trapping beavers, but the need has come about.

My father in law has eighty mostly wooded acres with a small creek (usually 10-20 feet wide) that splits it almost in half. Well, the stinkin' beavers keep damming up the creek. This is a problem for a number of reasons. First and foremost is the creek flooding they cause and backing up a water hole at the one creek crossing making it difficult if not impossible to cross at times. Second is the tree cutting. Those little sob's cut more trees than I can count. Not to mention they are ringing some of the bigger trees and killing them. I was surprised to see that beavers will even ring pine trees! Lastly, the small trees they cut always have the sharp 10-12" stump left that are hell on tractor tires, atv tires, and me if I were to fall on one.

I'm the only person with permission to hunt this property, so I take care of it for him. I don't care anything about the hides, I just want to get rid of these little trouble makers. What should I do? I have shot a couple of them before, but that method is only satisfying in that blissful few seconds after the shot. I need to get more than just the one or so when I see them.

Thanks in advance.

 

[ADCcoyote]

Find the sildes(trails) where there comming up out of the water to cut trees and place foothold,conibear or snares on these trails, follow your game laws!!!!

If you can locate the bank dens you can after catching a few set a 330 in front of the bank dens. I don't do this right off the bat as it can make some spooky. You can use castor mound sets make softball sized pile of mud up on the bank play the wind and use beaver castor lure, with a trap/snare what ever is legal as the water front, play the wind and let the lure get out over the water. If you can see a trail going across the dam another great place for a trap or snare.

Look and see if they have started a cache food pile usally in water and will be a fairly good sized area of limb tops and trees, they will feed from under the ice in the winter off of this. You can find runs going to and from this pile, narrow spots in the creek channel are excellent for 330's and you can narrow them down some with sticks and use 2 bigger sticks to get them to dive under andf into the 330. You can tell good runs by feeling with you chest ot hip boots.

 

[Bill B.]

Thanks ADCcoyote,
The funny thing is, this creek has been dry for probably two or three months because of the dry weather. Two weeks with water in it and the beavers are back. Where in the hell were they when the creek was dry?

I have already located two slides and you could plainly see their runs when the creek was dry. I'll read up on my local regs. I think Arkansas makes you place the sets in the water, so trapping on the slides may be out unless I can get them at the bottom and channel them through the trap. Thus far there are two dams and I can most likely identify a couple of places for a 330. If the little buggers were worth anything down here somebody might be trapping them for money, but I don't think a beaver is worth $5.

Oh well, I'm always up for trying something I have never done before. This could be a new adventure. Hopefully I won't trap myself. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif