will a beaver still work a float baited with fresh cut wood, or do I need to incorporate a lure with that. Trying to remove them from my neighborhood lake with blessings from the HOA.

Yes, skinned poplar or maple or whatevers in your hood that glows white
Stick a few in the holes you've drilled in the platform.
Don't forget, you can also pile mud there, add castorium or Backbreaker or Tail Slapper or Enrager to make a floating castor mound set

...and you may need to use a platform hole to run a stake/rod/stick thru to keep in place.

I normally set floats where there is a bit of current to keep it oriented so the opening is downstream.,,but others have used them on ponds/lakes too.

If I could figure out how to post pic from cell phone, I'd be able to let guys pick it apart on me. Still very new to beaver trapping

The way that is set the beaver can come from the side and smell and see what is there easily, then leave. In that set I would recommend clipping bushes and sticking them around the bait. Make it so if he wants to investigate, up close, he has to go through the trap. Looks like shallow water.

Could do the same thing by making a pocket set in shallow water in a clump of grass using the float. Might want to secure it so it won,t move back and forth.

Put the trigger on the bottom too, with the wires bent so they are just under the water. The opening looks more open that way.

Hey JBMan, if you need a hand with the beavs, I'm in cape too.

Thank you for the suggestions! I'll block off the back and try to redo the wires. Just waitin on a shipment of back breaker and poplar bud oil to come in and hopefully I'll be in business

Unless you have poplar trees that smell like the ones the bud oil comes, the poplar bud oil may only serve as a curiosity lure. Maybe even scaring the beaver. I would not use it at first.

Methods for catching don,t change much from region to region as long as the climate and conditions are the same. A foreign smell can be devastating.

I guess the question was about mixing bait with lure. Bait alone is fine and actually the best way to go when using attractants, one thing at a time. The key in any beaver trapping is trapping the beaver in such a way he does not realize that he is the target. Its best to use only one or two types of sets and perhaps one attractant to begin with at a time, allowing for set variations as needed by pulling additional tricks out of the bag one at a time. It is amazing how a small amount of poplar tips will attract a beaver, tremendous nose. Of course castor is a beaver magnet, but becomes a repellant if beaver spring traps. Since beaver get castor shy with one negative episode with a sprung trap when associated with castor, its best to keep the lure and bait separate as now they may not respond to either. It is possible to create a square shy, castor shy, location shy beaver with one mishap, so its best to use caution.

With high water from snow melt and spring rain we just used castor over the weekend, as usual, to take 13 beaver in two nights.