LT Grey made a post about people showing what an average day on their line was like, so I took my camera and shot some pics of where I went today....
I left the house shortly after sunrise and traveled 10 miles to the City's wetland area. This is part of their waste water treatment. Its the last phase the water goes through before being released back into the river. The wetland is a series of lagoons with aquatic plants in them to remove the nitrogen from the water.
The problem is the aquatic vegetation is a food supply for muskrats and nutrias. The nutrias have been eating a lot of the plants, so I've been catching them.
Here's a shot of the wetlands...
There are two nutrias here in traps. One is at the mound and one is past the mound where you see the support sticks for the bodygrip. You can see a patch of fur above the water, but that's it....
And here is the third nutria....
From the wetlands, I went about 1 mile to a ditch where there is a beaver problem. The city dug the dam out and the beavers didn't rebuild for four days. So, I began digging out a hole in the dam and got the beaver use to coming to fix it. Soon they were coming to fix the dam the first night every time I broke the dam. Because these beavers showed signs of being shy, I decided I'd go with a dam break set with a foothold. I broke the dam this morning and would return after I ran my rounds to make the set. I wanted to let the water drain down a bit so I could better judge where to place the trap.
Here's the dam before breaking it this morning...
From here I traveled northeast 82 miles to the other side of Greenvile to the next site. This is a culvert where beavers have been going through. There's one beaver left and it won't respond to anything, so I figured a snare at the culvert opening should do the trick... eventually. I had placed the snare and support there a couple of months ago so the beaver would get use to it. I just set it today....
From there I traveled 6 miles to the next site on the same tract of land. The beavers have a culvert plugged and water is flowing over the road....
I have two 330s at this site. I picked up a two year old last Thursday and picked this one up today. I had this set lured with
Backbreaker on top of one of the support sticks....
Here is the same set after I remade it. I think I may have all the beavers out of this site, but I reset anyway to make sure....
From there I drove 46 miles to the next site. I thought I'd caught all the beavers from this site, but was afraid there might be one more that was avoiding the regular sets.
Here's what the place looks like upstream from the company road...
Here's the downstream side where the dam is....
Because I wasn't positive I had caught all the beavers, I made my way down to the dam yesterday and made a dam break set with a foothold. Here's the monster I had today.....
The strange thing about that small beaver is that neither of the two adult females I had caught were lactating, nor had they any time recently. I talked to a duck hunter there last week and he said when they were deer hunting in there that their dogs had gotten a beaver. The fella didn't know if the dogs killed it or not because it was up in that flooded stuff where they couldn't get to. One of the dogs had a nasty gash on its shoulder. So, I don't know if that lactating female that had that young beaver is still there or dead. Time will tell....
Here's the backside of that dam...
From there I drove 28 miles to the next site, which was just west of Ahoskie. I've been working this site for a bit and have caught 8 beavers from here so far.
Here's what it looks like with the water flowing over the road where the pipe is plugged....
The only set that has been connecting lately is at the bottom of this crossover where the beavers are crossing the company road to get to the lower impoundment. Got another beaver here today....
From here I drove 7 miles to check out an old site that was on my inspection schedule for this month. I like it when the pipe is still open and everything still looks good after a year since I worked it last....
From here I drove 106 miles back to that beaver dam in the city ditch that I opened this morning. I went ahead and made the dam set and hope to see something here tomorrow....
Drove 11 miles back to the house and my beaverin is done for the day. Here is a pic of the catch, minus the little bitty beaver that I left on the bank for the bobcats to snack on....
That's a poor catch for a fur trapper, but I'm not fur trapping. I'm paid to catch the last beaver at each of those sites. I believe I traveled right at 300 miles today and it was a 10 hour day. Now its time to go to the shed and pack orders.
That's a day on my line - not much, but I really enjoy it....
