First, I have never set a trap for beavers. I have 3 330's and an beaver pond full of beavers.

Problem:
There was 2-4 inches of ice covering the pond (depended where you were)not enough to walk on safely in most spots. With warm temps and rain the last few days my guess is that they ice is almost gone. I can not set till next week at the earliest and we have some cold weather forecasted.

The questions:
I know where a couple feed beds are and locations where they were collecting a lot of sapplings from, not sure where any bank holes are. If I chop the ice leading onto the bank will they come up through to feed?
Do castor mounds work this with these conditions?

Maybe, if the beaver are traveling under the ice in the immediate area they should find a good sized hole in the ice. Castor mounds or bait sets would work if you could get them to surface near enough to the sets to smell the lure or bait. But if cold weather is forecasted your hole will freeze anyway. If you got rain, sometimes it makes it easier to see the air bubbles under the ice indicating a run.

There is a post on here by a guy goes by the name of "Coalman" who will likely answer here but check his recent post... its quite good. He taught me and I had 5 beaver my first day out. Not sure about your ice though-sounds a bit dicey. I trapped with an inch or 2 of ice as if there was no ice and jsut broke through everything and was successful but your ice might be at the line in between not thick enough to walk on but too thick to break.

In that much ice, if it's fairly clear, you outta be able to find their runs very easily. See if you can find one coming close enough to the bank that you can get to it. Either by looking through the ice, or seeing the 'bubble trails'...it should be obvious. Some spots, there may be a dark streak, where the ice is thinner. Chop away a little ice, and get that 330 in the run. Return the next day and collect fur.

Yes, with that much ice the runs might be easier to find with bubble trails, but they could also be thinner than the rest of the ice. I'd rather be safe and dry especially during the winter.

The ice was very cloady when I was in there last, I know approx. where the one run is but not 100%.

At this time of year I would concentrate finding runs between the food pile and den...

ttt

use a good ice chizel. every time you take a step check the thickness of the ice with your ice chizel. if ice chizel goes through the ice step someplace else.

I don't know lizard....last time I did that all the ice around me let go....and I was along way from anything

yeah look for the bubble runs...funnel them with sticks into your set, options on 330 on top of the other if it is deep enough

they leave the house on the bottom to the feed bed and return higher normally so if you can stackem

you running a bait stick?

if the ice doesn't let you see the bubbles, cut a hole between the den and feed bed and poke around till you find the run...

then fence them in to the 330's

Merv

Chop a hole in the middle of the line of air bubbles. Probe the bottom for the center of the run. Set your 330 on the bottom.

Depending on depth you can hard wire the trap to the stakes.


Or pinch the 330 on the stake to free up the run after you catch a beaver. If the run is hot I double and triple this set.


PM me if you have more questions.
Coalman

You may also want to try baited 330's near the feed bed.
One way to do this,is wire a bait bundle to the trigger,and hang your 330s perpindicular to the feed bed,.Hang them a few inches below the bottom of the ice,Popple(aspen) works well for bait--shave the bark off a bit of the bait .Cable works well for hanging your traps.
Tom

Here is a pvc snare pole that would work well. Premake them at home, very easy.

Mike - I like that PVC set. Can you give us more details on that? Looks like a good one. Can you show us a pic of one set before you put it down the hole?? Thanks!

How deep of water do you fellas have below the ice??? I've got about 2 feet at most below the ice on all of the sloughs I trap around here.

Took a few pics for ya.


I drill through the pipe, run the snares through and add a ferrule on the other side. Wire a piece of bait on.

Have you ever just hung the snare's on the pvc,no bait?

Cooool . That's something i'll try the next time I set through the ice . The beaver I got this morning was open water in the river

Yeah, I tried the no bait route, thought it might work. I didn't catch anything, had it out for about a week. I tried to set it up between the den and a food pile but I think they opted for the real food. Now that it's later in the season, food piles are pretty well used up around here there maybe a better chance of connecting w/out wiring a piece of bait to it.