A farmer called me and has beaver cutting his corn and pulling it into the creek damming it up. I set a 330 in a run yesterday and another in a dam break. Today I got one more run I saw I'm gonna set and a couple of the slides they're using to get from the field to the creek. I'll also probably set a mud pie or two and a 330 over the bank den.

I know your supposed to work from the outside in towards the den for adc beaver but he's only paying me for 3 days of trapping so I wanna grab as many as fast as I can. I wanted him to pay me for a week of trapping but he's pretty stingy as others have told me and informed me rather impolitely he could buy alot of corn for the full price. Is what it is I guess. I'm gonna go check traps and will update when I get back.

Good luck.


He'll find out that he can pay for a lot of weeks of trapping for the amount of corn he'll lose if that beaver colony remains unchecked, but that's not my problem


The beaver(s) are gonna have to go, one way or another. Is it a new colony or have they been there a while?

Never have done a beaver job by the day, always by the job, until the beaver are all taken. I guess this is different? They are not concerned about the dam and flooding, just about eating corn? If it is a new colony with a pair you could be done in a few hours anyway. And if you for some reason did not get them all in the 3 days the corn is going to keep disappearing. I guess you gave him a per day charge which is why he picked 3?

It sounds like you got the right plan.Set lots of traps,at least 8 and mix up the sets,lured,runs dam etc.You should be able to wrap it up with two trap checks with that many traps out if they are good sets.

You are in Virginia days are probably over 85 degrees.

Unless you set just before dark you probably are going to catch a turtle or something else.

The dam set with a 330 in the dam opening itself this time of year is iffy. Usually is a fired trap.


You only got 3 nights. Set the house, foot holds near the house using peeled sticks and a mudded up bank. Snares in areas of standing trees or brush near house attracting by scraping trees and bushes to get them looking and going into snares. Lure the last night. Make no exposed 330 sets until the third night if the other is not working. Should be hard to catch many unless water temperature is cold. Catch what you can and then go back in 3 weeks just before a rain. Go back again 30 days after harvest with some ear corn as bait using footholds.

Quite a difference of opinion.

Comstock:



BOCO



DeKalb

I talked to a friend and he suggested pulling a hole in the dam them s evening and waiting till dark or a little after to see if one will show up so I can shoot him. I might give that a try tonight.

Shooting is a mop up operation after trapping.If you make a dam set be sure to set well out in front of the dam in deep water with your bodygrips submerged.That way you will rarely,if ever get a sprung trap.
Even though you are being paid for 3 trips,a professional will make a couple more if necessary to finish the job.
Unless legally required,dont check the sets too often,give your traps a few days to work.

Having trapped Virginia for a number of years I know the check is 24 hour for fur so would assume ADC would probably be the same. Here in NY we are a 24 hour check for ADC, which most states are. Setting at dark in summer is a big plus, knocks out a lot of non-targets if you set when the beaver are emerging. If you are setting for beaver usually the first and second checks knock out a lot of the beaver so its a good idea to clear the traps to keep others from wising up. You can't catch the second if the first it still in the trap. Also, if you set late in the evening if you do end up with a non-target it will probably be after the beaver have had a shot at your sets first. Shooting used to fun 40 years ago, even up to 25 years ago, but now I like sleeping better. Don't care for feeding mosquitos all that much either. An old local farmer, Bill McKeagan, once told me he shot a bunch at one site. Wondered if he got them all. He said he went down a number of nights, opened the dam and shotgunned 14, which was all of them. Persistence. If you know the colony is new, only a pair, often two castor sets or one castor set with two traps put in at dark will do it overnight. Don't know what you are charging, but I'd hate to leave a half done job even if I had to come back an extra day or two unless it was a long distance from home.

What did you find with each trap?

Glad we have no check times here,we can set a pile of traps and give them a few days to work.I check the day after setting then after that every three days.90% of my beaver jobs are done in 3 trips.I avoid sets that are prone to non targets.

You wait three days here in summer and you would not be able to handle the beaver because of the smell and the rotting flesh. Sometimes they won,t patch a dam for a week or more depending on location.

Doesn't matter if they are no good they are nuisance to get rid of,and when I do removal I make many different sets not just a dam break.Nuisance beaver trapping in summer is unpleasant for many reasons,not just that.Bugs,heat, predators, make it unpleasant,but it is a job I have done for a lifetime,but would much sooner trap in winter.

Boco, I set the 330 out aways from the dam break and did a fare amount of fencing. Hopefully this'll keep him from pushing it full of junk.

Jim, I'll have to go back and read the game laws again but I'm almost 100% sure I saw that fully submerged traps can go up to 3 days without being checked. I'll still check every morning just in case something happens to my drowning wire and I have a beaver sitting on the bank. I'd like to wait a few days before I start shooting but I want to be as professional as possible and clear them out asap. Preferably in the days im getting paid so I don't have to go back more.


Kirk, the 330 in the dam had one 35ish lb female. I made a full update post when I got back but I see it didn't go up for whatever

You got me on that one. Guess I'm old now and things have changed in Virginia, learning something new. Wonder when the change came on checking? I trapped beaver in Virginia from '75 to '80 and again in '86 and '87. It was always a 24 hour check on everything at that time but I see now they have changed to a 72 hour check for fur trapping with submerged body gripping traps, a real surprise for sure, something I would never have guessed. Must be they are tired of beaver. In N.Y. a fur trapper in the Northern zone is on a 48 hour check, but all nuisance as far as I know is 24 hours everywhere north or south. I wonder if you in nuisance business have the same regulations as fur trappers? Worth checking. That surely makes it nice with a 72 hour check. Wish that would happen here. Still, even with a 48 hour check when I fur trapped, I liked to be there first and second day, then back off when most of the beaver were gone.

Having made the jump to swim through cages I don't use much for body grippers now and then usually use converted 660 Belisle Mags when needed. I remember as a kid having 330's plugged solid in dam sets more than once till I caught on, often unfired, with only the tops of the stakes visible. Needless to say, I learned not to do that. With 660's at 24 inches wide there is a whole lot less fencing, if any. Same with wide cages. If was thinking of fencing I would just add a 660 or another cage to cover the run, gives one more chance for a catch and saves the time building a fence.

I use traps instead of fencing at dam breaks,makes for less monkeying around,faster setting and multiple catches on extended checks.Absolutely no reason to have daily trapchecks on lethal sets.

Be vigilant with any sets, lethal included. Beaver can of course become castor shy at times, location shy after catches are made and the term that has been around for decades, "square shy," in avoiding conibears altogether, which can often come from either getting slapped or seeing other beaver in traps in one location over a number of days. In the states beaver can also be exposed to any number of trappers over time on state or federal public lands where anyone can trap before ending up as a nuisance, often gaining a P.H.D. in conibears. Anything a beaver can see can become a deterrent, including snares. I have seen tracks in the mud where beaver have crawled out and made a big loop way up onto a bank to avoid even a thin piece of wire, a snare, more than once.

I take 98% of all beavers,fur and nuisance with 330's.Like you said,beavers can become educated by amateur trappers,or sloppy sets that dont allow the trap to function properly when fired.
These beaver are set shy or lure shy and can still easily be taken with 330's by using natural blind sets where the 330's are undetectable by the beaver.There are a good number of sets that fill that bill.

A while back I read a post in the archives (I think it was) and the poster remarked that he 'mink traps' for beaver. That made so much sense to me in terms of subtle, not so flashy, oftentimes blind foothold etc sets. Get in get out without a lot of fanfare and you're better off for it. Along w/ specific animal behaviors, I live by this mindset on beaver jobs. Wintertime sets lured up real good seems to be counterproductive much of the time- maybe it's the heat. Also, Paul Dobbins once posted something like 'watch the beaver and he will show you what to do' (behaviors). He is right on the money.

Coon trapper, is today the third day? How'd it turn out for the team?