I'm new to trapping and new to muskrats and beaver. It got cold up here in North Dakota early and I had flsets in the ice. After a couple of warm days (above freezing), I thought maybe the ice had thinned enough I could bust through the ice in my canoe to retrieve the traps. I was wrong. I ended up skating the canoe across the ice to pick up most of my traps. I thought I might have a beaver under the ice in one so I didn't want to wait any longer (I didn't).

I can't imagine that I'm the only one who has waited too long to pull traps. There has to be a better way than oversized skating a canoe, isn't there?

All I can say is be careful on thin ice it is not worth the $2 rat or $5 beaver.

Its important for a trapper,especially a water trapper to pay attention to the weather forecast so you don't get caught like that.

Exactly!

Never fails that the day after I put out some water sets for coon that it freezes good and hard. Surprising how quickly the ice builds on the shoreline. Just part of the business I guess. Several times I've had to wait till late the next spring to retrieve traps once all the winter runoff subsides.

We have a very short window of opportunity in ND to open water trap since pelts start to prime at the same time the water starts to freeze.

What Boco said or get into ice canoeing and make a sport of it

Yup, has happened to me more times than I care to remember. Which is why I don’t do much water trapping. Seems to me the price of rats and beaver doesn’t reflect the amount of effort it takes to chop out frozen traps. I may set for some rats with the kids if we have any open water during season but I’ve all but completely given up on trapping beaver in this country. Just not worth the effort. I sold a med *ssl beaver at nafa a couple years back for $8, the time and effort it takes to trap em that’s less than McDonald’s wages lol. I hung up my beaver traps right then and there. I only dust them off as a favor to landowners now.

My waiting until now to retrieve traps is because of an overabundance of caution with ice. I don't like ice at all. I probably could have walked out and picked up my traps on here ice a couple of days ago. It's a solid 2 inches almost everywhere. The only place there is open water is the beaver's feedbed. By the end of this week, with the forecast, it will be a good 5 inches. This was the last day above freezing this week.

Like Nd Native said, there is a short window between priming fur and freeze-up. I'm still learning which critters prime first or earlier than others.

Sounds like you have a plan, the only other option is to walk the bank and carry everything the tie off with a rope to a tree with a life jacket on so if you do fall through you can get back on the bank.

Yep but luckily we don't have that harsh of conditions usually.

This is not just a problem in the northern parts of the US .About 25 years ago I had some underwater conibear muskrat sets out in early Dec It got cold and they froze in .It normal does not stay cold for long periods of time in Dec here .I figured it would thaw and it would be fine .Well I finally starting chopping traps out of the ice in March . Like someone else mentioned it is important to pay attention to the weather and have a plan

Best to leave them for a few days chopping them out is often a good way to damage them, chopped a few traps in my day.

300 with a cast on my left hand and 2 cut tendons waitin to be sewed back up.huge storm front comin so the trappin was gonna be awesome but wrecked my truck and cut 2 tendons in my hand and the temps plummeted in the meantime.

have never even came close to allowin it to happen again.

I'd have to believe we've all been there at least once in our lives. One doesn't forget that lesson.

I'd have to believe we've all been there at least once in our lives. One doesn't forget that lesson.
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Yep

i bet i did a couple hundred dollars damage that year and you betcha ya make sure that don't happen again.

Here’s some actual help without armchair trapper critic. Little Dewalt battery chainsaw will do you wonders.