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New water trap bedding device? #7456773
01/10/22 09:35 PM
01/10/22 09:35 PM
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 16,489
Goldsboro, North Carolina
Paul Dobbins Offline OP
"Trapperman custodian"
Paul Dobbins  Offline OP
"Trapperman custodian"

Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 16,489
Goldsboro, North Carolina
I heard that loosanarrow has developed a new trap bedding device. With the discussion about bedding beaver traps in mucky dams, I'm wondering if this may be a good device to use. I hear it's called Magnebed.

Loosanarrow, fill us in on this product. Pictures, uses, availability and price would be appreciated.



Re: New water trap bedding device? [Re: Paul Dobbins] #7456787
01/10/22 09:47 PM
01/10/22 09:47 PM
Joined: Jan 2007
Posts: 6,459
central Haudenosaunee, the De...
W
white marlin Offline
trapper
white marlin  Offline
trapper
W

Joined: Jan 2007
Posts: 6,459
central Haudenosaunee, the De...
please!

Re: New water trap bedding device? [Re: Paul Dobbins] #7456788
01/10/22 09:47 PM
01/10/22 09:47 PM
Joined: Jul 2013
Posts: 11,771
Amite county Mississippi
Wolfdog91 Offline
trapper
Wolfdog91  Offline
trapper

Joined: Jul 2013
Posts: 11,771
Amite county Mississippi
If you need help with the pictures let me know and I can help smile

Re: New water trap bedding device? [Re: Paul Dobbins] #7456789
01/10/22 09:48 PM
01/10/22 09:48 PM
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 19,926
SEPA
L
Lugnut Offline
trapper
Lugnut  Offline
trapper
L

Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 19,926
SEPA
Following.


Eh...wot?

Re: New water trap bedding device? [Re: Paul Dobbins] #7456912
01/10/22 11:52 PM
01/10/22 11:52 PM
Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 647
Lakes Region Indiana
L
loosanarrow Offline
trapper
loosanarrow  Offline
trapper
L

Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 647
Lakes Region Indiana
Thanks for the introduction!

I run a beaver damage control business in northeastern Indiana, and over the years I have found a need for bedding beaver traps in areas with bottoms that are too soft, steep ledges, etc. since I often am required to operate within legal drains or only on property owned by a customer.

About 5 years ago (after thinking about it for 5 years before that!) I came up with a device that does the job beautifully and with out the limitations of other methods - this need was discussed in the "Bedding traps at beaver dam" thread in Trapping Only forum recently, and after reading that I decided to ask Paul if I could reply with the first rollout of my beaver trap bedding device.

Two years ago I started tooling up with a metal shop to build them, and they are ready to go.

I am calling it the Magnebed.

They adjust to fit every currently available coilspring beaver trap on the market (so far I have confirmed that they work with CDR, MB-750, TS-85, Montana #5, Bridger #5, and NoBS beaver trap), they work in any position, release the trap instantly upon catch, allow for any orientation of the trap jaws to the bank.

They use two special magnets to securely hold the trap on a frame. The beauty is that it holds the trap strong enough that a beaver can stand anywhere on the trap without it budging, but the trap pops off instantly when it fires. That is really the trick - it is easy to hold a trap solid, what is difficult is holding solid AND THEN RELIABLY RELEASING IT when the trap fires.

My initial attempts were actually inspired by a bedding device that Dave Sheldon of One-Hand-Setters sent me years ago. I was able to use Dave's holder to my advantage in certain situations, but I had needs it just could not fill, so I started thinking about it, and then one day it just came to me - magnets! I had been messing with magnets to try to repel beaver from culverts (It did not work, beavers used the magnets to help build the dam and treated them like any old rock if the magnets were not anchored down...) and so I had magnets on the mind. I also have a good friend in the magnet industry, which helped me sourcing the proper strength and size magnet.

My first one was built just to solve a problem where I had a very educated beaver on a private job, and the only place I had access was a concrete culvert with ledge under 4 inches of water dropping 90 degrees down to the bottom 2 feet below. I had the beaver on video and knew exactly how and where it approached that ledge, but I had no good way to hold a trap that the beaver would not see and avoid. Every time I put sod on the level concrete to bed a trap, it would just go around. So I went to a buddy with a machine shop and told him my idea. We built one to fit one single CDR (it was not adjustable other than bending the metal around, and each CDR was just a tad different in the fine measurements). The next day, I attached that as-yet unnamed device to a 5/8 rebar about 5 feet long, drove it in so the trap pan sat level with the concrete, with nothing but the rod holding the setup out there in the "space" of open water, but just touching the vertical concrete and level with the top of the concrete. It was very stable. I used soft weeds and a brown paper sack to disguise the trap as just some natural stuff there, the same level as the concrete. Stuff regularly washed up against it so I knew from video that the beaver (it was a rare black one too!) was not shy of debris against the concrete ledge (again, educated beaver so I had to hide it and make it look natural). The next morning, the customer called and said he could see a big flat tail floating 10 feet out from the concrete. Needles to say, I was super happy and it was only my second ever jet black beaver to boot, so it had to be a good sign....

In the end though, that is one of only a few places I have encountered the sheer concrete problem, and that was not the true magic of the Magnebed. What it does best is stabilize and firmly hold beaver traps in super soft bottom conditions. We get that a lot around here, a dam with mud so soft that a trap can not be easily bedded. Basically, I just cut about a 3/4" diameter stick to clamp in the socket base, and the length is determined by the bottom structure. Very soft, longer stick. Natural curves in the stick also tend to prevent rotation. When stabilizing anything in soft unstable ground, a piling is the gold standard. Look at how buildings are stabilized in soft ground - nothing beats a piling for being stable and solid. It is surprising just how stable a trap on top of a 3 foot long 3/4" stick piling is, even in softest bottoms. And it allows the trap to be held at any position up and down, from feet above the bottom to down in a depression stomped into the bottom. There are other ways to bed a trap in those conditions, but they are time consuming and cumbersome and they are unique to that situation - that is to say, they are not nearly as versatile as the Magnebed.

The base is a removable socket, so you put a wood or steel stake/stick in it and it becomes a stable piling. The socket base can also be removed to screw it to the top of a 3 or 4 inch diameter wood pole stake 4 to 6 feet long for the really deep soft stuff, or it can be screwed/bolted to about anything like a board or bolted to a steel plate, or masonry screwed to a cinder block, and it can hold a trap anywhere - even upside down - although I have never found a reason to do that. One other thread I saw here recently was asking about bedding a trap in riprap - there would be several ways to do that with this device depending on if you can get a stake between the rocks - you could take one of the rocks with a flat spot and attach the Magnebed with wire or masonry screws if no stake can be wedged or driven in. I have never used one on riprap, but I can think of a few ways to do that. The point is you have a device that attaches to the trap with magnets and holds it ROCK SOLID, then releases when the trap fires due to inertia of the trap firing, and this device can be placed on a stake piling with the socket base, or with screws or nails if the base is removed, or with just some nice tight wraps of trappers wire on odd surfaces or if wire is all you have.

After a couple years or so of using my first one, always with that one dedicated CDR, I let a buddy use it, and he said "man if you could make this thing adjustable for traps other than this one CDR, I think they would sell, it works like a charm"... I took him to heart, and that is what I did. It works with CDR, MB-750, TS-85, Montana #5, Bridger #5, and NoBS beaver trap. I think that is all of them currently on the market. I have not tried it with long springs yet, because I don't use them for my beaver work. If other people find them as valuable as I have, I may start testing them with some long springs.

I was not trying to come up with a product when I made the first one, I was trying to figure out a way to put a trap in a location that conditions made difficult or impossible. It turned out to work so well that I eventually made them adjustable and built about a dozen of them and started using them on maybe one-third of my locations - the ones with very soft bottoms and otherwise difficult bedding situations like the sheer concrete ledge and on very steep bank crawlouts. To be honest, the Magnebed has become my "secret weapon", allowing me to catch beavers that others have been unable to catch because there is no good place to hide a foothold (because the beaver are avoiding those locations due to being educated) and the beaver won't go near snares or body grips or exposed footholds. Recently I had one that 2 other trappers had chased all last fur season, and it was the only one left in the farm pond. Not only would she not go near traps, she stopped tending the dam and avoided all the "normal" trap locations used by the fur trappers. The magnebed allowed me to conceal the trap at a place that would have been otherwise impossible at the edge of a "muck ledge" common in lakes and ponds around here, catching that beaver the third night (which was the next time it visited the location) and getting a nice tip from the landowner for getting rid of that last one.

To be fair, I only use it when I need it - for a volume fur trapper it would be time and money ahead to just skip that spot and put the trap somewhere else where it can be bedded in solid ground, but in ADC work, one often needs to operate in a limited area and not just leave when an animal becomes difficult to catch. The Magnebed gives me trap placement options that are a real money making advantage in those situations. If there is a good solid bottom, no need to haul in more equipment, I just bed the trap in the mud normally. But for those situations like soft bottoms in front a beaver dam, or steep ledges, or "marl ledges" like the lakes around here have, this thing is a game changer. Oh yeah, I have even been surprisingly successful on uneducated beavers just putting the trap under about 6-8" of water in open water, nothing around it, a foot or more off the bottom in a travel lane. The beaver just appear to think it is something to step on like a rock or log, who knows what they think it is but they step on it and go straight to the bottom where they wait for me.

So here I am half a decade later and I have tooled up to build them. If anyone wants more info, feel free to PM me. Yes, they are for sale. Price is $50 each. That may seem like a lot to some, but in the ADC world, it will pay for itself the first catch. And trust me folks, with the current price of those specialty magnets and steel, and the fact that I am hand making every one from scratch in my shop in Northern Indiana, I am not going to get rich. I will be happy to just pull in a decent hourly wage at that price... Oh, and did I mention all of the hardware is stainless steel???? Its a lot more expensive to use stainless, but the first one I ever made still works after spending months underwater over the years.

I do have a Facebook page, called Magnebed, but I have not done anything other than create it so far. This is really my first rollout of the whole idea and product, after developing, using, and testing it for about 5 years.

I will follow this with a few pictures from my phone in a separate post.


Website www.mgnbd.com
Re: New water trap bedding device? [Re: Paul Dobbins] #7456916
01/10/22 11:54 PM
01/10/22 11:54 PM
Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 647
Lakes Region Indiana
L
loosanarrow Offline
trapper
loosanarrow  Offline
trapper
L

Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 647
Lakes Region Indiana
[Linked Image]


Website www.mgnbd.com
Re: New water trap bedding device? [Re: Paul Dobbins] #7456917
01/10/22 11:56 PM
01/10/22 11:56 PM
Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 647
Lakes Region Indiana
L
loosanarrow Offline
trapper
loosanarrow  Offline
trapper
L

Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 647
Lakes Region Indiana
Note that these photos are of the units I just grabbed from my truck. Until freezeup a week ago, they were in the water catching beavers…

[Linked Image]


Website www.mgnbd.com
Re: New water trap bedding device? [Re: Paul Dobbins] #7456919
01/10/22 11:58 PM
01/10/22 11:58 PM
Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 647
Lakes Region Indiana
L
loosanarrow Offline
trapper
loosanarrow  Offline
trapper
L

Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 647
Lakes Region Indiana
[Linked Image]


Website www.mgnbd.com
Re: New water trap bedding device? [Re: Paul Dobbins] #7456922
01/11/22 12:06 AM
01/11/22 12:06 AM
Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 647
Lakes Region Indiana
L
loosanarrow Offline
trapper
loosanarrow  Offline
trapper
L

Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 647
Lakes Region Indiana
Here it is with a TS-85.
[Linked Image]


Website www.mgnbd.com
Re: New water trap bedding device? [Re: Paul Dobbins] #7456933
01/11/22 12:19 AM
01/11/22 12:19 AM
Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 647
Lakes Region Indiana
L
loosanarrow Offline
trapper
loosanarrow  Offline
trapper
L

Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 647
Lakes Region Indiana
The adjustment screws are turned until they seat on the cross bar. The little flat things are lock nuts to hold the adjustment screws in place.
So you carefully pop the trap onto the magnets (careful, they can pinch, they are STRONG), and then adjust the two screws until the trap does not rock back and forth, and tighten the flat lock nuts. This way you can even have a mix of different traps and just adjust the screws to match that trap and you are ready to push the piling stick into the mud.

I typically do not even anchor or attach the device since the piling keeps it in place. Maybe half a dozen times the Magnebed and its piling stick have pulled up after a catch, but they are easy to find a retrieve with the beaver rake... just touch one of the magnets and it locks to the rake steel. If I ever encounter a situation where it could get get pulled up by a beaver and be in water too deep for my rake, I would probably wire the Magnebed to my top stake on the drowner rig.

When the trap fires, the shock breaks the magnetic bond for an instant, and the trap just falls/pops right off. In fact, in maybe 100 beavers I have caught using them, not one has ever failed to release, and not one has ever popped off the Magnebed before the trap fires. I have video of a beaver standing on one of the wire levers of a CDR (beaver weighed 43 pounds) and the trap did not let go until the next time later that night when the beaver hauled out there again and stepped in the pan.


Website www.mgnbd.com
Re: New water trap bedding device? [Re: Paul Dobbins] #7456936
01/11/22 12:21 AM
01/11/22 12:21 AM
Joined: Jun 2010
Posts: 16,256
Iowa
~ADC~ Offline
The Count
~ADC~  Offline
The Count

Joined: Jun 2010
Posts: 16,256
Iowa
Interesting, you're using your noodle. My main concern on first appearances would be the possibility of traps or chains getting hung up on it and causing twist outs from lack of swiveling on beaver. I can see how it would certainly make the traps much better stabilized in many situations. Good job!

Re: New water trap bedding device? [Re: Paul Dobbins] #7456940
01/11/22 12:27 AM
01/11/22 12:27 AM
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 11,895
Oakland, MS
Drifter Offline
trapper
Drifter  Offline
trapper

Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 11,895
Oakland, MS
Now that is thinking outside the box. Hope this does well for you.


Some individuals use statistics as a drunk man uses lamp-posts — for support rather than for illumination.

Andrew Lang (1844-1912) Scottish poet, novelist and literary critic









Life member NTA , and GA Trappers assoc .
Re: New water trap bedding device? [Re: ~ADC~] #7456945
01/11/22 12:42 AM
01/11/22 12:42 AM
Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 647
Lakes Region Indiana
L
loosanarrow Offline
trapper
loosanarrow  Offline
trapper
L

Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 647
Lakes Region Indiana
Originally Posted by ~ADC~
Interesting, you're using your noodle. My main concern on first appearances would be the possibility of traps or chains getting hung up on it and causing twist outs from lack of swiveling on beaver. I can see how it would certainly make the traps much better stabilized in many situations. Good job!


Yes, it can happen. I can think of maybe half a dozen in 100 beaver that have not gone directly down the rod and managed to get hung up, but oddly it has never resulted in a twist out. A couple pulled the whole thing and then went down with it (I was able to find the magnebed each time because of the strong magnet - like reverse magnet fishing....), and one back foot catch recently managed to get all wrapped up but the piling stick was very solid and it was waiting for me all wrapped up there and not happy about it!

I have used them on long chains, and odd enough not one long chain has ever gotten tangled, which I was concerned about, so that has been surprising.

Im not claiming any miracles though, and I can in fact remember two times that I had an empty trap tangled with the Magnebed, both in situations where I just put the trap under 6 inches of water in a travel way a foot or more above bottom just sitting there like a platform in open water. In that situation, you are taking a risk that the beaver will wrap up before it goes down. If it is shoved in the mud under the trap, it is rare to get tangled. To be clear, I don't consider those "twist outs" unless there is still a drumstick, and that has only happened to me once in well over a thousand beavers and it was before the Magnebed was even a twinkle in my eye. But I do think that the beaver might have been waiting for me if it had not tangled in those two instances, so I just call them pullouts do to swivel action failure, swivel failure because it managed to tangle in the Magnebed. They remind me that when it comes to beavers, everybody plays the fool sometimes. But the beauty of a losing a beaver in a foothold is of course that you can catch that beaver again in a foothold if you carefully conceal it. In my ADC business, if I lose one I have to catch it again or harass it so much it leaves, and around here educated beavers are the rule so I end up using footholds a lot more than I wish I had to.

It can happen, thats a fact, especially if one does not think about it and set it up properly. But it is barely more than 5% wrap up in my experience, and only a few of those actually escape because of it.


Website www.mgnbd.com
Re: New water trap bedding device? [Re: Paul Dobbins] #7456948
01/11/22 12:46 AM
01/11/22 12:46 AM
Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 647
Lakes Region Indiana
L
loosanarrow Offline
trapper
loosanarrow  Offline
trapper
L

Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 647
Lakes Region Indiana
Notice the flat "locknut" is on top sometimes and on bottom other times - for maximum length of the adjustment screws to fit some brands of trap, the locking screw can be moved to the top so the screw gains that extra 1/8" of extension. I think is only necessary for one trap brand, and only on one side since the crossbar is higher on the one side - can't remember off-hand which brand, but I test these with all 6 beaver coils currently on the market so mine are are a mixup and some have not been returned to default on that lock nut position.


Website www.mgnbd.com
Re: New water trap bedding device? [Re: Paul Dobbins] #7456986
01/11/22 01:38 AM
01/11/22 01:38 AM
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 62,657
Minnesota
330-Trapper Offline

trapper
330-Trapper  Offline

trapper

Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 62,657
Minnesota
Very Nice!


NRA and NTA Life Member
www.BackroadsRevised@etsy.com




Re: New water trap bedding device? [Re: Paul Dobbins] #7456993
01/11/22 01:52 AM
01/11/22 01:52 AM
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 23,797
Wisconsin
T
The Beav Offline
trapper
The Beav  Offline
trapper
T

Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 23,797
Wisconsin
The magnetic field Is going to keep most beaver from getting caught. LOL'
Great device


The forum Know It All according to Muskrat
Re: New water trap bedding device? [Re: The Beav] #7456996
01/11/22 02:04 AM
01/11/22 02:04 AM
Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 647
Lakes Region Indiana
L
loosanarrow Offline
trapper
loosanarrow  Offline
trapper
L

Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 647
Lakes Region Indiana
Originally Posted by The Beav
The magnetic field Is going to keep most beaver from getting caught. LOL'
Great device


Man I wish!!! I would have made a LOT more money if I could have figured out a magnetic beaver repellant device. I tried. Now I'm stuck trying to sell these things to trappers, instead of selling my "Beaver Saver Repellant Device" to the town council hippies, tree huggers, and nature preserve land trusts...

Right now I am many thousands in the red, but if I never make any of it back, at least I have a cool toy and shop of fun metal tools.


Website www.mgnbd.com
Re: New water trap bedding device? [Re: The Beav] #7457024
01/11/22 06:13 AM
01/11/22 06:13 AM
Joined: Oct 2014
Posts: 1,975
Wisconsin
8117 Steve R Offline
trapper
8117 Steve R  Offline
trapper

Joined: Oct 2014
Posts: 1,975
Wisconsin
Looks good, I can see it being really good for spots where beaver are getting out of the water onto floating bog. Most of the time the water in those locations is too deep to set a trap at the edge of the bog, and you can't get the trap under water on top of the bog. I will be watching how to purchase some.


Steve
WTA
NRA
Re: New water trap bedding device? [Re: Paul Dobbins] #7457036
01/11/22 06:44 AM
01/11/22 06:44 AM
Joined: Dec 2008
Posts: 28,715
Eastern Shore of Maryland
HobbieTrapper Offline
"Chippendale Trapper"
HobbieTrapper  Offline
"Chippendale Trapper"

Joined: Dec 2008
Posts: 28,715
Eastern Shore of Maryland
I’m amazed.


-Goofy-
Re: New water trap bedding device? [Re: Paul Dobbins] #7457041
01/11/22 06:54 AM
01/11/22 06:54 AM
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 9,729
Northern Illinois
M
MChewk Offline
trapper
MChewk  Offline
trapper
M

Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 9,729
Northern Illinois
Nice work! Trappers are truly innovative bunch! I wish I had put the same effort in my “schooling” that I put into trapping....lol

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