Thanks. Maybe I missed it but device he uses as a safety tool on the 330’s. Can they be purchased?

The Beav, I do agree with you, in a way. You didn’t ask for my opinion, but I do have some comments on the subject I’d like to share. I’ll be the first to say that even in ADC beavers, not every job requires being super quiet. Sometimes you can drive up, park over their den, set 2 traps, catch the pair, and drain the water. However, when things get turned sideways, it can get really bad really quickly. I think the worst ones are the ones that just drop off the radar. Repairs stop. Cuttings stop, it’s as if they’re dead. Then you drop in 2 weeks later and it’s business as usual in beaver world. Those are the ones that can make someone realize that on occasion, beavers can be very challenging, and when mistakes happen or the Trapper realizes that they’re dealing with a problematic beaver, tactics change.

No, I don’t submerge every 330. I happen to really like using half submerged, dog down sets in tight spots, but if I’m dealing with a bad one, I’ll probably avoid sets like that. Example for me would be switching from 330 dam breaks to foothold dam breaks.

I think that they become spooked/cautious when they’ve had a negative experience such as a 330 firing in their face, toes pinched while checking out a sloppy mud pie doused in castor, or wounded by buckshot when lit up with a spotlight, etc. and this can lead to them being shy around anything out of the ordinary in varying degrees, exposed 330s being one of the most obvious, followed by excessive blocking and overuse of lure, etc.

They’re individuals, and the dumber/less cautious ones get eliminated sooner, sometimes even soon after being pinched. More cautious or “smarter” individuals could possibly be spooked even without being physically injured due to whatever reason.

Who’s to say splashing around, making all sorts of noise, jamming traps into den exits, etc doesn’t spook them or raise their guards up? At the end of the day, like so many other things, it depends. It depends on the individuals, it depends on the disturbance, and its in these situations that recognizing it and having different plays to try comes into play for ADC work. For fur trapping, it really isn’t that important. You can make 1 type of set a hundred times, if it doesn’t work, pull it and try it on another waterway. In ADC, you’re limited to a specific body of water, and you have to make it work, somehow.

Great share.
thanks

The yellow safety can be purchased from F&T and Okie Cable.

Thanks

Thumbs Up!

I might have to flatly disagree with this statement. But before I do, I guess we need to define what is “trap shy” and what is “set shy”.

I have known quite a few beaver to be what I call trap shy. What I mean by this is that if they see or detect a certain type of trap they will not go near it.

I have an annual contract with a facility that I monitor with cameras, and for two years I had a beaver that was easily identifiable by its short notched tail. It would not go through any body grip or snare. It would swim around them, walk around them, slap its tail at them, and all on video. It was what I call trap shy. It sees a trap or snare, it does not go near it. It was also set shy. If it smelled lure, no go. It avoided all manner of beaver sets that caught between 13 and 18 other beaver each year. It would not patch dam breaks, and in fact stopped tending the dam completely. It is a lake, so it did not need to build a dam and after seeing my snares and body grips at the dam it just stopped going there. Trail set snares, it turned around. Submerged body grip, it turned around. Dry land conibear, forget it. I stopped caring because it stopped damming, and floodimg is the concern at this facility. So I just caught the new arrivals and old short tail got a pass. Then one January night after a gully washer storm, the water was very muddy and old short tail could not see the 1216 I put in a deep run, at least not soon enough. Caught it diagonally by tail, I assume as it tried to turn around, but it was too late. So ended the short tail, who was a trail cam movie star.

So they do get trap shy, at least they can, at least to the extent that if they detect the trap they will not go near it. But maybe that is not how you define “trap shy”?

All of that said, had short tail continued to tend the dam, I would have caught it in a fully concealed foothold. But why mess with it if short tail is not being a nuisance? Heck, I kind of missed short tail the movie star beaver after he made his fatal mistake.

And short tail is far from the only one. As far as I am concerned, they do get trap shy. Again, maybe our definitions are different.

That's a great story loose.

From my own experience I used to kind of chuckle at all this talk of trap shy beavers. Of course I was fur trapping and I didn't need to catch them all so i hadn't really had any experience with a smarty. Then one day I was hired to kill a beaver damming a ditch that was flooding a vacation home. That beaver caused me grief like no other. In particular because it was a 180 mile round trip to the trouble spot and I always guarantee I catch them in three trips. Took me six trips and the last three were on my own nickel.

I dont often mess with trap or set shy nuisance beaver,I just shoot them.
Most of my jobs nowadays are remote.
Back when a lot of my nuisance work included urban and sub urban areas,I used chestwaders a lot to set away from public snoops,dogs etc and walked back into the swamps and set submerged runs thru thick swampgrass or cattail or under natural dive logs for the last beaver or two that would avoid conventional sets.
I used a lot of submerged snarepoles with multiple snares set totally blind to take shy beaver,also with the chestwaders in deep water,as well as deep water ditches,with a 330 or two set in the deepest part of wide ditches on bottom where the beaver always swim blind-no fencing or dive poles necessary so no sign for them to associate with a set.Caught many big shy beaver with that type of set.
Another sure fire way to get rid of an exceptionally shy beaver is to completely drain the pond and track the beaver in the mud to see the direction on the creek/watershed he went,then let him show you where to nail him in his temporary hole up location.They are vulnerable when away from their home pond,and their movements are extremely limited when water is at natural flow level.In all cases extended check times are essential to let the beaver "settle" and let the blind sets work.
I often also use diversionary tactics to take set/trapshy beaver.Use their habit of set aversion to take them...

Great info guys!
I had the luck to have the creek drained by a landowner where I had a problem female beaver that gave me fits for several seasons. Her den was on another property where I couldn’t get permission due to deer hunters. Every year I’d get a call around October as the beavers had built a dam. I’d set traps and catch a male and things would go dead. When the creek was drained the farmer called me to let me know. I couldn’t believe how honey combed the other side of the property was...my farmer finally convinced the landowner to let me set traps since the deer season was closed. Like Boco described I finally found where she was denning and caught her. She had one front foot missing toes and two toes off her back feet. Glad to be done.
Something else.since the water was so low...I marked most of the other den sites with a piece of lathe for future use.

Growing up every trap shy beaver I met was shy of footholds, since those were the common beaver trap used. And as a young man I loved a challenge (still do, to an extent) so even though it was economically counterproductive, when I found a trap shy beaver I went to work at catching him. Most of them were caught in 330s, often set like Boco describes. If trapped in footholds, the sets were normally constructed with the care of a canine set, traps covered and blended in, no stakes visible, no fencing, etc.

When I moved to where I am now, the beaver are much more limited, and the majority of those trapped are by predator trappers who are primarily trapping them to use as bait, the fur is just a handy bonus. Almost to a man they slap a few 330s down on the spillway of the dam, and maybe one in front of a castor mound, catch a few beaver and call it good for the season. Therefore the majority of the trapshy beaver I run into are "conibear shy" and won't hesitate to step into any foothold you place in front of them.

I never did use conibears as much as many trappers do. Primarily because as a teenager I had 3-4 dozen #4 dbls and twice that many #3s, and 3 330s and 1 220. So I saved the conibears for the ideal sets in channels and places where a foothold wasn't viable. Even after I got more conibears I never set them in traditional foothold sets like spillways or castor mounds unless the water isn't deep enough to drown a beaver. Also if a 330 isn't submerged, I blend it in, doesn't have to be much, just some grass draped over it works, but I never leave one sticking up on the beavers skyline (dam, shore edge, etc.) like a giant metal window frame without breaking up the outline. I know guys catch plenty of beaver in 330s that stick out like a sore thumb, but it doesn't take but a minute to pull some grass or break a couple dead limbs and drape over the trap, and lifelong habit, I can't walk away from one without doing so. On the other hand, any time a trap is submerged, foothold or bodygrip, the only time I bother with any blending is when I know I am dealing with a trap shy beaver.

This turned out to be a VERY good thread in addition to Mark’s great demo.

Great story loos, boco, and others

Here is one of my experiences with one of the local "Trap Shy Beaver" I've encountered (Dave Hastings of Fur Takers has a similar one). Landowner removed the dam and I was there with a gun as numerous muskrats vacated the colony for over an hour. We walked the excavator up the creek and pounded the house on the opposite side a few times and nothing came out so I GUESSED that this remaining beaver was up or down stream in a bank hole. I shrugged my shoulders and set 2 - 330 BG's, 1 over a bank hole and 1 over the original beaver bank den we had just tapped with the excavator bucket. I checked those BG's every day. There was a trickle of water coming out the bank den entrance as a sort of seep. ON THE 6th DAY I had the beaver COMING OUT OF the bank den (I set my BG's so I know which way the animal approaches). There was no other sign at this colony and certainly no tracks in the muddy creek indicating that beaver could have entered the den from a different spot. Peeled sticks inside the entrance indicated that this gal WAS NOT coming out until she thought it was safe or she needed to satisfy some hormones! I have went 2 days before a bank beaver will emerge but 6 days of solidarity in a den before coming out is my record, so I put nothing pass them. I have another game camera one that I will save for a later date. .................... the mike

Mike this is in no way directed towards you. I’m just using your example to say something.

With beaver work, some things are simply out of our control. They can hole up, they can temporarily leave, they can unexpectedly die. There may not be the expected headcount...It may not even be an actual beaver problem, but instead a human caused drainage issue somewhere in the drainage. The questions of what happened take time, thought, and evidence to answer, and at times, a person may not know at all. What we do know is that beaver solutions come with being thorough, and sometimes that means trips to see nothing—just making sure nothing has changed.

When some customers expect wham, bam, it’s over beaver trapping because they know someone that caught multiple beavers one winter fur trapping in some random location, so catching “one” can’t be that time consuming are the customers that find themselves paying for dam removal over and over. Well, that or trappers with a high turn over rate.

My example here would be a location I recently cleared. I caught 4 offspring. Breeding adults never showed up. Cut dams, drained it. Where were the adults? I think someone trapped them and called it good. Little did they know offspring were on their way to becoming an issue. I’m not going to estimate the timber lost to flooding, but it wasn’t pretty. It took additional trips to come up with the conclusion that I couldn’t know what happened to the adults, but they were no longer a problem. Those were empty trips and definite expenses, but the problem was still resolved. When I thought this might be the case, I pulled traps, cut dams, and gave it time. Returning some time later and seeing unrepaired dams, I too called it clear.

Nuisance beaver removal is sometimes straight forward, but sometimes you really have to look at other possibilities for answers.

Great posts and excellent information!
Aix and Wife touched on the UNUSUAL stuff that can occur when doing ADC beaver work so here’s one....
Just recently got a a call from a local golf course about some fresh cuttings on a tree. The beaver were chewing a low branch near a swamp that bordered the golf course. Set locations were limited so I set two 330 traps out on Lefler stands in a channel and blocked them off with cattails and downed tree limbs. Next day, I had two big beaver, traps were reset and I caught a huge female and another big beaver the next check. This went on for five days and I then caught ANOTHER BIG FEMALE?? I’m at beaver number 9 now and all the beaver are big. A trapper never knows what he will catch and is always learning something new. For the newer trappers out there... Aix mentioned being confused/ surprised by what he thought should happen but didn’t. If your gut tells you something..listen to it. And when in doubt set more traps out and wait another trap before pulling up. Just my take...

I’ve seen beaver in two different spots spring 330’s with sticks two nights in a row. No it wasn’t a dam break or dam crossover set. They did it on purpose. I didn’t believe it either.

There’s no pattern here on how many beaver and what sex, pregnant females, etc might be in a spot here anymore either unless it’s an isolated spot…then maybe.

I have told this story before so if y'all already heard it sorry.

There was a trapper dealing with a trap shy beaver that always evaded his sets. There was an underwater beaver run that the beaver used to get from one foraging area to the next but no matter how well he disguised those 330's (that fit perfectly in the run) the beaver would always spot them and pull out and go around them. He changed locations multiple times but always the same response. So one day he had a brainstorm and set up a new spot on the water trail. He set the 330 and camo'ed it in best as possible (like always) then several feet back of that set up a 2X6 plank leaning out over the water rigged with a fishline that when tripped would cause the plank to fall about 3 ft behind the trip line in the water. He caught the beaver the very first night. The beaver was swimming torwards the 330 but just before it would have spotted the trap and pulled out it tripped the fish line and made the plank spank the water right behind it. Hearing that it instinctively dived forward through the waiting 330.

Thanks for all the great info!!

I don’t like to personify beavers, but, in a way, beaver colonies are like homesteads. Some have many family members living there and in the immediate area. Some are only adults, some are only widows, some are just offspring for any number of reasons. Trappers, hunters, predators, roadkill, natural death, etc. Ideal locations that have been cleared but are near established colonies with flowing waterways may have new residents claiming the cleared homestead each dispersal season because if it’s ideal and vacant, why not?

It’s our jobs to deal with it however we find it, or that’s how I look at it. Every single location has similarities, but every one is different in its own way, somehow.

That’s it. Well put.