Just scouted a new piece of land that I got permission for, it has a small creek that is dammed up. In about 200 yards I counted 3 beaver lodges and many more bank dens.

What I'm trying to figure out is the best way to go about trapping this ground. I'm just getting into beaver trapping and only have 4 330s. I know that I need more big traps, Have plenty of small traps but never had a need for a lot of big ones.

Am I better off focusing on the lodges once I get a few more traps and when the catches drop off after a few days move to the bank dens or should I start at one end of the creek and work my way down as the catches drop off?
The lodges are not the largest and are 50-75 yards apart. Some only have one run that I could find quickly while others have as many as 3, the bank dens are scattered around. Id needs well over a dozen traps to cover every run at once.

If anyone has run into a similar problem, love to hear about it.

Are all the lodges active. Feed piles?? I have one pond that there are two lodges on very short distance from each other. Only one of them has feed in front of it.

you can snare them under the ice, a lot cheaper set up if you don't want to spend $500 on some 330's

Depends on how many beaver you want to pack out in a day lol. Normally id try to catch em all first night orntwo but if you are limited in traps, id just hit one colony at a time

I think they are all active, there are a few old abandoned lodges but the three saw had fresh mud on from the last warm spell and feed piles within a few feet.

Set the main entrance at each active lodge-you dont need to cover every entrance run to catch all the beaver.
Beaver use all the entrances in both directions(coming and going).

Baited snare poles work better in late winter but you can use a snarepole(baited or not) at an entrance run also as long as you clear out any brush/debris with your feed hook.

Boko ! What does the stern hook look like ?

Hello Alexei-How are you doing-hope all is well with you.A feed hook is what we call a long aluminum pole(about 6 ft long) with a hook on the end to pull up sticks and branches that are in the way when placing traps after we cut a hole in the ice.
We also use it to tap on the ice to find the run.It makes a different sound when tapping the ice over a beaver run because of the air bubbles under the ice.

Thank you Robert!