There have been some asking about riprap and how footholds can be bedded in that situation. I have had a few jobs recently in riprap, so today I filmed setting one up with the magnebed. I used my 6 year old’s v-tech “toy” camera for the filming, which worked great because it is so simple - very important whenever I have to deal with a high tech device. I tried having the boy run the camera, it was funny, but didn’t go well…

https://youtu.be/VUFBKMwsF70?si=3ooGhgoFUx1CqJv_

I tried watching, but, for me, it stopped every 2 seconds.

Huh, I asked several friends to test it and it played fine for them, and just had the wife check on her phone and it played no problem. If anyone else has trouble please let me know! Hope it is not an issue with the website.

Didn't play on my Android phone

Video froze after about a minute playing and wouldn't restart.

only half showed up in the bottom of the screen

Ugh. I will see if I can figure it out. Not a tech wiz. I guess that’s obvious.

Just watched the video and it worked fine.

I can probably down load it some kinda way and post it to my YouTube if you'd like me to try I'd b happy to while I have some signal

Sure go ahead wolfie. Do I need to do anything to help you? I did make a few changes - I moved the video to the top of the page and then added some text below it.

Not going to lie, there’s a lot that could go wrong with my video uploading and I knew it. Toy camera, old free video editing program, had to email the finished video to myself to get it on the site….it’s a wonder it plays at all.

Is there an option that will allow you to let people download the video? I'm trying to but my downloading apps don't seem to wanna work

Ok, after wolfie offered to to youtube it, I logged into my YouTube account and uploaded it there. Been many years since I uploaded anything to YouTube, and it is actually easier now than I remember. I changed the link in the original post to the YouTube version. Going to change the website so it links to YouTube also.

I've watched a couple minutes so far, and seems to be working properly.

Very nicely done! Good information for us trappers dealing with rip rap and other adverse conditions.

Video worked fine for me.

The question is......did the set work? Did you catch him?

No activity at this location on first check today. Still flowing just like I left it. That is fairly typical for this one over the past 6 months. Very sketchy. It has a habit of ignoring dam breaches from a few days to a few weeks after they are made. It has returned to this location several times over the summer, and has repaired this one a few times in the past few weeks, but took a couple nights each time. I removed the female with this same setup in this exact spot last spring, and since then this one been like a fantom up and down about a mile of this ditch. If it moves again, I will just leave this setup soaking and setup the new location. The county will only pay me if I catch it in the right of way, so I can not just go find it - I have to wait for it to obstruct the county maintained drain and catch it there to be paid for it. Usually that works out fine, then a wise guy like this comes along….. The teenage boys that live right next to this bridge trap this ditch every year, and they caught a few beaver last year, which explains where this one got his diploma. No worries, glad the kids are trapping! If it wasn’t for educated beavers, they could just hire anyone to do it! Educated beaver are my specialty, and fur trappers who catch the easy ones and move on are job security!

Was able to watch the entire video. I found it very interesting.

Good video.Too much gear for me though.I keep things simpler.

The simplest possible is best for sure! If I had the luxury of catching it a different place and still getting paid, that’s what I would do. Or if I were fur trapping for numbers I would not bother with it. Been there. I get paid to solve problems, not run a lot of steel and pile up the fur. That said, I still keep it as simple as I can to get the job done quickly and efficiently - I sure did not come up with these things just so I could have more junk to deal with - I needed a way to put footholds places otherwise difficult or impossible, and with full control of the height and jaw orientation, and rock solid. And this is what I came up with. There may be better ways, but I have not found them yet. Trays certainly have a place, and I still use them on occasion - I had had a spot with mud over riprap this summer, and dug out a tray for that one because it was the easiest in that situation.

If you are fur trapper, my recommendation is don’t bother with any trap holder or bedding device at all - just move to better/easier location, get the easy ones and move on, and if you can’t get them all that’s a good thing - seed for nest year.

Any way you do it, you need at least one more piece of equipment if you are going to set riprap - a sand bag, a big chunk of sod, something. And both are far heavier and less versatile than this setup - at least that is my assessment after having tried those. And those are not nearly as easy to use or make a well concealed setup with.

Well for those wondering if I caught the beaver, the answer is not yet. I arrived yesterday after driving past a road-closed sign, and the county highway department had a tri-axle of rip rap, a backhoe, and a crew of 8 guys just firing up the equipment to redo the whole bridge with riprap. They were about to backhoe the dam out first thing and then pack the new riprap under the bridge. So I pulled it all of course. Almost certainly would have had lost or damaged equipment if I had been 1/2 hour later.
What I said in the video about that beaver choosing that spot for the winter was wrong. After the break at the spot in the video flowed free those two days with no activity at all, and now the new riprap work, I decided to notify landowners and walk the upstream section of the ROW for the next mile north to the next road. When I arrived at the next bridge north, the walk was not needed - brand new dam 150 feet from the bridge.
So it goes. At least I had a chance to get video of a riprap setup.

The county issued a new work order for the new dam location, and I will be starting there tomorrow.