What I was thinking too. I thought the op wanted to miss the otter.

Trapper tip of the month: you cannot catch every size beaver and miss every otter in a bodygrip...no matter the trigger configuration.

tt

That’s how I set most of my under ice sets and some of my open water sets with good results. Wonder if yours is a tuning issue?
The stick thing to activate the trigger sounds like a loop hole in the law, kinda circumventing it. A zone to the west of me is a no go area for otter. I don’t have to, but when I set there I put it way off to the side…..but there’s not really any otter there, more rats than here though.

I have not set my first BG trap for anything other than barn rats so I can't help

Good info on the trigger adjustment

Good luck archeryguy, sounds like a lot of frustration

Move to northern NY.

Good one Squash.

Yup !!!

X 2 !!!

No otter/beaver trapping trigger restrictions in the northern zone
and no otter bag limits up here either.

w

This trigger rule only applies to southern zone trapping in NYS.

After encountering an alive beaver caught at the hips last year, I ditched my 330's and went to 280s.

I do enjoy my footholds and downers for my creeks the most though...

Northern zone NY also has no fisher or bobcat bag limits.

No bag limits for either in southern zone either. Only a 6 day fisher season though for fisher, and only specific WMU's for cats..

Saying for a friend, Be glad you can legally use any BG or leg hold traps

Amen to that Jingles

When Neil Olson and I trapped northern NY together for spring beaver and otter I learned a ton from the man. I always thought it was interesting that he set his triggers to target otter specifically and to also catch every beaver that came through just like how the NYSDEC has the closed otter zones set their triggers to avoid otter. Neil catches anywhere from 200-600 beaver a year in Maine and other various states and 50+ otter.

Took the advice of several posters and fine tuned the triggers. Set two 330’s yesterday and had these two this morning. One was caught right behind the head, the other one was suit cased but they did the job.

Great! Glad to hear that it worked out well!

Thats great. Did you happen to note which way they hit the triggers? As in, was the trigger on the jaw they entered, or the far jaw? I could see even with a tuned trigger, if they came in from the other jaw first they could get in a ways further.

Far jaw on the neck caught beaver, near jaw on the suit-cased beaver. That one came from the opposite direction that I though he would travel

Huh, exactly the opposite of what I had in mind. Back to the drawing board, as they say.

I couldn't get the trigger to trip in the same amount of travel one way or the other.