What do you mean Vinke? Are you saying the OP is fur trapping and being offered a bounty for his catch?
It sounds to me that he is negotiating a price with the county to remove beavers. If they are hiring him, that is pest control, aka ADC, aka Nuisance Wildlife Control.
Are you saying if I catch a beaver at a culvert, regardless of trap type, it's not beaver trapping? Then what the heck is it?

Anyway, the point of my post was to say sometimes a beaver (or other animal) will almost jump into the truck. Sure, we all like the easy (lazy) ones. May even make a profit.
Other times, they will make you earn every penny, and those situations won't pay the bills if charging per catch.

We’re all about lazy trapping. We don’t trap beaver. Or muskrat. Or foxes. Or coyotes. Going over it, I don’t see high profit vs time spent. We like chucks, skunks, raccoons and squirrels. It’s a business. I want quick money and very little time spent for it. If it’s a hobby, ok, let’s keep it interesting and run with the calls that come in.

Opposite here. I want the tough jobs and charge accordingly.

Done my time chasing low dollar squirrels servicing as many stops as I can pack into a day where the upsell was the profit.

I'm getting to old for the ladder work so I'll take three or four tough jobs that equal a couple good exclusions.

The one I'm on now is the worst, sitting on my butt 14-15 hours snake wrangling for a film studio but I'm going to clear a good five figures for ten days of doing nothing but relocating one garter and five browns.

And I still got these folks on an annual coyote and beaver rotation plus on call for all wildlife.

My grey squirrel jobs start at $1200. A single chuck will cost over half that.

Are you selling the exclusion as part of that?

Two models here. Sell the exclusion upfront sight unseen, which is insane, or sell the trapping as the loss leader and upsell on site. Too many PCOs jumped into the game.

Coyote and beaver trappers here are either good at it or gone.

I'm good enough to still be plugging along, barely.

For the squirrels, exclusion is in the price for a small hole/holes. Obviously a new soffit or fascia costs more.

For a chuck that’s just trapping. Exclusion is $30/ft for a deck/shed. There’s no loss on the trapping.

No on the fur tapping.
Yes to your original post saying,,,, "I pulled up to the easiest place a set",,, You should have added,,,,,"I did not Look to see what the Beaver were doing"
Beaver removal is a thing,,,,, no bug guy will ever understand,,,,,,,,,.........

Anyone who charges to catch beaver and doesnt catch any for any reason is a crook.

Can I charge to solve the problem rather than to catch the beaver? I am so feared by the local beaver that once in a while the whole colony just packs up and moves when they see my cockeyed footprints, or smell my BO, or hear my thundering voice…..problem solved.

I've done that. But as ugly as I am I'd run too, lol.

Any NCWO who sets for beaver, doesn't catch any beaver, and doesn't charge needs to find another line of work. The other option is to give the customer a website where they can buy hip boots, traps, drowning rods, chain, wire, rebar, drowning locks, lure, and a spade. Recommend a couple YouTube videos so they can educate themselves. Tell them to buy some bug spray because the mosquitos will be terrible in the 90 degree heat and the mud will be knee deep. After the customer has all that equipment and educational tools, then they can do the job for free.

Trust me. When I'm done there ain't no beaver on site or its a contender for the Bigfoot Invitational Hide and Seek World Championship.

But that's not to say the property 100 yards downstream doesn't have one.

But it's a poor business owner that doesn't have a raincheck program for customer satisfaction.

I trapped 56 beaver on a 100 ac parcel at 350 per ....how are you going to charge a flat rate on that one?
I believe it would be hard for anyone on here to sell a 20,000.00 "contract" to land owner.

After removal, we filed the permits,(big deal in WA, Native Americans, SEPA, WDFW, ) and did the water mitigation.....the office is what makes more money with beaver problems...

Horsepucky-if there are beaver 100 yards away its the same colony and you didnt take care of the problem..

If the property 100 yards away is a different water body, or different landowner up/down stream, there may be limits to what you can do. We don't all live on the Frontier, some of us have to obey property boundaries, and some of those boundaries may be small lots. Just like hunting, you may see a beaver (deer} on the adjoining property, but with no permission, it's off limits, unless the animal cooperates and comes to you.

If there are beaver 100 yards away they are the same colony and can easily be trapped where the rest are trapped.No need to go on any other property.
Even beaver from an adjacent colony up to a quarter mile away or more will venture into the spot where the previous colony has been trapped out once they know the dead colony is not marking the territorial castor mounds.
I trapped thousands of nuisance beaver professionally all my life in towns cities and remote..

Our beaver down here don't travel once the heat is on.

I've trapped one acre ponds that I couldn't get them to cross over to the other side in summer.