I tried and failed to catch an educated beaver. He would have nothing to do with any sort of baited set -- I tried for 10 days or so to entice him into a conibear or snare or foot trap with various lures and peeled sticks. There was no visible lodge or bank den...no good pinch point for a blind set. My only option (that I could see) was to interrupt the dam and set a foot trap in 15" of water to try to catch him. It almost worked, but must not have hooked him up good -- my trap was fired and pulled all the way to my anchor at the end of my drowner wire. He got loose. I'm wishing I had a larger foot trap (we're only allowed a 6.5" jaw spread here in PA). My question is, will that beaver ever lose his sensitivity or will he be forever educated? I wonder, if the place is left to cool off for a month or two, if I could snag that beaver then? Will he still be just as wise months from now?

What did the beaver learn? Don't fix a dam break? They need adequate water level to survive. Keep breaking the dam daily and let the beaver fix it without any traps present. Set foothold traps after it has fixed the dam a number of times.

Well concealed footholds set blind. Either at a dam break like carl says or where the beaver has been putting its feet. No bait, no lure, minimum disturbance beyond a hole in the dam. This beaver may be educated, but it can not avoid what it can not detect. Footholds WILL miss beaver, even bigger footholds will miss. Thats a drawback of footholds. The advantage that footholds have is they can be set concealed underwater and even a pinched beaver will step in them again and again in different locations, and eventually you will get a good hold. Another possibility is that the beaver will decide to look for safer water and disappear. Either way problem solved for this location for now. Shooting may also work if legal.

I would just leave it, if I was fur trapping, and go look for uneducated beavers. If you are control trapping, welcome to the game, this is where you show why you are the guy they pay the big bucks to get rid of them 100%, every time. If you are doing it on your own land, maybe shoot it if you cant get it after a few more days with well concealed foothold?

Dusty, was/is the #3 four coiled and ck pan tension IF you plan on using it again. Good advice given already.
I would scout up and down stream looking for possible locations you might have missed initially...there always seems to be at least one good one.
Good luck!

I like my Hancock trap in that situation. It's big and awkward, but set at a dam break it will pick up the last trap shy beaver. It's something the beaver hasn't seen before and can easily be camouflaged to break up the outline. When sprung, there will be a beaver in it (>95%). Very rarely have an empty sprung trap. Sometimes it will get buried while still set, just clear debris and reset. You will want to be careful with it, it's strong and quick. Wear a hard hat if you have one. I've been careless a couple times and paid for it with a lump somewhere.

Thanks for the info guys....I've been trapping since about 1982 but beavers are the one critter I have the least amount of experience with. They seem very easy to catch until you find a tricky one.

If legal you might want to try a snare in the water that has some sort of natural guiding. Put a little sac oil up high and the beaver will usually make several passes trying to locate it. This has worked for me on the shy or educated beavs. It seems like they are more apt to investigate a scent thoroughly if they have the security of still being in the water and not making the commitment to coming on land.

The longer you monkey around trying to catch that beaver you are losing money on that job.
Time to introduce him to uncle buck.

Very, very new to this so take anything I say with that in mind.

I recently trapped a lake in town so I tried not to use a gun (I did with one but homeowners were out of town). It started off with blowing the dam out with tannerite so obviously the beavers knew something was going on before any traps were set. I caught 5 in connibears and knew I still had some left from sign and snapped traps.

Switched to footholds and got several more snapped traps. I put out a trail camera and caught two beavers avoiding a connibear on a dam crossover so I went back to the footholds once they finally gave me enough sign to set on.

They were using a small island so with a large rain forecasted I set one trap at water level and another at the top of the island so I was covered no matter what happened and baited both with peeled sticks and beaver oil. After the rain, my first picture on camera was the beaver swimming past the completely submerged island. I went back two days later to adjust and was surprised to find a beaver at the end of my drowning wire. He either smelled the oil from underwater or I caught him basically as a blind set.

With one left (hopefully, I haven’t checked for sign recently) I reset my traps on fresh sign. I used peeled sticks on both sets with Caven’s Beaver Bounty at one and beaver oil at the other. I went back the next morning to find a coon at the Caven’s set and a beaver at the oil set.

The oil I used was from the same family group. I tried castor but they were never interested. My assumption (again, super green here) is that the castor didn’t interest them because they weren’t concerned about their family group marking territory but the oil was a scent they were used to and wanted to see why that beaver was using that area.

Camouflage the trap with some silt. It helps. But sounds like that one might still see it cause he is looking for them now.

I appreciate the tips and ideas!

Dam breaks on educated beaver is the worst thing to do.

What would you say is a better alternative to a dam break on those smart beavers?