Better late to the party than not at all!

I’ll likely have a big weekend coming up.

Looking good Mud. Keep it up!

I got back out on the river yesterday and managed to get in 20 sets. At one point I pulled up to a spot and was looking at some otter tracks and in my distraction allowed my boat to start to drift off. Dove in after it and all is well except I got my head wet. With my chest waders and life jacket cinched up tight I didn't even get any water in them!

Today's check yielded 10 beaver and 1 coon, not a kit in the bunch. I "gifted" the coon to the eagles. Always see 20-30 bald eagles every day out there.

Nice. I got to a couple sets from yesterday. A channel set was fired but empty near one of the biggest colonies I’ve ever seen. I reset it and went to another set 15 yards away that had a muskrat and reset that and started to walk toward the other to leave and I honestly thought I spooked a deer into the water. Whitewater flying and splashing five six feet in the air. It was the channel set. An absolute huge one got caught while I was there. The gator rolls and splashing was unreal. It actually snapped off the pole I was cabled to. Probably a good thing I was there. Hoisted this thing into the boat and had two others nearby. I might actually weigh this one. Two tonight were real slobs.
Had three or four others tail slapping as I headed toward the barn. It’s gonna be a big weekend I think as I plan to set these couple colonies harder.

I'm gonna go set a series of ponds at a good friend's place on Friday or Saturday. It's not often I trap any private ground (aside from 2 beaver a year from my own pond, and a marten box 100 yards from my cabin) but my friend who lives a couple miles down from me had asked about me taking some beaver that keep cutting his trees, and I said I would once they primed up good and the ice was trustworthy to park a sled on. He has 5 ponds on his property, there's small creeks connecting all of them, some are dammed, some aren't. Every pond has at least one visible lodge, I'd be surprised if there's not a few bank dens too. I know there's at least 8 beaver in the pond closest to his cabin, he and I counted that many from his porch before ice up

Good luck AK

Last couple days worth. Laying off til Friday now.


Second pic the one on the bottom was the bucking bronco that shattered my stake.

Nice color on those beaver Mud...a little envious.

I'm also off until Friday. Having my brother over for beaver stew and cornbread tomorrow.

Today's haul:

11 beaver but a couple of kits in the mix this time.

One of these years when I’ve got enough miscellaneous skulls and stuff put away, I’m attending one of those western auctions with all my fur BP. I think it’s something different color wise then they are used to seeing.

Mud, if they have a decent covering of guard hair and you lot them correctly the crafters will eat them up! I got $41 for my good blankets in early January at Glenn's Ferry. Reportedly they didn't get as many as they wanted.

Well, had an interesting lunch break today!

Went to set a few traps in the stormwater retention pond that the beavers had plugged up. When they graded this pond there was a lot of cut, no fill dirt. It is about 12-15 feet lower than the roadway above and they graded it down to some really hard material. Dang impossible to get a stake in.

I made the first set which was a foothold castor mound right beside an existing castor mound. Took what seemed like a hundred attempts to get the deep end of the rod stuck in the bottom good. Got that set in and realized I had forgotten my hammer at the truck so I walked back up the steep bank.

Coming back down I hear a tail slap and sure enough a beaver is swimming circles in the middle of the pond. I sit down and let him do his thing, hoping he will go back in the lodge so I can continue to make sets.

He goes under and comes back up at the end of the pond, which was directly down wind of where I had a just made the castor mound. He smelled the castor and immediately swam about 50 yards to go check it out. I had him caught in short order after that!

Whats funny is my bucket with my tools and a couple 330's were sitting right there above the castor mound he got caught in. Once he smelled that castor he was locked in and didn't care about me or my tools sitting on the bank. Pretty cool to see that reaction in real time

Those are the kinds of events that keep it all new and interesting no? Great story!

It is educational to see beaver get caught in the sets,
I have watched many beaver get caught over the years.
One of the most memorable was one evening I was setting the bottom of a crossover on a pretty good sized dam.
As I was getting ready to place the trap a big beaver came over the top of the dam,I seen him at the same time he seen me,I pushed the 330 that was in my hands over his head,He was no more than 3 feet from me and still coming down the crossover.

Did you hold onto the trap chain or just let him run with it?? I'd imagine that was quite the rodeo for a couple minutes if you held onto the trap

Yep held onto the trap,held him out in front of me at arms length till he expired.I was on my knees making the set.

I one time pulled up in my boat to a shallow part of a coastal lake and saw that my 330 was not there. I looked around and saw a tail sticking out of the tules so I waded over and grabbed the tail when all "heck" broke loose. Back feet going like crazy and I was dang near water skiing. As I pulled it out completely (figuring it was front foot caught) found out it was not connected to anything! Apparently it had been working the set and when I pulled up and attempted to hide. I finally got it over the side of my Jon boat and somehow got my 22 rifle and head shot it. I also had a submerged beaver already at the set. A genuine two-fer.

Got a good laugh out of that BP!

Should have mentioned by some small miracle didn't shoot a hole in my boat!


Pulled traps today on this stretch after taking yesterday off. Five beaver and three otters from 20 traps. I was surprised that all three otters were females. I usually run about 80% males. Now to catch up on skinning and lay carcasses out for another bobcat/civet run.

Good work BP! The female in that stormwater pond schooled me today, going to have to pull out some tricks on her. She did visit a foothold castor mound where I caught the male but she somehow managed to avoid the trap entirely. Completely avoided all 4 submerged 330’s in slides/travel routes. I wonder if she didn’t come out and see me when I was taking care of that male the day before.

Anyway, out comes the sac oil and snares!

BP, your river trapping technique has me curious. Think I could maybe replicate it here since next season we will have a 72 hour check on drowning sets instead of 24. What is the size of the rivers you normally trap? Are you setting feeder creeks or do you just set along the main channel of the river? Every river around here has man made dams at some point, so they are pretty wide. I’d say 500 feet wide or so. Some maybe a little smaller. Just curious how you tackle this

Coondagger, I cruise the rivers and set on fresh sign. Rivers out here are rarely ever stable. Always rising and falling. Often two- three feet in 24 hours. SO ideally I'm out setting when river levels are falling. The NOAA River forecast center helps me see what river levels are projected to do. On falling river levels beaver are anxious to mark territories and so almost all my sets are places the beaver have mudpies. I pick and choose spots that I see as being more or less easy to set up. I run about 80% 330's and the rest MB750's. We have a lot of gravely spots so I use pieces of 3/8ths rebar to support those 330's. I can hammer them through gravel.

But the main point is I always set on fresh sign. Entrances of sloughs and slack water areas are worth looking at. I avoid areas with multiple small foraging trails in a small area because I know I'll catch kits. I also tend to avoid bank den areas for the same reason.
On average I will only have about 2 sets per river mile. Two or three checks and I move on. That way I never hit them too hard.

How many river miles do you figure you cover in a season, if I may ask?