Last two beavers I caught were dragging lily pads with them, presumably to eat. Anyone tried using them on a baited set? Or are they just too hard to retreive any mid winter so you haven't tried? Or maybe someone was tried it with some other type of greens? I know apples and potatoes can work, but I haven't heard anything about greens.

When I lived in Cameron, Wisconsin

There was a family of beavers in Cranberry creek that had Deep narrow channels ,They had rush and lillys in their center of lake House. They only ate Lilly roots in winter, catching them was challenging

Are you trying to see how many different ways you can catch them for a book you’re writing?

Down here in the deep South beavers have lily pads to eat 365 days/year.

They don't eat the lily pad itself...they eat the stems and roots.

I have found a few ponds where they eat exclusively Lily roots in the winter. The outside of the root looks like a Pineapple. They will not touch a tender young aspen or Birch pole though so snaring them is challenging to say the least.

Lily pad roots are massive if youve ever come across them during low water periods. Seen places where beaver havent cut trees in a long time but youll see where they've been eating lily pads

I saw in a video that potatoes can catch a beaver that's eating roots, especially if you open it up a bit so they see the white inside. Haven't tried it yet but it worked in their under ice sets.

Just personal edification mostly, but I guess I could write a book."Trapping for the unintelligent Mook: even you can do it!"

I never learned how. Maybe I’ll give it a read.

Unrelated to ice trapping, but I have seen beavers in the middle of a patch of lily pads steathfully snipping off the flower heads. I was bass fishing at the time and thought that the commotion caused by the hidden beaver was caused by a huge bass. That beaver ate a bunch of flowers while I was there.

They seem to be a preferred for for snapping turtles too.

Throw a piece of potato on a 330 trigger, they'll hit it. Just be careful using too big/heavy of a potato piece, I had the potato set off a 330 I was holding (fortunately not on my hand)

The pineapple looking rhizome is the main thing that beavers are after in the winter months. In our coastal lakes it is by far the most consumed item in a beaver's diet. I have used pieces of rhizome for bait and it works fine.

Some of the "dead ponds" without fresh beaver chewings, the beaver are living on the lily pad roots.

Same thing here Mike. One would swear that there are no beaver in many of our coastal lakes based on no peeled sticks.

Caught some pure black beavers one time in a runoff pond. solid jet black. One weighed 72 pounds on a scale. came from church camp run by the methodists. They had eaten some of the trees but were mainly living on the lilly pads. Think that had anything to do with their color? Caught beaver in ND back in the 90's that were living on cat tails like muskrats.

Same in WA ,,,,if it freezes it is only for a short time. No feed piles.

Goggle earth BIA and go to the east,,,,, I took 56 beaver out of that drainage,,,,,,all eating roots.
The nice thing was they kept the water open.

Had an old male in a shallow lake on a contract property with a zero tolerance policy on beavers. It was super spooky, avoided everything visible snares and body grips and exposed footholds. I left it alone couple weeks and snuck back with carefully concealed footholds. He got lucky and left a toenail in one. After that he just disappeared. No more trees chewed, no sign that he was exiting the water anywhere. After a few days I decided that he must have left. But then a couple weeks later I noticed “islands” of mud and pineapple roots getting bigger, with fresh pineapple roots floating around the islands and chewed up on the islands. I took a canoe out and sure enough, he was building islands and had completely stopped coming to shore. I kept watching another couple weeks thinking he would eventually start coming back to shore, but he never did. Rather than take another chance spooking him with a trap, I sat with buckshot on a full moon and that was the end of that saga.

Cliff notes please….l

Smart beaver wouldn't even come to shore after getting spooked. Ended with gun in moonlight.