All of the southeast produces the castor I want. It tends to smell the same from East Texas to the coast of Virgina. Good stuff!

Big difference between castor odors from east to west. I've smelled several lures made from eastern castor, and they don't even smell like castor to me. More like something that came out of the spice cabinet! Not sure if the beaver care or not, but I prefer to use castor that smells like that of the area I'm trapping. So for western beaver I'll use western castor, if I was to go back east to trap them, I'd want to use eastern castor.

I know several lure makers (the boss is one) only want castor from one area or the other.

Paul's Backbreaker works good on beaver in my area. I'm about as west as you can get for beaver in mainland N.A.

Here’s a shout out to Paul’s Woodchipper from years ago. The set I came to check was still set, the mound I made was messed up, but there was a beaver swimming around watching me. I had all evening so I reset, sat there still with my phone and within a minute or two of cracking the lid on that jar I got em……..wammo!

I don’t see much information on how to handle castor after its removed. I have been hanging it up for the season and then freezing it. At the earlier sale sounded like I was way over drying them. I did a little better at the last sale and thought that it was going to be way to wet. BP, care to give us run down of what you do when you say ‘done’? I heard some say they do a quick squeeze to get the majority of the juice out and then freeze.
I sold about 7 lbs and thought I was king! I broke it into batches of the way overdried and what I thought was too wet and the wet batch went for quite a bit more.

Minz, I think it depends on your market or end user. I sell to a country buyer. Some send to auction to have it sold. Others bring it directly or send it to local/state association auctions. Depending on your buyer, they may be using it rather quickly for lure or it may be stored and sold over seas months from now. Your market likely dictates how dry your castor needs to be or how much an auction house is going to dry and deduct a weight percentage if your castor is not dry enough.

My buyer tells me to freeze my castor as soon as I take it out of the beaver. It can be frozen for quite a long time. Around 10 days before I sell it to him, I take it out of the freezer and hang it up or lay it out on a screen. Flip it a time or two over that 10 day stretch. Then I box it up in a cardboard box and bring it to him. He claims that this method gets me the most money (dry enough for his needs but not too dry that I'm losing a large weight percentage). Now if I was sending this castor to an auction house, it may be too wet and thus start to mold or be dripping wet when it got there.

Minz, atrapper covered it pretty well. I like to hang mine for a few days and get it somewhat dry before freezing. I believe it tends to be lighter colored that way.

For kicks weigh some fresh out of the beaver and then weigh it again when you're ready to sell. You should only be losing about 20-25% of the wet weight. In fact, I've sold a lot that only lost about 15-20%

At the OTC sales most buyers like to see castor that is dry to the touch but not bone dry. Should be tacky inside the pods. And for sure never take to auction in plastic!