Question on snaring beaver, I have a place I need to catch one on land, how high off the ground should I make the loop? Thinking the loop will be in the 9-10 inch around. I have snared a bunch of coyotes but this is new to me.

Thanks wws

Depends on the bank, if it's a flat exit out if the water I like 4-6 inches. If it's a steeper bank i keep them a little closer to the ground, your loop size is about right.

Thank you, I normally can just throw a 330 or 750 in and catch these. One farm they educated them, I’ll get pictures today. The other I have been about repelling down to the swamp but keep catching nutria, I can see two holes they have been going thru but can’t get to the water in those places. We can’t set a 330 on land here so I’ll have to try a snare.
wws

Here are a few pictures of what I showed up too. Kid bought some traps at the farm store or Cabelas. Set a dozen out, and was wondering why he was not catching the beavers eating the hazelnut trees.

wws

Fence off those banks and those sets would probably work.

I honestly can’t recall the last beaver I got with a 330 on dry ground. That one run looks kinda old with the grass growing in it. Are there any fresh spots to hit?

3 to 4 inches is what I do.

I run 3-4" if and 8 inch loops. Don't set any lower unless you like misses or foot/tail/hip/ caught beaver.

Well....I'm the odd man out. I use a 10" loop and only 1" to 2" off the ground. Snare is always set at 90° perpendicular to the ground. Most are snared with one front leg thru snare and pulled snug just behind the shoulders.

I rarely set snares in water deeper than half the snare loop.

I have snared a few beaver on land but its a very tiny percentage of sets I would make for beaver.
10 inch loop,bottom of loop 2 to 3 fingers off the ground and solid snare support directly at the lock.
7x7 stainless 1/16 cable

That is exactly how I do it. With exactly the same results.
And caught with at least one front leg through I have never had one escape that was confirmed with video. Neck snared on land, I have plenty of videos showing them caught and struggling maybe 30 seconds to minute, then stopping and working the snare off the head with front paws. That is not to say most will escape when neck snared, but rather it is to say that NONE will escape when caught with at least one front leg through the snare. This applies to dry land - I have never run video of snares underwater.

If you got beaver escaping from being neck snared, you need new snares or a new snare support.

Hmmmm. How many on-land neck snared beaver do have video of so you are sure none have escaped? And what is your setup? Maybe my over a thousand documented beaver snared on land is not enough and I still have something to learn…
It is not many, but it happens. At least with my possibly second-rate setup. Occasionally one stops fighting before the snare gets fully tight (or does not pull at all!) and manages to scratch the snare off with the front feet. I don’t see how a different setup will change that unless it is a powered snare. Oh, and when I inspect the snare there is often no evidence of it having caught a beaver, because it was only caught for seconds or a minute at most, and it is just pulled down to about a 3-4” loop wth no kinks in the cable or signs of disturbance. Just like it is if one drags a limb past it and pulls it down, or any number of other ways that snare can miss. I was only able to see what happened after reviewing the video. Have you ever found a snare like that and wondered what happened or what animal did it? Once they give it a good tug, they wont escape, but some don’t ever give it that tug. Maybe one in 50. And thats too much for me when it is zero for body catches - get a leg through and they are not able to pull it off with the front claws. But again, maybe it is my snares or my support. Do tell, what is the magic setup and maybe I will make some up and start running video on them to test it. But on second thought that seems like a lot of work (that I have already done) when I can continue to body catch them and not worry about it.

All of that said, there is a slight risk when setting like Swamp and I do, and that is that maybe one in 100 or 200 (I have 3 videos where it happened of around 500) will manage to walk right through without closing the loop. But in two of those cases, they came back down the trail and were caught going the other direction because the snare was still functioning.

There is another big advantage to setting a bigger loop closer to the ground, and that is raccoons. 80-90% of them will nimbly walk right through it without disturbing anything. I have many many videos that show multiple raccoons walking right through, then along comes a buck-tooth mud shover and it is waiting for me…

I run 1/16th 1x19 cable with slim locks, no deer stops amberg release ferrules and heavily loaded. 9 gauge wire snare supports In testing the load, they close past where a 2.5" deer stop would be.

I can understand the missing coon(not much of a problem where and when i trap beaver most years) thing but while annoying, id rather have a coon than the knocked down snare. ive got 6-8 more snares up and down the river waiting for bucky. Farmer is happy either way.

Man would I love to see some of those videos. You also learn more from failures than successes, if you can see what actually happened. Not many people apparently run cameras on snares, or at least dont share it. I've asked about snared raccoon videos in the past on here and no one had any to share.

I've neck snared the last 50 or so beaver without a loss at the water/land interface using Amberg locks with a kill spring. Wonder if that made any difference at all? For hatters, snare location on the body doesnt matter at all, but for shearing, it does matter. I've always sold my beaver for shearing, except the spring bit-up ones

As long as you're not having to pull big chunks of fiur off when you remove the cable it doesn't matter too much for the felt market.

Same

I dont think videos can be uploaded here.

I expect the kill springs do make a difference. And to be clear, as I said before, if they lock it down good they aren't going anywhere. But without video, if you ever find a snare empty but pulled down to a beaver head sized loop, there is chance it was the odd beaver that stopped and used it front feet to pull the snare off. Most of them pull hard and lock it down before they try that, but not all.

I do have an interesting story about one of those odd beavers. I had two two snares with a cell cam watching them, one high and dry, the other at the waters edge. When I saw the pics of one at the waters edge diring the night, I shut the camera off, but the camera was set to take a picture when it checked in each morning. I did not think much of it, but when I arrived at around 3:00 that afternoon I had two beavers. One was thrashing at the waters edge, the other was a 50plus pound brute who was just staring at me and never tried to get away or move much more than to follow me whit its head. Then I noticed that there was no Catch circle, in fact the split stick I used for my support was still stuck in the ground with half of the split broken off. This was summer, and the weeds were all perfect and untouched. So that made me curious, and I went to that photo from 7 or 8:00 that morning and there, just at the edge of the photo, was a big beaver head. That beaver had stayed right there, as close to the water as the leash would let it go, for at least 8 hours. Not one single time around, just right there while the other one thrashed and splashed all day. Im not sure when it was caught, but I know it was there in the morning. I also occasionally have one one that refuses to go down a perfectly functioning slide and is sitting there in shallow water. Some of them don’t act like the others.
But I am convinced of this much, if at least one leg is through, they NEVER get out, no matter how they act.

upload them to rumble or youtube then share links here