Spring Beaver

Who's starting to get ready for spring beaver? What sets do you like?

Thinking more about maple syrup, maybe in a week or so if the forecast is close to accurate. Bout the same amount of work though. Mike

My go to set is the castor mound set. I enjoy making mud pies,and the beaver do too.
Tom

Yup. Planning on going pretty hard this spring. Can’t wait. Leg holds on rods sitting in front of the sweet smell of castor

I am hoping we get some open water soon. Planning on some snare bait poles this weekend.

I’m in, as soon as we get open water. Even the bigger rivers are iced up.

Think we'll still have ice? I'm thinking under ice snares with a castor pole

Still processing beaver from last year. I'd like to go a couple of weeks with no beaver in the freezers.

Every year I tell myself I'm gonna do it, and every year I get busy with something else. I just made my own castor lure last night, maybe this year will be the year. Gotta get my truck up and going first.

an u use mostly 330 caster mounds? Like in past ? I given up on 330 caster mounds with submerging , to much work, if half submerged where legally, I set out lots but not

Trapstickman has always enjoyed "spring" beaver trapping. He prefers sets with castor and partially peeled Aspen sticks for attractors.

The ole Stink Stink set

Your going to lure a under ice pole set? Some partially peeled popular or aspen sticks might be a better choice.

Dave, I do prefer 330s at my castor mounds.While partially submerged 330s are usually quicker and easier to set. I have used totally submerged in Mo.,when it was required. I believe they may have changed that requirement last year or the year before.
Tom

Blind channel,pinch points,narrow waterway sets.

I wonder how many otter I'd kill if I set like this in spring? Definitely not how I'd do it...here in WI.

I'm all ears. I was thinking of putting a little lure in the splinters of the poplar pole.

I'm just not sure a beaver can smell under water.

I rember dig out bank an spend a hour make 330 submerged set with bait an caster scent back, find right bank an sand keep cave in an more digging an tons sticks, I used wire up A bundles them years ago an go brush dump to get them an carry in bundles under bridge,caught lots beaver, sonetimex 3 at location but to much work an no longer do, with right terrain or bank like mn catils or swamp or grass, bank, it might be real easy but not around here most places unless do something wrong, I try just go out from bank till submerged an block off sticks, don't work for me or in this terrain, I think Marsh with high grass would work better like up mn an lots beaver

Just wonder anyone try lured sets submerged 330?

Set trigger all the way to one side.

Your still going to kill some otter. And most of them will be Hip caught.

As soon as the 14" of snow and the 10" of ice is gone I have a plan.

Won’t be long rivers are open lakes will be right behind time to hit it hard

Our traps are now under 2' of water. It's going to take some time for that water to go down.

They are way prettier snared under ice



Until there isn't any ice!

But you need to beat the shrews to them

Slush Puppies.
Tom

Yup. Been there, maybe.

Something like that. Had to run the wheeler to pull yesterday, then we got 4" of new snow last night! LOL

Those are sum big paddles!!

Geeze, pushing that ice (or lack there of) to the final day, eh?

Nope! Somebody put water where there is suppose to be ice for another month!

You're ballsy anyhow. Cant take that off you. Be safe ya ice dancin beaver slayer.

I'm surprised that you did not do a little swimming there....or did you?

Nope, no swimming, but the bottom fell out a couple times!

Just keep er pinned and dont look behind you.

I cannot believe how fast our ice went from 6-8 inches to getting soft to ice-out. Only a few days.

You got that right. I came up on that hump and saw the narrow cave in in the old track, turned hard left and the rear gave way. I had four beaver in the sled and it hit hard but the skis were up. Love the throttle response of the 550 F. Look where the left ski landed when she set back down, came out of it on the left side nose up and me leaning over the windshield. It's an old dead pond between two live ones. The dead house is just to the right of the picture, and that cave in is the main run coming out of the house. Parked the machine on the old dam and walked back to take the picture.
The second picture is just a cave in from the last trip through. There were several on that flowage I'd been running at least three times. You can see the fresh track out and around.



Don't feel like the lone ranger. Took 5 days to set this line up. Cross country 15.4 miles on snomo back to the truck. Line lasted 12 days for the full line, then pulled everything except five houses I could get to with the wheeler. The poles had all fallen over and the beaver had their way with them, but I still got three for my troubles. I should have had another month, maybe only three weeks, with normal break-up, but Mom Nature had other ideas.

I seen those marks in the snow in that one pic,Rally, And was trying to figure it out,lol.

Boco and other beaver guys,
Take a good look at the beaver pictured here and tell me what you see. Wasn't obvious to me until I started boarding them.

No scars?
All the tails are intact.(no notches)?

Nope. Not really fair question with just pictures, but there are scars and notches, just not as many as there should/ could be.

No Kits?

Age the beaver your looking at . Your headed in the right direction.

Looks like a lot of XL-XXL and no smaller beaver.
See that here on some lines mostly big beaver in wolf/lynx country when trapping later under ice.Its tough to maintain a substantial beaver quota year in and year out on an RTL unless you also manage the predators as well.
All the smaller beavers are a lot easier prey for lynx and wolf in the fall just before freeze up.

Hard to guess when you haven't seen the line and the way it lays out. The line is a flowage shaped like the outline of the state of Virginia, with the western and northern borders formed from CCC ditches dug in the early1900's. On the north is a single ditch that runs straight north into a bog and stops. On the interior are three flowages that drain to these ditches, the west side drains to the west and the north and center drain to the north. While running this and cutting trails, I noticed several smaller flowages with dead lodges/ houses. The nw corner of the flowage had a series of five in a row, pond to pond all dead. Interior ponds all active, two of which had two houses on them, which contained the numbers and age class beaver they should. In the ditch in that NW section, up and downstream from the stretch with the dead houses, all the houses just had pairs of two year old beaver in them, and several old lodges along the way dead. Farthest sw house in the ditch, almost to the river was a house with a huge 4 year old pair and a set of last years pups? In short, out of the 43 beaver I've taken out of there so far, there are only 3 that are in the 3 YO class (would be 4 this May). Two of those were taken out of the same pond, and one was taken out of that ditch running straight north about a mile away from the main ditch. There are plenty of beaver still in there, but what are the odds just that year age class avoided my sets? What it's looking like to me, is that this area had a disease wipe out that ditch area in the NW about three years ago, the area has been populated again, and the interior ponds, which all drain to the ditch system weren't affected. All the real big beaver were taken out of the interior ponds , except the two with pups down near the river/ first house upstream from river. I've seen this twice before, and it seems to kill all the small beaver of one year age class. I've heard the name of the disease, it's about twenty letters long. Anybody know the name of the disease?

Rally, all I have to say is this weather sucks lol.

Steven,
I hear you. I'm guessing the guys working on line Three are thinking the same thing. I'm guessing they are about swimming now.