ND Beaver house

I went and set a removal job this morning. I thought some of you may enjoy seeing where these beaver wintered. There is no brush or trees. I will get pictures of the dam and area tomorrow.

My favorite is the corn stalk dams..

I caught them in some places that were pretty barren. Good Luck!

That and sunflowers. I saw once where beaver were cutting alfalfa and taking it across the dirt road to the creek and feeding on it. I could see what looked like drag marks in the dust. So I stopped to check it out. He had about ten square foot clipped.
I am taking some bait poles with tomorrow. They fed on roots all winter.

Id like to hear how the beaver look overall. Skinny or doing just fine. Seems like a hard life compared to a big Willow Creek bottom.

I have taken beaver before in the same situation and they were always in good shape. They feed on cattail and bulrush roots. They go out under the ice and collect them. I will give updates and more pictures. It would be a long haul across country for them to find a willow creek bottom.

There are places in the lowlands north of here where woody feed is scarce but the beaver live there,just not as densely as further south.
They live on the cat tail roots like MJM said-they look like pineapples floating when you open the ice to set.

I think Skinny beaver are harder to flesh.

but they are better to be seen with !!

The fattest spring beaver I caught this spring was in a pond that had zero trees cut around the perimeter. They were feeding solely on under ice aquatic vegetation. Looked more like a coon than a beaver once the hide was off.

That sounds more like the lily pad roots that they so often feed on here. I think they look a lot like a pineapple when they are fresh and yellow.

Correct ,MnMan,lilly pad roots they are.

MJm prepare for the most rolly-polly beaver tomorrow, it will be quite plump feeding on cat-tail roots.
It probably will have a broken tooth so it can softly chew the roots.
We call them batchelor beaver

I'VE seen beaver here like that, eating nothing but roots , not much for house building mostly bank dens , but big fat beaver for sure

In those cases I have always wondered how they keep their teeth worn down eating only soft foods?

How do your teeth keep ground down? I don't think the wood is what keeps them wore down, I think it is the other teeth. Look at the shape of the teeth and how the match up top to bottom.

I went and checked traps today. I had two last year young and one decent sized female. I was going to get some pictures and the batteries were dead in my camera. I put new batteries in and should be good to go tomorrow. All beaver look to be in good shape. Teeth are in good shape.

Pales..

Yes, I was surprised. I was expecting red rims. I never trapped the drainage before. It flows out of one lake into another. I would guess 40 miles long.

I once trapped a R.O.W ditch. Not a single tree in sight. One corn/weed dam. I could only set the agriculture side of the ditch. I figured the beaver were long gone.....I was wrong and they were in good shape!
Another time I trapped 5 beaver out a section of creek in the spring that, if you walked 30 yards upstream or downstream, was dry as a bone. These beaver I caught were the most well-furred ones I had caught all year

Another three today. Big one is a male

From the house looking north

From the house looking south

Bank run just south of the house with H stand and trap

Dam

One of todays small beaver.

What their teeth look like. This is the male I caught today.

The ones I caught through the years in Wy that lived on roots and tubers, never had any developed castor. The sacks were all shells, and a light yellow color, and didn't even smell like normal castor! My beaver here at home in Ks. graded better than those I caught in Wy. I was pretty dissapointed with their quality! Some I caught in areas that they were feeding on trees were good shape and well furred.

Those castor should be nice pale colour western when dried.

Choice of the whiskey makers for flavouring = premium paid for them.

Lee, The caster was shells and in 100% flat. What color were those Wy beaver? What color are KS beaver. It seems like I saw some beaver from WY that were pale too. But I don't remember for sure. It was over 40 years ago.

Mark, most of them were pales to light browns. No darks at all. The locals are all over the board, from chocolates to very pale, and everything in between! One year, years ago, nafa graded my catch that year, eastern. At the time, western pales were the ticket.....go figure!

We get a real wide range of colors here. But most are not a good color. We do have some very dark beaver in some areas. Even blacks. But what I saw of that I caught dark browns, black and reds out of the same house. These all had silver bellies and light brown backs. I like the silver bellies as much as any color. I remember when they paid extra for pales. Mine seemed to always be what they don't want.

For me it's mostly reds and I've caught a few darks but I wouldn't call them blacks, these are Red river beaver.

The blacks I caught, came out of the Turtle Mountains on the Reservation. There were not a lot of them but some 95+ % black. grumley701 do you get any red rims. That was the first ND beaver I caught, and I was in shock.

I haven't Mark but that isn't saying much, my beaver killing is adc work only so limited..

That is what this is too, sort of. The neighbor ask I would go catch them, while he was buy ammo from me at a gun show. I was weak and said yes. I always got along good with him, he has always let me fur trap and hunt. So I would just as soon get along with him.
If I get into some red rims I will post a picture.

good neighbors are priceless..

I think that RR beaver get that from slopping around in their nest all winter. Some are sure worse than others, but it sure looks like castor staining to me. What you guys think? The rimmers I have caught have almost always been in the spring or late winter, and might have something to do with not being able to keep their castor in them, kinda like us old guys can have inconstanance! lol. Just spitballing!

The water of the Red river gives a lot of red-rimmed stained beaver in the spring. Possiability of urine burn in the winter months, Fall all clear
There is a 10% black coated phase of population in the Turtle Mountains on the Canadian side

Lee, I wonder if it was the water. I never saw it in MT or AK. Beaver in AK were under ice a lot longer than they are here.
North50 I would not think the blacks were 10% on the US side in the Turtle Mountains. I would guess under 5%.
Turtle Mountain beaver.

Nice haul.

I checked yesterday and nothing. I got the sow today. 44" nose to tail on the round.

That's a biggin...

The hard or soft stem bulrush has a very high carbohydrate content those beaver were living on that I can see in the picture floating on the surface.
Their under ground tuber is quite large of the bulrush

Northof50 There is more bulrush than cattail and that is about all there is. So would you still call this a bachelor beaver? That is number seven and I figure one male left. I always called a single old male a bachelor.

The color seems to be consistent.

Nice thread

Yes the singles are the ones out in the middle of the marshes that don't want to fight anymore and the battle scars on them prove it.
With the system of their lodge in place now, looks like you will be back every year now.

Those pales make really nice beaver blanket bed spread throws.

Use the old females beaver juice to get the last one.

Northof50 A red angry face. But what is it for? You seem to have plenty of advice, and I have seen very little of it that is what I would call good. You are the one throwing all the goofy stuff out there. I have seen much you were correct on.

MJM...thanks for sharing your prairie beaver adventures. Looks exactly like what I trap here in western SD. I watch all the videos on beaver trapping and chuckle when people talk about trapping at large lodges, bagging river rocks for drowning rigs, and finding sticks laying around to stabilize traps. What a joke! We have to carry in everything we need and walk a lot of territory to find those bank dens. I still think it's worth it. The beaver are large, well furred and tasty.

Thanks Les and Wanbli. I figured some on here had never see a mud, weed beaver house. I posted one a few years ago that was made out of all grass that was floating, just before freeze up. About half the people on here said it was a muskrat house. I tried to tell them it was beaver, but they were sure what it was from the picture I posted.

Mark,
Where were those beaver in the tailgate picture caught at? Some odd colors in there.

Rally The three beaver, 40 miles west of Minot and 15 miles south. The bigger catch north of Belcourt and just west a couple miles in the Turtle Mountains . I caught ever color of beaver I had ever seen in the Turtle mountains. From blacks to pales and a big mix in between.

That one bottom left is the strangest color combination I’ve ever seen. A couple like the top center are colored like a Nutria! I’d of tanned them just for conversation pieces..

Rally, I will say the area had the widest verity of colors I ever saw. It was all in a pretty small area too. I have seen difference in color in different areas, but this was a mix in one area.

Yep me too.

Got the male that I made a bachelor. Its a dead house now.

Nice clean out action!

You all got snow that stayed again...? I forgot, you;re in North Dakota, not South Dakota! 500 miles of mostly latitude change can make a difference...

It snowed for two days on and off. Winds 25-35 with 40mph guests. I figured I would wait until after the storm to go check. It started to melt this afternoon a little. We didn't get any rain to speak of, and we could sure use it. It is not uncommon for us to have April snow.