PB beaver weight?

H2Orat's beav thread got me thinking, so rather than highjack his thread, I started this one. What's everyone's personal heaviest Beaver?

Mine is an even 70 lbs.

The heaviest one I weighed here in NC was 68 pounds, and that's out of many thousands of beavers. I haven't encountered those huge ones like they have up north.

I've caught some bigger than the ones I've weighed but rarely have one that breaks 60.

71 lbs

You could have usurped my thread no issues here. I know there are places with bigger beaver than what I deal with but I know we have some decent sized Columbia/Willamette river beaver. I get quite a few in the 45- 50 range. I haven't done the math yet but this year my avg. should be about 42 ( a guess) ---- recently I have caught a couple of really small ones ( 20 lbs or so) - but that was damage control on a drainage ditch (18" across) - still waiting to catch the adults in that 1/2 mile stretch.

I got bad news for you guys....i've almost caught 20 total
and my biggest is 47 lbs.
It's only a matter of time before i topple some records.

Yeah Dave, I figure my average weight on Willamette river beaver was around 45 lbs this year. Anymore I don't seem to catch anything over 60-61 lbs as I keep them thinned out on my 60 miles of river.

I only caught I think 10-11 kits out of the first 102 beavers I caught this season.

68 lbs.

72 # Maytown Washington, 1977.

But I'm pretty sure I've caught a bigger one but not weighed it. About 10 years ago Etolin Island, Alaska, stretched 84".

Didn’t weigh it but it stretched (fairly loose) 81 inches.

I trapped that gravel pit pond 2 years ago and definetly caught more in number, but not as big ( guess I missed one). I pulled 10 out of a pond 1/4 mile away -- biggest was 47. I think that I have only got 2 kits out of my 25 or so this year. Look out next year -- I am trying to get a boat and will hopefully break 100 next year. That was my goal for this year before I broke my wrist and got covid -- I didn't start until January. Furstroker -- is that a challenge? -- one question for you -- does your water stay water year round? If it doesn't, I'll accept that challenge.

My biggest beaver was 28.7 kg

60 pound beaver is a good size beaver KOSOI. Our beavers must be around the same general size.

I've never had a peanut butter beaver, I've had PB eggs, PB ghosts, PB trees, even PB hearts , Reese's makes them for every occasion it seems,,,, but none of them weighted even a pound.

lol, I did catch one beaver that weighed a shade under 72# on a good digital scale, far bigger than any others by 8-10lbs. Was a lone beaver that lived in a small crick surrounded by corn fields. He was there for years because he didn't cause much damage I think.

I can see we are neck and neck. Are you a "through the ice " trapper? or do you see some open water? I bet that your pelts are a little prettier than mine.

1987
69 3/4

That's just a little over 63 pounds for you Canadians.

Honest question...how different are Russian beavs from
ours? Different subspecies? Numbers? High number pockets
some places, nothing in others? Yearly?
I don't mean to mess up the weight thread, it just piqued
my curiosity and interest.

My largest was an 86 pound female,caught in the fall of the year--so she carried no young
I have also caught several that weighed in the mid 70s.
Tom

Our beaver hunting season is from November 1 to February 28.
I don't think our beavers are any different.

76 lbs. Usually one or 2 over 60 each year.

In early 1966 I trapped on a backwater of the extreme upper end of Lewis and Clark Reservoir on the South Dakota-Nebraska border and caught a pair of beaver that weighed 78 and 82 pounds. I am certain that they were old and had no offspring for at least two years. The traps I used were two # 114 Newhouse with one spring removed that had been loaned to me by Dale Wade , federal trapper with the old Predator and Rodent Control Branch of the US Fish and Wildlife Service as I had no large traps of my own at that time.

72 plus a little

83 pounds.
1980
Caught a bunch more, with a few 64-68 pounds.
The place had not been trapped for more than 10 years.
Ideal habitat. Not harassed by anyone. Completely restricted access.

72 lbs. Caught one I believe was bigger but no scale back then

81lbs. Spring female with 6 kits in her.. Happy landowner.

72# is my best to date

1973. We lived in Genesee County, MI and the local paper's sport section had an Outdoor Columnist. He had recently written that the last beaver in our county had been trapped in the 1930's or something like that and so when I told my dad that I found a Beaver den in the bank of the river I trapped.... pops did not believe me. After all, pops has read the paper and the outdoor writer dude, who was well respected, had written the beavs in our county were extinct.

I didn't know about the paper dude.
I wasn't alive in the 1930's.
I hardly had time for school, and sports, and trapping.
But one thing I did have....
Fur-Fish- & Game!!

I sorted through back issues and read articles on how to catch beaver. I bought a bottle of beaver lure (don't remember which) at Bud Stewart, local fur buyer's shop, and set the biggest trap I owned, a #3 DLS, with some good goo on a mud mound FF&G style for that beav.

You know how tricky it is to peddle a bike with a 62# beaver dangling on the front?
About killed myself, and the beav. Well, he drowned in that crude set somehow so he was already dead.

I plopped that beaver down on the side lawn and went in to tell dad that NOW the last beaver has been killed in Genesee County, Michigan!

The outdoor writer actually came out, after pops called the paper, and took my pic (I don't have it anymore), and wrote a new article.....
Something about the great beaver migration now in effect.

Ah yes, 1973.
Dem dair days were a fun.

Blessings,
Mark

For many years it was 58-6 on a grain scale then two years ago 60 on my back yard spring scale. Sorry no monsters. 80 pounds, I cannot even imagine such a big pig as that.....jk

This is the first year I went after beavers. I caught 2 right at 60 lbs out of the 16 I caught. I caught 11 in a small creek/crick with 3 dams.

78lbs for me.

67 lbs. but I think I caught a spring female that was bigger.

Am I the only weird one, which is a very strong possibility, but I bet in my life, for the umpteen numbers of critters I've trapped, shot, snared, or otherwise laid out....
I haven't weighed five of 'em.

I have never cared how much critters weigh.
Never will I reckon.

How much that cat weigh? Idontknow
How big was he? Big
Was she the biggest you ever caught? Cantsay

I'm weird.
It's not wrong.
Just different.
I hope.

Blessings,
Mark

John those tails weigh 30 lbs

Priceless.
The one on the left the one who jumps in first, foremost, and all the rest?
He looks the part in this pic

82 pounds and stretched over 80 inches.

72 pounds. I carried that (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) thing back across a plowed corn field, swore I put it down every 15 yards or so to huff and puff, catch my breath, and reposition my grip on those big slippery feet.
I will never forget the day I caught this pig.




My best pair was a pair of 65s, like twins. Me and a much younger gunner worked hard to haul them back to the truck too.

No, your definitely not weird, at least not in this instance. I started weighing critters when I got tired of the of I've got a 40# raccoon getting in my garbage and everyone has 50# coyotes running around..

The 1st one i caught back in the 80s in a 1and1/2 coil staked in a pocket set was 69# , the last one I caught about 9 years ago was also 69 # and caught in a rat set 1 and. 1/2 coil on a drag. Thats really only 2 i ever put on a scale. I don't think I've caught 200 beaver in my 47 year of trapping. The funny thing is the only time i ever got serious about trapping them i caught 69 spring trapping about 10 days and I decided I didn't realy like skinning beaver.

My biggest is 69lbs

Sniperb, me too. I even carry a spring scale in my truck most of the time. The 58-6 pounder, everyone including some real experienced trappers said 80 on that one = sorry 58 -6 and I had the receipt form the mill, that one was a LONG walk and I hav e a bad back too....jk

75 lbs

weight didn't matter much to me either, except somewhere back in the 70's when a local buyer was paying $1/lb for carcass coon. Lot's of disappointed sellers when their 20-25 lb coon tipped the scale at 13.

70 pounds and have had a couple more that were about the same weight.

74 Large female backwaters of Mississippi River

86 lb a few years back in a small water crest creek. Its mate was over 20 lb lighter. Couldn't just toss it over the closed tailgate of the truck like I used to do. Luckily the truck was parked on the bank right above the set. Amazing!

I don't know what they weighed, but I caught 2 nice beaver about 15 years ago that went for $210 a piece at NAFA. Man, I used to be able to make money trapping beaver through the ice, but not anymore.

I am a weight watcher.......I have always been prone to throw my beasts on a scale. Mostly out of curiosity, but also like SNIPERB, to verify. So many guys seem to fudge their numbers that it actually makes the real weighed-on-a-scale weights seem bogus, or small. On MANY occasions I have weighed critters like deer, bear, 'coon, etc. for taxidermy customers and they still told everyone a pumped up weight. A couple even said my scale was junk and to not have me weigh stuff for them! It got to be a joke between my All Purpose Boy and I. I got to the point that I wouldn't offer to scale a beast unless I was certain the guy was real close on his guessing what it weighed. Once had a fella swoop in the driveway and jump out all excited....said he finally caught the 20 lb pike he'd been hoping for his whole fishing career. I, unfortunately, had a spring scale right there in plain sight and he wanted to weigh it to see right to the ounce what the fish weighed. I knew better, but like the dumb a** I am, I laid that 36'ish inch Northern up on the scale....13 pounds. The guys chin nearly bounced off the floor. He grabbed the pike, said "If it don't weigh 20 lbs, I ain't mounting it!". He then left without another word. Putting said pike on that scale was not one of my best business decisions.

Thanks for all the posts folks, I'm an odd duck and find these types of threads interesting as the dickens.

Beaver trapping for two years now. I happened to catch a 60# this year.

78 lbs. Late 80s his head took up the whole 330 and it bent one of the jaws I still have the trap, easy to identify with it being bent.

72-74#'er(not certified scale) three footed beaver from the smallest house I have even seen. It was on a small island in a stream with trench dug dug in from each side so in may have just been some wood fortifying the top of a bank den. The most for sure beaver set I've ever come across setting 330 BG in each 12" w x 36" d channel each side. Actually caught beaver exiting stabilizing second BG. Thought I had sprung trap and almost reached for top of trap to see when it started really shaking and tail and feet erupted from the water. Lots of heavy breathing on my part. Not quite the same as an m'rat getting caught while setting, LOL. As I am not in prime MN beaver area they seem often get to live long protected lives in private areas or they are dispersing 2yr olds. Take almost as many 60's as 30's. There's also the "northern animals are larger" factor. We NEED that extra body mass to survive - or so I try to tell my doctor.

A few years back I snared a beaver with a bait pole I would have loved to weigh. It flattened the BMI slide free lock on the snare but it still held. Again....long walk to the truck!

72 LBS for walleyed.

72#

Kinda surprised from you, being rather scientific and college educated.

71lbs last fall. Those big ones sure have BIG tales.

Truth

I had one 72 another 74 pounds. In both cases they were caught in the traps that were the farthest from the truck. One was through a tangle of alder brush.

A back story to the 70 pounder I managed to trap. I held the "Beaver Contract" with our counties Road Commission for a year and was trapping a roadside pond that had been hit by every Contract guy before me, a couple of them with shooting permits, as well as anyone just road trapping on their own. I had even resorted to sitting evenings with a shooting permit. I never saw a single beaver. It had been months since I'd snagged any beav at all there, yet the darned dams were sporadically mudded up. The ones(?) left would avoid anything remotely square. I finally set a couple foot holds w/cable slides in a spot on the dam where I had seen tracks a time or two. No castor or scent was placed near them. It was with a bit of excitement that I pulled that cable back up a few days later when I found the trap missing from it's bed. I don't know if the female whopper was the last one standing or not. The water levels fell and the dam was no longer a problem the last 4-5 months I held the contract.

J. Morse: Similar experience when I took the last beaver(also an old female) for the US Govt from the pond where the new Iron River National Fish Hatchery was to be constructed. I buried a 14 Newhouse in an underwater trail where I could see footprints in the bottom mud.

You remind me that yes, I weigh all animals on research projects, but I was commenting in regards to fur/ADC trapping.
I don't care other than adult versus juvenile ID.

Blessings,
Mark

If memory serve correct- #63.

This one was 62 pounds , my best is 67 pounds.

55#

Caught a pair of beaver through the ice on Wisconsin Crick that flows through Wausau in 1979. One weighed 68 pounds and the other was 65. No digital scales around then but I believe that was a close weight.

Chris

I have had 2 at 72 lbs and 1 at 71.5 lbs.

Another 6-8 68 lbers I was sure were going to break 70. But the scale doesn’t lie!!!

61#

I'm 5' 10 and the 5-6 beaver I caught in Ohio Power in 1986 -87 their tails were touching the ground and their head was even with mine .
We weight them at 85-86 pounds .
They get longer as they get older .
This was a place that hadn't been trapped in around 20 years .
Anyone that trapped beaver in Ohio Power AEP land had areas to trap .
This was above the recreation lands where The Wilds are now .
Bud Windland was in charge of all beaver trapping .
He knew me from trapping there for years .
I was laid off and asked him at his home about trapping beaver .
We talked a lot about many things even turkey hunting .
He gave me a map that covered the area from 146 to Peral road 313 was the top of the area .
Caught 3 black beaver also .

MbCooner had one some time ago weighed on a Canada Postal scale...cant remember the weight

One I caught I prepared for the museum, skeleton and all ( but I dont have home access to the records) in 1982 It was 42 kg and some, that weight is referred to quite often on beaver weights max in text books after that date.
The year after the 950$ black beaver @ NAFA, I caught one black that went 80 inches and graded in the top lot, but it did not go like the year before ( 6 out of 16 from that colony were black)
There is a larger ones taken by the Geological Survey in ND back in the turn of the century that is on record

I caught one 75 pounds 0 ounces in Surry County Virginia. I had it weighed on certified scales at the Bait Barn in Virginia Beach.
I walked into the place and asked them how high their certified fish scale went. They said 100 pounds. I said, "That ought to be enough."
Their eyes got big, thinking I caught a huge fish, til I waddled back in with that beaver. They started laughing, saying, "not too many folks fish for those around here."

The only part of a beaver I ever weighed was the castor.
Caught a few big ones over the years,a couple stand out i estimate around 70 lb give or take a few lbs.

I caught 2 beaver in a single MB 750 at the same time …a feat not yet matched …total weight was 65 lbs

My best single caught beaver is 58 lbs

Never trapped too many beavers. Most were in the 30's. Biggest ever was 51

Lol, they’re pretty decent.


Mark, that’s Johnny Jr. Actually he’s the 5th. He’s a beast. Hank is the other one. Real name, Henry. He’s not as much of a beast but he’s still tough. I compare Johnny to a Marine and Hank to a soldier. Lol.