Beaver job with a mighty wrench thrown in the mix!

So this summer I had a call about a beaver job but the guy didn't like the price so we agreed that he would wait for the season to open and I would fur trap them. I would be the only one to trap this huge swamp and I can have all the beavs, muskrats and otter(limit of 4 otter) in the place and I can come back every year.

Today I get a call from him, the beaver have kicked it in high gear and are taking several trees a night and he is wanting me to trap them now, he will pay, then he says that he went out last week and shot a bunch of beaver after dark and blew up two of their dams and a lodge. WOW, now I am explaining to him how much harder he just made the whole thing for me. Is it going to be as hard as I think?

I plan on setting out a parimeter of traps/snares around the outside and shrink it in till I get to the main lodge in the big area. There are several lodges and bank dens in the channels before the main swamp. Any suggestions would be very appreciated! Thanks!

LOL.
Wow, what an idiot! Try to keep him out, charge enough, and good luck with that job!

I would go back to the fur trapping option. You need to let things calm down for a while before going in to work those beaver.

That option does not exist anymore Bob, He is losing too many trees every night and he doesn't want to wait the 2.5 weeks till the season opens. He claims to have only done what he did on one of the channels away from the main colony but if I don't trap them now he will find someone who will. I explained everything to the guy in our first phone call this summer, he said he could wait another 4 months since it has been over 10 years the beaver have lived there but now they have his backyard flooded and they are cutting down his shade trees by the house and pond and he is madder than a hornet. Truth is that I way underbid the job and he still didn't want to pay, now he has to pay and he will do it to save what is left of his trees and before they can flood his basement.

price just went up I hope. Get in, catch what you can and have some fun in the process.
pictures please?

As a result of his interference I would certainly reserve the right to bid additional monies due to the mitigating circumstances that you must now contend with. They will not be easy to catch now.. If not I would pass on the job personally. Unless you don't work for profit then its all good.

^^THIS, since he made it more difficult, the price had to go up a min of 15%, explain it ahead of time to him.

If he doesn't go for it, oh well. In the long run you'll be better off.

I'd trap the surrounding properties if possible, too.

After scaring the colony like he did,tell him he will have to wait until fur season now.Explain to him it will be futile to go in right away when they are on high alert,and will only make them even harder to catch later on.
If I contracted that job,I would wait until late winter and clean them out under the ice when all the beaver are concentrated around their houses.

your terms or I would walk away

Honestly...i would double my fees and have no problem walking away...people that think they can resolve their own are going to be people you continually have problems with

Isn't that the truth Joshua. Some jobs just aren't worth the aggravation. Had a very similar situation yesterday. A fella called with a groundhog problem. After some discussion and question and answer period I got the real story.

He caught this ground hog with a rickety cage trap he bought and when he went to transport the ground hog the animal ran to the opposite side of cage and it pushed the door open and escaped and ran back under his porch. Now he wants me to come in and catch it again. He has been trying to catch it for a month now.

He will pay a higher rate for his intervention in most likely making my job more difficult. But he wants it gone so be it.

I am going in Friday morning to scout and look things over and will have him show me where he did the shooting and explosives. He said they have fully repaired the lodge and dams already. If I do it I may start clear on the other side of the swamp away from the area he did the damage. I am also thinking of setting the areas where they are actively cutting the trees down but I don't want to run the risk of them seeing other beaver in traps and "educating" them.

I need to find out what bank owns the deed on the other 1000+ acres of land behind his, it is an old abandoned golf course turned wild over the years. Has anyone talked/worked with banks for this type of land management before?

If he blew up 2 Dams and a lodge but "didn't mess with the main areas", and you're saying multiple lodges and bank dens in this swamp, it sounds like you were bidding on a major job even before he screwed things up. You said you way underbid the job----don't do that. Be honest with him and tell him what it's going to cost for you to solve his problems. If you don't, you can almost be guaranteed that you will come out on the short end of the stick. Also, I'll say that you need to be wary of this job. If beavers have been colonizing this swamp for over 10 years and they've been messed with well, it's probably going to be a huge job. Make sure that you charge enough and both understand how and when you'll be paid or don't take the job at all, because if you way underbid the job and he didn't like that, well, he definitely won't like what it should cost. Be careful.

For 9 of those 10 years the colony has been left to do it's thing, it has only been this year that he did anything to it and that was just the one time. At least that's what he says anyway. I gave him a ballpark bid of 1000.00 for a 7-10 day intervention this summer, it would have saved him a lot of trees and hassle. This was over the phone and I stated to him it was a "rough" estimate based on what he told me and the perceived numbers in the colony but that I needed to see the area and the damage before I could give him a solid answer. After he hemmed and hawed and thought about it he said he could wait till fur season so a month later I came out and looked over the place, it isn't a nightmare to get at the beaver but it will take some time, at that point I was looking at it as a place to trap for fur (not as a job) but was thinking I underbid it as an ADC job due to the difficulty of access to the lodges and dams. He has cut a path to open water for my boat in the main section so it is easier now but then he goes and shoots the place up lol.

You hate to miss out on a beaver job, but sometimes its not the worst that could happen. Boco is right about the beaver being on high alert. Once the beaver knows he is the target you have a mess. Ideally you would like to let it cool off, but when the beaver are still doing damage it makes it tough because the land owner doesn't want to loose any more trees. When there is land owner involvement, dam pulling, shooting...not good. If he has to have you there now I guess your idea of a certain number of days for your fee would be the only way you could go, but with no guarantees. Had one a few years ago where the land owner had shot two beaver just before I was to come out. Told them "You don't need me, you have it under control." They told me to come anyway, against my better judgement. There was a mismatched pair dead in the water with nothing touched on the dams after they pulled them with a monster track hoe so I set no traps as it looked like game over. Said call me if you have an issue, which they did not. After an hour there I had an hour of cleaning clay mud from cage traps, a real mess. Sent them a small bill for coming out, which they complained about, but in the end did pay. Bottom line, wish I had never gone. Sometimes its o.k. to pass. I used to have a printed sheet that stated that "I will perform no work in conjunction with any other effort by any other party or parties, trapping, shooting, dam breaching, harassing etc." You surely don't want anyone else out there "helping" once you start.

I never discuss money on the phone, not even ball park or theoretical numbers. If they insist on pushing for numbers, I ask if they would give me a price for mowing my yard sight unseen. That usually ends that discussion.

Better to deal face to face after seeing the situation first hand IMO.

mowing my lawn argument is a good one!
I will use that if you don't mind.

I realized I messed up with pricing things on the phone, I admit I got excited because of the size and scope of the job and the permission to come back every year for fur season. Honestly, I was surprised he passed at that price, he owns a company and huge amounts of land. Lesson learned on that front, I will try and talk him into waiting another 2 weeks if I can, that will give the colony time to cool down and fur season will be open. There is a lot of beaver in there!

I just walked away from what would have been a large job a couple of weeks ago. PITA client who kept trying to tell my why I should only charge XYZ amount, and TOLD me how I'd need to set my traps, stating he knew more than I do and I should be done in two days or less. (Why'd he call me in the first place?)

My gut was screaming at me...RUN! I didn't even ask for my inspection fee, said I had an emergency call and left. What a train-wreck of damage he's allowed to happen. So bad that he will need extensive foundation work on his house-just for starters.

After running into a couple of this person's "drinking buddies" at a meeting last night, I'm so glad I listened to my gut...some jobs just aren't worth it...not to me anyway-especially when dealing with an idiot for a client. He's called me back several times, I stated all my traps are in use-I'm booked solid, and will be for some time-yet he continues to call-leaving messages stating I HAVE to work for him.

Uum....NOPE!

No you don't. as long as it's not a gay wedding and you're not a bakery, you're fine!

I would agree that if this where stricly going to be a ADC job to walk away

But you have stated several times that you want to fur trap here and are willing to not get paid,,,, so why not start early and get that $1000 for trapping the first two weeks. Use drowning sets at the pullouts near the yard where the tree cutting is taking place

It sounds to me like you are not going to walk away from this anyway, so get the $1000 for your first so weeks and fur trap there the rest of your life Win/win.

And yes I get he made it harder for youn that's why take the $1000 instead of waiting for fur season Do the math, how man beaver pelts doe it take to get $1000 in today's market. 1oo plus

It sometimes comes down to whether you are consider yourself a professional ADC trapper there to solve a problem or a hobby fur trapper. Mixing fur with ADC muddies the water. One local trapper would charge $50 for beaver in summer, catch and burry, no extra work, but would fur trap in season for $20 after skinning scraping and stretching, which might have been fun, but made little business sense. With little time and low prices I usually don't have time or energy to skin, but give in season beaver to any trapper who wants them. As much as is might be tempting to trade ADC for fur, it diminishes what we do all year long. I drive by lots of beaver locations in season, leaving them to fur trappers. You will still end up getting work as fur trappers don't always show up as they promise and many times catch a few while educating a last one or two. The only one that counts is the last one.

OK, here is the scoop from today. I showed up and he took me right to where he did the damage and shooting, it was all in one channel about a 1/4 mile away from the main swamp. He killed 4 beaver from that lodge, 3 were shot with 3 1/2 inch 12 gauge mag number 4 goose loads ( he watched them die) the 4th beaver was shredded up when he took his heavy equipment and tore up the lodge and it came out and ended up in the blades. The lodge is not repaired, he did see a kit there the other day he said so I am guessing it is hanging out because he doesn't know what to do without the rest of his family. The dam, however, is repaired. I am guessing beaver from the colony below this one repaired it or the kit may have repaired it?

He apologized for making it harder on me and he sweetened the deal with lifetime trapping any species on his land and deer and small game hunting as well plus I have access to the main 1000 acre swamp from his property (water in MN is considered public domain/right-of-way as long as you have legal access to it) and he is letting me use his enclosed heated UTV anytime I am there and I get a couple 330s and 2 MB750 traps he bought last year. How can a guy pass that up?

I do not feel he made it harder for me because he just eliminated 1 colony that was farthest from the rest. Honestly, this place is huge, I found 4 more lodges downstream and even observed 2 beaver out in early evening, I was standing in plain sight and they didn't seem to care, in this particular lower pond I couldn't find the lodge earlier but then when I came back to set the small dam they built on the creek channel I got to watch this beaver (probably a 2-year-old) and she showed me where her lodge/bank den was and I saw a kit romping in the woods above the shoreline. I only had my pistol with me so I couldn't shoot them but now I know where to set traps.

I put out 13 traps/snares this afternoon, I didn't use any scents or castor for these as I want to save that for if/when I am not catching them in their travel ways. I did, however, bait 2 sets with fresh popple branches shaved down and stuck on shore behind the trap. I set all 3 slides around the damaged lodge to try and catch the kit and I set the lower channel below the dam break for any beaver coming up from below. I used snares on two slides because if they miss the beaver he probably won't think anything of them when they fall away. Only two lodge entrances are set with 330s on lower lodges that showed light activity, everything else is on main travel paths that showed heavy use and slides with wet grass and mud. I haven't even touched the surface of this place, I need a whole lot more traps lol. I will load up some pics I took tonight and will take a lot more as I set more traps and check for catches.

some pics of my snares, first time ever using snares for water trapping! I painted my snares a dark brown, they blend in very well!

Some pictures of one of the lower beaver ponds, this is where I observed the 2 beaver this evening, it was around 5:30 when I saw them.

Sounds to me like you are a fur trapper FIRST, if that's true and the landowner is happy with what you do. And you still get the $1,000. Good for you. ADC and fur trapping are diffrent and I think you get that now

ADC on beavers usually means remove them all
Fur trapping means take the surplus


I do free ADC work for those that key me trap coyotes but. It's only free after I get to trap one season
Meaning I charge you standard rates the first time I do ADC work, if you have property I want to coyote trap and I get to trap it. Future ADC is free

Good luck to you.

Go for it! And get that lifetime (his or yours?) access thing in writing.

That's one heck of a deal-if you can get it in writing!!

I have a land owner that I trap out yearly for free. I consider it community service. He's elderly and I made a deal with him. All the critters I trap from his land go to a wildlife rehab center to help feed owls, hawks, etc. that have come in injured or poisoned-he's remote, so I know what I trap is clean. If I get bored and things are quiet on the job front, it keeps me busy. What I love most is that this gives me an opportunity to try out new ideas without any pressure from a client. This year I had coolers crammed full of frozen rodents for those folks that I couldn't pick up by myself.

I didn't post yesterday because I was just too tired,

@ Michigan Trappin, I was a fur trapper first, I am working on the transition to ADC trapping but I will always be a fur trapper just because I love trapping. This situation was not optimal and it came out of left field but I have to roll with it or lose it and right now I am winning because I get paid to trap these beaver and I still get to trap the area for fur. I do plan on taking all the beaver off of his property but there will always be more since his land is attached to a 1000 acre swamp with more beaver.

I kept all my traps within 250 yards of the lodge and dam he blew up and the results are as follows: 2 adults, 4 2-year-olds, 1-year-old/kit and 1 muskrat incidental. no scents or lures were used so far. I have ordered another dozen 330's and will start moving closer to the main swamp and the other colonies. The customer was waiting at the end of the day with checkbook in hand and glad to pay! Pictures attached below!

Two day total in one picture, the land owner wanted to show his wife and kids all the beaver at once. He is very happy so far.



First nights catch

Adult beaver in a Victor #4 DLSP drowner set on the crossover. Muskrat in the 330 caught at the entrance of the feed den on the other side of the crossover. This crossover is heavily used. Where the UTV is parked is on top of a feed den they built using an old colvert as the entrance, I have the entrance set at the culvert and the drowner on the crossover and a snare on another slide, farther down to the right of the UTV I have a large lodge set with a 330. I believe I have taken the 2 adults from this lodge, the brute I got this morning was around 50lbs and pitch black hair, the one yesterday was around 40-45lbs in the victor.

This is a lower pond with a very tall dam, it is about 5 feet high and very narrow. I wanted to do a dam break here but it is not possible so I set a 330 in an H stand at the bottom and it has produced 2 2-year-olds so far, there is a kit there as I saw him Friday evening. I have another drowner set on the small pond above this one but I know it is a low probability set and I did it to catch any wanderers. There is an old lodge there but shows no sign of use.

When I check tomorrow I plan to pull up these sets and give them a break and see if they are still working the area in a day or two I will set accordingly and when my new dozen 330s arrive I will start working them in towards the main swamp and next week I will be in there and hitting the multiple dams and lodges on the perimeter and close in on the main colony from there.

Note: I love these H stands, I am not propping them up with sticks and they fall over to the bottom of the channel with a catch letting any other beaver swim over top. I gotta get more!

Good job,sounds like you'll have them cleaned out in no time.

Glad to see it's working out for you and landowner is happy too. Lifetime access is a huge plus. Agree that access in writing would be nice, in case something happens....









Metal stabilizers are a time saver.

Nice job Birchtree! Folks don't forget who can get the job done.

Do you guys charge by the head or a flat rate ?... I charge a set up fee and by the head.

Broke the dam when I pulled my traps out Monday and she is still free-flowing as of this afternoon. Even had one of the beaver the landowner shot end up floating near the dam, the water level is down about a foot and dropping ever so slowly. Monday I had the last beaver in a 330 just below the dam. I have now moved to the pond in the owner's backyard and into the big swamp!


@Nessmuck, I charge an inspection fee and a setup fee plus a per animal charge. I am thinking of going to an hourly charge for some customers that really can't afford a high-cost job but I haven't fully decided on that, will hammer it out by next February when I start advertising in the paper.

Back during my ADC days in Ohio I ran into a sweet deal like that at an insurance office! Good luck!

Tom

Well, hard lesson learned here. I won't be mixing ADC work and fur trapping ever again! Soon after taking most of the beaver the landowner started telling me not to kill his predators, then after he tore out the dams with a backhoe and dropped the water level a ton and exposed a bunch of my other sets, I caught 3 very large raccoons and he got mad telling me not to kill the coons because he liked them! He just wants the beaver and muskrat gone so he can drain the land totally dry and use the old original golf course ponds for duck hunting.

Yep, collected my money and pulled every trap and my boat out of there, I have 1 lodge left to finish off the kits and I will do that through the ice when it is safe, not going back after that lodge is done and I am only doing that because I told him I would hit that lodge before he started restricting the other species on me. I will complete the job I was hired to do because that is just good business.

He wants predators and likes to duck hunt? I told you this guy was crazy!
Although to his credit, your initial statement was "all the beaver, muskrats and otters you come across".
I would leave that door open for water trapping.