How do you keep the caught beaver from freezing to the bottom of the ice? I tried a setup similar to that and found my beaver all froze to the bottom of the ice, like conibeared beaver in shallow runs, or snares anchored solid to dead poles without a wire going down the pole.Most beaver snaremen here are running extended checks in cold weather. If the beaver die close to the ice they freeze in in a couple days.

If the water levels permit I have made extensions to lower the rod in 2' increments. However in all but a few places this year I am finding very little water. By best looking spot has 8 active houses, and with Maine's 10' from the house rule I am finding very little water!

I check once a week and have only had one frozen in much. Took a little grace with the spud but she turned out okay!

Snare spiders, very cool idea!

finally got the old snare pole to work, still haveing problems with nocked down snares, it must be from front feet because they are pulled tight. this one taped out at 74" got him around the nose.

You must have locks on your snares? I set my beaver snare's with no lock and in a manner so they "re set" themselves if something pulls them down part way.

Could you post some pics or explain these snares that "reset" themselves? Thank you

I to would like to see snares that reset.

if i am thinking of the same snares they are 3/64 stiff cable with loops made with double ferrules.on the loop that replaces the lock you want to leave an inch or more of cable sticking out. you then seperate the strands of wire on the tag end so they catch on the beavers fur when it tightens the snare. if it is nocked down it will open up but if a beaver pulls the loop tight the strands catch in the fur and hold the beaver till it drowns

power snarer I,m thinking this is what he talking about http://www.snareshop.com/EVERREADY-BEAVER-SNARE/productinfo/SNARE507/ .I have used snares similar to this that Kris Feldsted sold .I think Kris called them magic snares

that what im talking about is kris's snares

here you go

Thanks for the link and the pictures. Looks like you could push a pole with those snares through a small hole in the ice and have them reset. Any input on how well they work? Will 3/64 work if the beaver dosen't drown? POWER SNARER the tube on the nail instead of a double ferrule is a neat trick that will come in handy in the future. Like they say a picture is worth a thousand words in my case it's two thousand at least.

yeah but make sure to add a washer in front of the tube or it will pull off
as for the 3/64 holding up in my limited experiance i have not had an alive beaver that didnt drown. all the old timers up here use 3/64 without a lock. might be a regional thing

Not sure what Kris calls em, but I got the idea from him and POWER SNARER your pictures are the same thing.

DanS,
Do you have any pictures of your snares that have been "pulled Tight" ? A picture of your pole set would help too. I might be able to help you with some of the closed snares.

Heres a picture of a triple I got today. I'd only taken two beaver out of this house, one each of the two checks. One 60" and one little black yearling. Check out the pole closest to the camera, which is where I got the 60" black beaver today. The beaver had eaten all the bark off the pole so I just reversed the pole and reused it.
The beaver on the left is the pure black one. Should go at least 60".

Rally, I don't have any pictures of the nocked down snares, I have tried both types of poles, the green ones like you show and the dry pole with small pieces of bait between snares. most of the water is shallow around feed beds, I try to keep the middle of the snare about 20" off bottom and that was keeping the top just under ice. I just had 8 poles out and I would have 6 of them with snares nocked down, some would be tight and some would be down to about an inch. one pole would have no action and I would have a beaver in one, the big beaver i showed earlyer was caught around the nose and on the next check had a XL caught right behind front legs. One was in a snare using green pole and the other with the dry pole.
Last year I ran about 30 poles for a couple weeks and had the same results with nocked down snares. Thanks for any advice.

Here's a couple pictures from last year, as you can tell the ice was getting poor toward the end.

So I have always had this question. I read roughly through all of this and not seen my question addressed. Here when you cut a hole through the two or three foot of ice there are usually pockets of unfrozen overflow on the way down. ( liquid water ). I read that guys cut their holes with chainsaws. I have cut a bit of logs in the summer underwater and chainsaws really lug down when cutting in water and things tend to get wet. I was wondering if you chainsaw guys are cutting in water and if so how does it work? I have cut ice in early winter before overflow and it works slick. I just don't know how well it works out when things are wetter?

BTW I'm an auger guy currently.

Dirt, we use the saw and cut all the way to the water. Long bar and a chain set up for ice. have never had any problems with it, other than making sure you run the saw full out a bit after you come out of the water to get as much of the water off the chain before shutting it down. Makes it a bit fun when you go to the next hole and the chain is frozen down. Most of the time you just run the bar across a log and it frees up the chain when it does freeze, but if you don't run the chain to get most of the water out ahead of time, it can be a real pain in the behind.

Only other issue is the saw does throw quite a bit of water up, so you want to stay to the side of the saw to keep from getting doused.

-TJ

Oh, and I like it much better than the auguer, though we do auger a hole to measure depth before cutting and then auger the four corners of the hole we plan to cut. Helps to give us a spot where we can get a garden hoe down under the blocks of ice (cut it like a tick tack toe game) and hoiste them out of the hole. The one thing I hate about an auger is running into that random log/or thick stick that binds up the auguer blade and dulls it up.

-TJ

Yeah, same thing as TJ says. I usually shovel all the snow away from as many sets as I'm gonna make at the house. (2 or 3) Then make all my cuts so I only have to start the saw once. Run it a bit and shake it a bit. Then, at the next house I'll set it on the snogo engine to somewhat thaw the chain while I shovel more sets out. Kinda gotta be aware of where the water plume is going. Suks to soak down your parka where you left it on the seat. I also bring it in the cabin every night for a complete drying out.