Well, I love going after beavers, and I finally got another beaver job. The only problem I think it's going to be just a mated pair and this years little ones. The farmer said he noticed beaver chews last year and the. A dam just this summer when his hayfield wouldn't drain. He busted the dam the day I went over and he said if they build it again like you say they will then he wants them gone They did over night and I set it yesterday , so first check this morning will be for beavers

Good luck. Beaver are a favorite here too. When I remember, I put a boot print in a dam as an indicator. They will most often mud a small hole nightly if any remain after you have made a catch or catches. If the catch is a matched pair first night on a new colony, I will usually pull.

Be careful with them right now so you don't give them doctors degrees. I have been learning that the hard way.

Should be easy to get the pair the first night.
I like to set 4 traps minimum even though there may only be 1 or 2 beaver.
Young beaver will readily come to the spot where the mother was caught.Use a little urine\castor juice from the mother at the set.

For a pair of beaver, a newly established location, I find it necessary to set only 2 cage traps, usually side by side under water, with castor placed at a distance somewhere on the bank or in a tree and will most often have them both next morning. Snares and cages are least problematic, rarely will spook a beaver, which is key, not letting them know they are the target as you take them, gently. If a snare gets knocked down, a beaver will not understand that he just missed getting nabbed. By their nature, long cages don't get fired many times without a catch and I believe hardly at all by a beaver without making a catch because the beaver is way into the trap when he hits a trigger. A foot trap or a conibear may get popped from time to time even when you follow all the rules, which can start mega problems. I have gone through pretty much all of the devices over the years and now rather than use footholds and conibear first, I use them only for back up when needed, which is not all that often. Haven't used them at all this year.

If you set at dark you will not only see what you are dealing with many times, number and size of the beaver, you will also stand a far less chance at non-targets that slow the job. Traps set early morning can be affected by, ducks, turtles, fish, muskrats, mink etc. all during the day for 12 hours or more before the beaver become active. I like to set when beaver are emerging from the den to begin feeding for the night. Don't worry about the beaver seeing, hearing or smelling you. They get over it quickly and will pay no attention to anything you set if they smell some castor, which triggers territoriality and really makes the males mad. If you smell like castor, just watch getting bitten.

The dam was rebuilt, I picked up this 34 lbs beaver, they buried one coni in dam materials and never set it off. One was set off and the fourth still like I put it

I set up a trail cam to capture tonight's action around the dam. And reset all four conis The water at this location is shallow less than a foot near the dam and less than two feet for at least 30
Yards up stream. It is a small dam. Maybe 10" high and only 6-7 feet

Set multiple traps at the dam break,well out in front in deep water.This is a deadly set and will take the lure shy beaver 2 or 3 at a time.
As you can see it takes them coming and going after working on the dam.

When I read, "one trap was set off" it just makes me cringe. Had to fight with a last beaver way too many times. Makes you want to scream at times. When setting foot traps or conibears over and over again in the same way after making good catches consistently, suddenly the next one is sprung. You can make a beaver trap shy, location shy or lure shy with sprung traps, separately, in a combination or all three at once. In nuisance work where you have to get them all, all the time, the sprung trap is the number one enemy. Beaver learn quickly, don't forget right away, only to become the nightmare to avoid.

There was so much wood moved over night at this sight, I really am not surprised to have one set off. They had almost completely covered one with mud/sea weed/sticks. The one that was set off was near the dam and had some sticks over it The one that had the catch was not Able to tell if it was hit coming or going as it rolled enough to twist a stick into the stake wire. I guess tomorrow morning will tell a lot.



Also some of the large 6"'x 5 foot logs I used for blocking were moved and put in the dam repair

If your traps are set off or filled with sticks,you are setting too close to the dam.
Set out in front in deep water.

Set up a small stream today in a golf course...they were fine with beaver til they started cuttin down trees laying on golf course lol

So what happens to beaver? When we first got them 20 or so years ago, they were on every creek, stream, and river. I'm not sure I

could show you an active beaver dam on a bet this year. I'm not complaining; we don't get rich catching beaver anyway. I'm just

wondering where they went to.

Wisconsin went on a search and destroy in the past, paying bounties to local trappers after beaver were on nearly every stream as you say. Many areas in Wisconsin are nearly devoid of beaver as I am told and saw for myself. Kept looking for beaver, but none. There are plenty of places for them, but they are gone. Kind of sad really, far less habitat for all kinds of creatures, but for municipalities etc. it keeps those expenses down with fewer complaints. Where we are there are always beaver problems, but at least they are "reasonable" I guess, kind of middle of the road perhaps. Does not take long for the genie to get out of the bottle when fur prices are low, trappers quit and beaver populations grow exponentially. Once they get out of control it takes a while to bring them down. It is amazing how few beaver there are in sections of Wisconsin.

Boco is right about setting too close to the dam with conibears. When traps are fired or completely plugged its because beaver are responding to holes in the dam.

You did your job too well!

I remember what the rub was some years ago. Wisconsin did not allow non-resident fur trappers. Non-resident fur trappers basically would have helped with the problem beaver by paying the state for a license to trap over populated beaver for fur during the season, but the state opted to pay residents a bounty to kill and discard beaver year round. It was more cost to the taxpayers with the bounty, as fur trappers would certainly have reduced the problem by some degree.

Jim, I'm not sure you have the right state. Up until 1984 all of our beaver had to be tagged and registered. Since then there has

been a huge increase in the number of beaver up north on the trout streams. I know that the state hired Wildlife Services because

fishing is our claim to fame and they could not find enough fur trappers to catch them in summer. I don't recall any bounty ever

being paid to the common fur trapper for beaver. These beaver are not the ones I am referring to anyway. All of our beaver came up

from Illinois, most of them on the Fox river. I was able to watch the expansion right from the start. I know we never had a bounty on

beaver down here. I think we started reciprocal licensing nearly 30 years ago but I'm not certain. I know in my lifetime we went from

rags to riches in the number of beaver. Up until 25 or so years ago, there were no beaver in the entire southeast Wisconsin counties.

I believe it is Minnesota that allows non-resident hunting but not non-resident trapping. That subject gets hashed out on TrapTalk forum regularly; no reciprocal agreements with other states.

A three year or six SEARCH for “reciprocal” on the TrapTalk forum will bring up many discussions.

Paul Jim is right about beaver eradication here in my neck
Of the woods, it's really really bad. I would be willing to bet
95% of the people up here under the age of 30 never saw
A beaver in there life , maybe at a zoo! It's just plain wrong to
Eradicate them to this extent.

Its been a lot of years. I don't want to misinform so I will have to go back to check sources to see if I can find who that gave me that information about a bounty. No doubt I heard it at a national convention. I will make a some calls.

I wrote articles about trapping regulations many years ago. As a state hopper for 15 years, in the 80's I contacted each state for laws governing resident and non-resident trapping licenses and found 5 states with no non-resident license, most of which were in a block in the north central U.S. There were other states with restrictions for non-residents, different seasons for each, species non-residents could not trap and some state with fees that also made non-resident trapping prohibitive. Minnesota is still the only hold out I believe for non-residents, which hurts their own residents through reciprocity. Any state with special conditions or restrictions again hurts the resident through reciprocity. I put together high and low license fees to get an average, an found huge range and disparity. On the flip side, many states have very reasonable non-resident trapping fees and equality for all. It's all about freedom, imaginary lines and protectionism, way too much to get into.

As I write I am speaking with Brad Bishop of Tomahawk, Wisconsin who participated in the Wisconsin beaver bounty years ago, $25 for the tip of the tails. It may not have been statewide, but administered by county. It is the reason there are so few beaver and beaver problems in some areas of northern Wisconsin.