I don’t have a lot of experience with beaver. Recently I was wading in four feet of water below a dam when I found what appeared to be underwater entrances into the dam, nowhere near the bank. These were completely underwater but I was able to stick my leg up the holes. I guarded one with a 330 on a tall H stand. The H stand was only a couple inches out of the water. On my second check I had an outbound beaver suitcased.

I’ve never read or heard of a “dam lodge.” How common is this?

Are you talking earthen dam or beaver stick dam?

I've seen many in earthen man-made dams but never in a stick dam. But then our beavers rarely have need to build large stick dams.

It’s a beaver/stick dam.

I've seen that in a couple places. The bank den/lodge was there first....then the dam followed...probably due to beavs easily building another dam at that location.

BTW the largest stick dam I've ever seen was at the bottom of a very narrow steep sided hollow, basically a V. It was roughly ten foot tall from the rock bed of the branch it was inpounding but not even that wide at the top.

I've also seen one that almost a half a mile long, probably twice that if you counted the twists and turns, but not much taller than a foot or so over most of it length.

This I can see as I've seen several bank dens within spitting distance of stick dams.

I seem this once in Cooper Hollow. Beaver aren't that bright with their choice of building locations.

I've seen that 3 times.

One spring I was trapping Beaver on a pond that had Frozen over completely during the winter and the Beaver h a d made a tunnel through and under the dam to get Downstream. This was the only occasion I have ever seen this in my lifetime of trapping.

Only ran across it twice in my life, one was a huge lodge at the end of the dam, goofy.

This makes sense, especially after going back out today and looking at it with this in mind. It’s difficult to explain but there is a sycamore tree growing out of the dam in that same spot that is half blown over and hanging out over the pond above the dam. The root ball is pulled up from the ground but is all underwater now. This lodge is built around this root ball. Makes me think maybe there was a bank den there when that tree was growing high and dry. It’s about 20 yards from the closest bank now. I’ve got another spot where they have a bank den under a sycamore trees root ball that blew over along the pond edge and away from the pond. Always interesting to see how they live.

I’ve seen it, also saw once where the boneheads made a dam between the house and the feed bed before. Lol

Wish I could find some dumb beaver...round here they all seem to work for nasa! Lol

I’ve seen the lodge built into the dam before but I can’t say that I’ve ever seen an entrance coming from below the dam up into the lodge above. If you caught beaver in the runs you set, that’s all that matters!

I've caught more than a few beaver in dens that are built into the dam. All through the ice.

Under ice you see it now and then. Most places I see it I would b see find it without bubble trails/thin ice/sunken snow to lead me to it.

I seen this a lot on a stream in Wy that I trapped once for beaver. That stream was an almost constant dams all the way down that creek. All the dams had a hole dug through them, and none held any water back. This was in Feb, and there was no wood of any kind growing along that creek. They were living on cattails. There was about ten inches to a foot of ice on the ponds, but if you cut a hole, you could stick your head through the ice, and there was just a mud bottom with a small flowing stream. Caught about 35 beaver, and five I just threw away, they were rubbed out on the backs from walking around under the ice. The thirty I put up and sold were the poorest set of beaver I ever peddled. My Ks beavs outdid them by almost double, and they had no castors in them either! Never went back.

I've seen lodges in the middle of a lake , like a muskrat house , nothing touching any bank.

yes I've seen this , also saw a house on one dam an feed bed above on another dam ,that was the easy beaver trapping i ever had