I am looking for some tips on snaring beavers. I got a spot that is a very long walk so I am bringing a dozen snares to lighten the load. On top of that they have been trapped before and seem to be trap shy. I have never snared anything so any tips would be greatly appreciated

If its a long walk dont bring a dozen snares.

Is it a creek, pond, is there a dam?

Make sure they are loaded, preferably hyper loaded. Beaver don't blunder obliviously through a snare and will back out of it when they feel the pressure.

Natural pinch points with some castor added are my favorite sets.

A lot of good snare locations have no tree to anchor to. Bring some stakes and extensions.

If it freezes at night keep the bottom of the loop out of the mud.

If the beavers are walking, 8-10" loaded loop, 3" off the ground. If they are swimming 1/3 of the loop above water 2/3 underwater, or use a dive stick.

I like putting them at the top of slides . Like said 8 to 10*2 to 3 " off the ground. I use relaxing lock. Watch out because a beaver will come at you is fast and will jump/lung right at you. First time I had that happen I was lucky it ran out of cable. I'm planing on trying hobbys picture method. Been wanting to since I saw the boys post one of his sets like that.

I really like to put them at the stop of steep drop off slides. If they make the first lunge towards the creek when theyre neck snared, its the last thing they do.

Eating those gummies again ?

Dry land beaver snaring if you can. Leave the hip/chest waders in the truck.

A quick drawing while driving was better than a drawn out text explanation. lol

Apparently PF figured it out.

Its pretty easy to snare them under ice, but then you would need to carry in an ice pick.

I have not seen that at all. Now I am not saying you are wrong; however, I ran two trail cams shooting video on beaver snares for a couple years, and I still have a lot of the videos organized into categories that I can review. In all of those, may be 50 good snare catches and a few misses also, not once have I ever seen a beaver back out a snare. In fact I have never seen a beaver take more than one step backward before twirling and going the other way or sideways. I have even wondered if perhaps beaver either can not, or REALLY dont like to go backwards.
Now I have seen them study a snare carefully then turn around, I have seen them bulldoze a new path around the snare, and I have seen them stay 10 feet away and swim back and forth tail slapping, have seen them rear up and come down on top of a snare then walk right over it, I have seen about everything except walk in reverse more than one step.

All of that said, I also load my snares, but not hyper-load because I find that with the right size loop and the correct load at the correct height for the bottom of the loop, I can have raccoons walk right through - the record is something like nine one night before a beaver got there, then along come a beaver bulldozing through and is caught. So I have tweaked my beaver snare setup to where maybe one in 50 raccoons get tangled, but only one in 50 beaver makes it through WITHOUT getting tangled. It does happen both ways though, every few weeks I have to let a coon go, and when I was running video, maybe once every couple months a small beaver would go right through the loop without being caught.

Things can be different in different regions, and I may just have directionally challenged beavers around here, so again not saying you are wrong.

Nowadays I only run video when something is making me scratch my head. Worth noting that I have a camera on one of those right now, and my hair is frizzy from scratching too much…

If not, clearly suffering flashbacks from an earlier dose in my estimation.
Not my choice for a pictionary partner regardless.

Simple dimple snare set for beaver. Take a spade, cut a nice slot in bank and put your castor mound back on back at end of the slot. A few weed stems to guide em to the slot to access, and hang the snare at the opening. I usually add a few peeled sticks to the mud pie and add lure. Eye appeal, lure appeal, and a nice opening for them to come in and check it out. I taught my boys how to do this when they were little and they were catching whopper beaver with easy to set snares and getting to play in the mud.
Then sharpen your skinning knife.
Jim

It is a creek. Have made it to the first dam/lodge set up with 330’s but I know of two more lodges down this creek system and only one road access on the far end. Foot traffic only so the atv is out of the picture

Should be some nice crossover points on this dams and you can snare those easily too.
Jim

This set has caught most of the beavers I have ever snared. Easy to build and effective. And knee boots are all that's required.