Beaver camp.

Nestled up on a island. Caught 15 today in 25 sets. Alot of them were small. Got another 50 sets in today. Weather was tough snowed all day. I'll add pictures as I can on this thread. Service is terrible

Good catch %. Kudos.

I look forward to your pics.

Hope your knives are sharp with that many traps out for beaver you will be busy,lol.

^^^X2 on that...especially if he keeps up that catch %.

Beaver are lousy out here. Probably set 10 lodges today within a 1.5
mile radius.

Lot of islands and sloughs winding all through out.

Got much competition?

1 guy. I found 4 of his sets when I was scouting last week. About 5 miles up the river though.

Currently watching my hip boots drip dry over the tent stove. Went a little to deep and filled them up today.

Chest boots for me brother. Allows me the freedom to work in waist deep water...a real game changer imho.

Sounds like you're going to give the rest of us a run for it in the beaver contest. Good for you!

camp pics look awesome!

I tore a big hole in mine their shot...... I'll have to get by with what I have. As far as the beaver contest goes anything can happen. I'm only trapping hard this week and maybe 1 or 2 more weeks between now and March.

Our beaver camp is coming up in a few weeks. Can’t wait. Pictures are getting me excited. How and where do you guys skin being your staying in canvas tent? We also stay in mine. Just curious, I set up the enclosed trailer as a skinning shed with light as skinning goes into the night lol.

sounds like a great time, what river are you on,

Has to be the Mississippi.
No other river in Missouri has that many islands.

You guys need a healthy alligator crop. Havent seen a beaver or nutria around my place in five years

I have some waterfowl impoundments and used to fight the beavers at the control structures. Lots of times I wished they were gone. Now, I wish the beavers were back and the alligators gone.

Sweet looking camp, sure sounds like fun.

Can't post pictures. Weather is garbage wind has been silting in alot of sets. I got bamboozld by muskrats at on big lodge yesterday. Tripped All the 330s caught 2 of them. 3 otter and half a dozen rats.40 beaver in 3 checks. Pulled alot if the line to move around a little bit.

I'd say that is a very nice haul!!

wow WTG can't wait to see pictures,,

Phone died Early in the week. I just got home. I'll post what pics I have later and write about the experience It was AWESOME!

Looking forward to it!

Nice haul on the beaver and nice looking camp

Congratulations on the success

Looks like quite a cozy camp.

Dang that looks like a lot of fun! Nice accommodations to boot.

Shoot, Dstone's camp looks better than my house!

Way to go buddy!

Great pics and catches dstone.
Your camp looks nice and comfy.

Cool pics look forward to the story.

Wow nice catches. Your camp looks fantastic. Those must have been some long but gratifying skinning/fleshing days

Great pics Dstone! Talk about your wildlife management....what an excellent example.

Great catch for you. Oh my aching back! That looks like a nightmare to me. I guess I am too slow of a skinner!!! That is almost my yearly catch.......jk

Tearing down camp wish I could stay a month.....

wow , thanks for sharing, if you ever need someone to go with, let me know, looks like a great time,

Good looking country there. Not too different than where I trap.

Geez that looks like a lot of fun.

So I'll try to keep it all in order but I'm sure I'll jump around. So I was planning on doing this trip with my kids in March but since I'm off work a friend of mine caught wind of trip idea and we decided to go try to stack some up. We started on the Tuesday after Christmas by Wednesday afternoon we had around 70 sets out and they were coming in good. The kids came out Wednesday and rode with us Thursday and went home Friday due to bad weather and we were pulling Friday to move areas. Well Friday rolled around and we pulled everything planning to have it all back out by night fall. Suddenly my partner decided he caught beaver fever and was going home. Suddle comments he made before that make me think it was more home sickness.... That really put me back as I'm doing this for income right now. Any how that's the difference between trappers and people who trap. Really left me hanging. That will be the last I bring up that part of the trip. I called my good friend Ron who helped save the trip. We reset Friday and checked Saturday Sunday Monday without moving any traps. Typically I like moving my sets after a catch even if it's by 20 feet. It helps my catch rate go up. I long chain them and have a hard time getting catches in remakes. The set up I run I have to use the boat to pull my earth anchors. Somewhere along the line I broke the cleat off the front of the boat trying to pull a caught beaver out from up in the bank. so the sets were stuck till I cut them all on Monday. We had coyotes cut loose within 100 yards of camp multiple nights that was cool! We heard bobwhite in the mornings. 2 days turkeys roosted dang near above the tent. Saw alot of deer ducks geese swans and eagles. We met a girl and her dad that were out trapping beaver she did all the work and he drove the boat. I don't know how old she was I'd say teens. She was killing it and stacking them up her goal was 80 for the year i believe she said. Awesome stuff. We ate like kings bacon, deer back straps, beaver stew, canned deer and noodles, eggs sausage. I wish I had taken a journal next time I will. I will be buying a new pair of chest waders. The hip boots got me through but I got wet on multiple days lol wood stove always had them dry by morning. One of the times I got wet I stepped off the boat with one leg and it went through a lodge to my hip I was able to keep one toe on the boat grab a branch and pull the boat back up under me without going all the way in.We caught 56 beaver 5 otter 6 muskrat and more coon than I'd like to admit. The goal was 100 It was reachable but sickness weather and breaking that cleat knocked us back. We did end up digging that beaver out it took 1.5 hours but there was a 65lb beaver and a no b.s. beaver extreme in the boat after some hard work. Digging that beaver out is one of my favorite parts of the trip. I'm sure I'll remember things I missed. We hauled the catch back yesterday and I went out today to pick up camp. I could easily stay out there for a month it was beautiful, peaceful, it reminded me of who I really am, and that my passion in life is trapping. I will do more of these trips as often as I can. I'll get a good camera and take a journal next time although the images and memories will be burned into my brain forever. My yearly count is 125 beaver 12 otter bunch of rats and countless coon. Today there was a guy at the boat ramp who had a dead battery he admitted that he was an alcoholic and that last night he relapsed on vodka after 205 days of sobriety and woke up there with a dead battery. He was upset with himself and worried about his wife. I gave him a jump and reminded him hes not alone in his battles everyone has something his best bet is to go home and apologize. If he made it 205 days he can make it longer than that. He thanked me and went on his way.Thanks for reading and all the good comments -D p.s. next time I'm out there and it's deer season. There will be a deer hanging from that leaned over tree in camp. I took my muzzleloader but didn't get a chance to go sit in the woods.

Great trip, love the story. Thanks for sharing.

great read, thanks,

Wow sounds like an incredible trip, you are right you will remember this forever. Unfortunately these trips also reveal alot about how our friends operate, I am glad you were able to find someone else to enable you to finish the trip.

Looks like a great trip!
I apologize if I missed this somewhere in this thread, but how far away from home were you? Looks like mostly river trapping?

What a grand adventure, thanks for sharing

What an awesome trip.

Awesome. I'd have my shotgun and duck stamp with me though.all in all I'd say you did alright.

Dstone, you accurately describe what boat trapping on the rivers can be like. Always something. Have enjoyed my many winters doing that too.

Thanks for the detailed story of your outing!

The boat ramp is about 35 min from my door. I could have done it alone I trap alone 95 percent of the time unless the kids are with me just for that reason. I just wasn't really prepped to do it alone this time. The little finger of water we set up in was well protected from the weather we could have shot our far share of ducks as they were hunkered down too.

Nothing beats it

Thanks for sharing with us. Sounds like a great trip.

Dave

Sounds like a great adventure!

Sounds like a great trip…especially if you were able to sell on the carcass and come back to camp after running the line to relax not having to worry about skinning!! Good on you for offering the guy encouragement to stay sober.

did you have any problems with fluctuation, of the water levels

what type of set did you use

Great pictures of your catch and your tent camp. Camp looks like a excellent one.

Mac

Good pics and I really enjoyed your write up of your great adventure. That is something I would love to do.

thanks for sharing, looks fun

Only 1 day the water dropped 4 inches. I run 8- 10 foot of 1/8 cable with a birkshire soft ground anchor straight to the stock chain traps vary from bridger 3's to mb750s and no bs beaver extreme. Had 2 dozen 330s but I do better with the leg holds. The lodge entrances were deep we trapped mostly beaver slides with a touch of castor on them. I did manage to snare a couple out in wide open water drove big willows down into the mud and hung snares off of them.

You had it good for water levels. In the next three days our big river will be going up 4 feet. When that's not happening it's normally dropping a foot a night. Our regs make us have a portion of the 330 in the water, so every set has to be remade usually every check.

I find myself fooling with most of the sets especially when it's windy. The sand silts in under the pan.

'Peeler, does a portion of the trap extension attachment count for that rule?

A portion of the trap itself (body gripper) must be submerged.

I sometime have the silt issue. Maybe a wad of cotton under the pan would help?

Great Picture!!!

Good thinking!

Looks like a fantastic trip…..except for all that skinning. 😉

This looks like a great time, thanks for sharing!

Only a trapper could look at all that wet fur, carcasses, traps, gear and tired as H and say man was this GREAT!!

Bryce

did you skin or sell whole, ??

Yeah I'm curious if your gna finish the pelts or not

I sold alot of them on the carcass I'm putting up the big ones and the otters. As much as I would like to do them all I don't have the facilities or boards/ hoops to make that happen.