Can beaver be caughtin a big catch alive trap?I wonder if anyone has ever tried this,It would keep neighbors cats & pups outta trouble vs steel traps...Just wondering if it was put on the dam and baited with fish if it might work?Any ideas to help some little kids pup or fido from the jaws of death while trapping varmint tree killing beavers?

O h yea, know lots of places to let them jokers go so they can thrive and wreck havoc in peace somewhere else where none will ever find them in the secret indian lakes....will not be necessary to snuff them,just relocate the buggers

Can beaver be trapped in a "live trap" ? Yes

Would I use fish as bait? No

Are these beavers in a creek or pond?

They are in a Big pond,big one,and i know where the dam is and several "slides" where they walk up and down the banks,lots of kids pets running around ..so trapping with steel traps would forsure catch a pet& otters are also there so i dont want to kill the otters at all,they have a free pass and can do as they please,they dont bother the trees like the beavers do,they cut em down everywhere,big ones too.What would be a good bait/lure?and should i camo the cage wire with brush?anyhelpful suggestions are greatly appreciated
Thanks

Speaking of otters,I have no desire to even bother those buggers they have never bothered me or any propertys that i know of,what is the status of otters,are they still game animals or protected now,I have no clue as i dont mess with them,they seem pretty friendly and really dont see a lot of them,pretty rare to see one..I bet they get pretty big size and there fur is silky smooth,a friend hit one with his car on the way to work one day and brought it in toshow everyone,it had a very soft nice fur.The name of the creek by the way was Fisher creek! It was crossing the road at that creek when he hit it going to work that morning.If i remember corectly it was about almost 4ft.long from nose to tail tip.

quote:

Originally posted by maxbear:
Can beaver be trapped in a "live trap" ? Yes

Would I use fish as bait? No

Are these beavers in a creek or pond?

You're looking for a Bailey Beaver Live Trap that is set in a depression on the dam but it the water so the beaver walks into it.

Thanks

[wildlifecontrolsupplies.com] has what you need. Assortment of live traps, baits/ lures and instructions in book, CD, DVD, etc. I am sure there are other sources.

USDA (U.S Department of Agriculture) has the ADCA program (Animal Damage Control Agents) aka "government hunters/trappers" who should be available in your area FREE to handle the furballs... County extension should know where to find them.

If you insist on doing it yourself, beavers are under water creatures and if you set the leg hold or "kill" (back breaker) trap in a run to the beaver house... likely hood of bothering a child or pet is very, very low. But exists. Of course you will get wet doing the set and retrieval. The standard attractant is "musk" (from a deceased ancestor)... boys come running to fight of make love, girls come to be loved... or fend off intruder... It is in the books. Happy new year. Luck.

All I can say is the fellow who releases a beaver alive is a braver man than I. I once caught a beaver in a 1.75 4 coil victor that I'd set on a slide. It was right next to a pipe with a board riser, and the beaver got caught by his hind foot. Instead of diving down the drowning wire, he jumped up into the board riser to swim out the other way. The next morning when I came driving up in my boat to check the set, there was this funny looking thing wiggling out of the top of the riser, but I couldn't identify it at a distance in the fog. Suddenly, I realized it was a beaver tail! I had a friend with me who'd never been trapping, so like a genius I decided to show him the live beaver and grabbed it by the tail and lifted it out of the pipe. I didn't know they could turn so quickly on themselves, and that darned beaver nearly ate my arm off!
I dropped him as quickly as I'd picked him up, then went back to the boat for my .22 and handled the situation the way I should have all along.

I'll tell the story of releasing an otter from a leg hold another time. I'm afraid if I tell it now, you'll all soak your keyboards from tears laughing at what a dipshit a guy could be....

Funny

Best part of the live beaver traps are that they are compleatly inclosed in the "cage" so you cannot get hurt. I run my own ADC buz and I m having a hard time funding the buying of those traps. At 375 bucks each. When your ready to let them go kick on of the locks off and out they pop and off into the water they hide.

Now bating with fish.....they eat only plants.
Think think fall I m going to finely try and cook one up I let you know how it tastes.

Before you do anything check with your local Fish and Game Department. In some states beaver are classified as furbearers and are protected by law. If you catch one you could be violating the law. In other states they are considered pest animals and can be shot or trapped. I have caught a good number of them but it takes some experience to do it right. Your F&G Dept. may do it for you.

465H&H

Talk to a game warden and see if they can take care of it, if not they just may send you to a ADC agent like my self. Some of us can be quite costly, unlike my self I love to trap.

So on to the otter story....

One day I pull my boat up to a bank where I had a 1.75 set on a beaver slide, and lo and behold I have an otter instead. Now, in my state, otters were protected even back when this happened. Just like the beaver that didn't go down the drowning wire, this otter (he was a big male) was sitting on the mud bank looking forlorn until I showed up. Once I got there, he just looked pissed!

Anyway, I grab my choke stick and slide the noose around his neck and ask my buddy to hold his head away from the trap so I can release his back foot. All goes well up to the point where I take the stick back and go to release mr. otter. He immediately lunges at me and tries to chew my leg off. WHOA, TRIGGER!!!
Damned unappreciative otter, you have thought he wasn't grateful that I spared his life. I tried to release him a couple times and got the same result each time. It was like a pit bull after Michael Vick's ass!

I finally got the bright idea to put him in my boat and go out into the pond to release him. I slid him over the side and loosened the noose and that damned fool tried to climb back in the boat with me, and it wasn't gonna be to run the motor, either. He was still PISSED! So next I tried to choke him and then release him. This time he was even more PISSED! I mean, he was MAD MAD MAD!!! Now at this point, my buddy (who had the good sense to stay on the bank when I got in the boat with the otter) was laughing so hard I thought he was gonna fall over. It wasn't funny!

Finally, I got the idea to choke the living daylights out of that otter for a while about the time he was acting kinda lethargic (nearly passing out from lack of oxygen will do that to ya, you know?), I then put his head well under water and release the tension on the noose. He got his lungs full of water and was coughing and choking, so I released the noose the rest of the way as I drove off at full throttle to get away from that creation of the devil.

One time, I was talking with a buddy who worked at Fish and Game (been retired now for many, many years) and I asked him how many otters F&G thought were killed incidentally by trappers. He told me that they figured about a dozen or so statewide each year. I was kind enough to confirm that his number didn't overstate the total

Don't EVER try to help out an otter with a face full of Rapala.

quote:

Originally posted by miles58:
Don't EVER try to help out an otter with a face full of Rapala.

Oh, please tell us that story! If there is one....
Sounds like there is a good one behind that one.