The creek was far enough down that i could climb down the bank without drowning and it's not supposed to rain anymore for awhile so i decided to set a beaver trap. I double staked first. Then looped the cable around a half of a cinder block for the drowner. I use a half block because i can't throw a whole block out far enough. Last year i tried using a sack of rocks and i couldn't throw it out very far either and the beaver dragged it up on shore but maybe the sharp edges on the block will be harder to drag. Plus the water is deeper so it should work. Then i used a quick disconnect to attach the MB 750 to the slide lock. This trap is a big one, but it's not too hard to set if you take a board along to put under the trap while you stand on the levers so the trap doesn't sink in the mud. Then i stuck a few willow sticks in the mud for bait and daubed some lure on one of them.

Plinker

Plinker, I hope it works for you. From your post I could not tell - Is your trap in the water? I would assume it is. How far from the waters edge and how deep is the trap? I haven't had much luck with leg holds. The beaver pulled out of them. They belong to another guy so I don't know what size they are.

Setting them spooks me a lot more than connibears. I guess its all what you are accustomed to. Merg

Merg,
it's only set 6 inches out in the water for a front foot catch. I always set them close to the bank because i'm afraid of falling in. Plus, it ought to drown faster if it's a big one and it gets caught by the front foot it can't reach its nose up as high when it slides down the cable. If you haven't had much luck with legholds, i likewise haven't had much luck with conibears. Have read a lot of tips about using them but still don't get it. I only have one 330 and i set it once and the creek got up over it and all it did was catch a bunch of leaves when i was finally able to reach it after 2 or 3 weeks. But the footholds, i don't know. Maybe your buddies footholds were too small. The MB 750 has a 7 1/4" jawspread. I was using some Duke #4's last year and that guy, Bill, down in Mississippi, he sells them and he said they were just great for beaver, and he's real nice and everything, but they weren't any good for beaver because they are too small and kept getting sprung. But when i set the MB 750's if they got sprung, they caught something. The footholds don't seem dangerous to me, but the conibears, they do seem sort of dangerous. Even the setting tool, if it ever slipped, just the spring springing back, not necessarily the jaws, if that spring hit you, it could whack you pretty serious. But i guess it's whatever you're comfortable with.
Well, i'm just waiting till tomorrow to see if i catch anything this year.

Plinker

Plinker, It is the jaws of the connibear that can hurt you if you get caught in them but probably not to the extent of a leg hold trap.

I have gotten whacked by one of the springs a couple of times but it doesn't hurt that bad and I am a small guy with small hands.

I once heard of a guy getting both hands caught in a 330. If his buddy was not there to free him, he would have just been stuck there. I guess he could have braced the trap with his foot and just pulled his hands out but that really would have hurt. Merg

Plinker, Just one more thing. It is about impossible to get hurt by compressing the springs with a well made set of tongs. You use the tongs to grab the "eyes" at the end of each spring and compress each spring and then engage the safety hooks. Then you can finish setting the trap. If you don't use a safety gripper, just be sure the safety hooks are positioned so they will keep the springs from opening all the way if the dog happens to slip away from the trigger. Hope I haven't confused you further. Merg

Sounds like this all may be a little new to you, so it might help if you studied up on legholds and sets and practiced. Except for a bear trap I have always been able to set a long spring(and others for that matter) by "breaking" them over my knee.
With a leg hold location is critical. It sounds logical when you say you prefer a front paw catch cause the beaver can't reach as high. But remember the rear leg's of a beaver are super powerful they can cover alot of ground and tear up a bunch of stuff when they are free. I think you would be well advised to go for a rear leg.
Also don't lure up your sets until you can connect with beavers. Beavers will remember the smell of lure at a bad set and after that it takes some work to get them. Dont use setting tongs with Conbears, there a pain in the ass and add weight to gear you have to carry afield, Use a setting rope and keep it with you by tying around your waist or make a loop and throw it over your shoulder. You can string your roll of wire and a pair of wire cutters in a pouch on the setting rope and toss it over your shoulder, which is what I do. That way if you pitch in deep water to can shed a lot of weight in a hurry. Also if you get an arm caught in a coni you can get yourself out with the rope and one good hand. And use the safeties hooks on them coni's as well

You should be able to make a pole set with a coni on a long pole and place the trap in water that you can't safely get to in waders.

I hope this helps

mike

Thank you both for the information about conis. I know you can do better by setting further from the bank but this little muddy creek is more dangerous than conis. I got my feet stuck in the muck once and happened to think hey if i happened to pitch face forward, that'd be it. The bottom just sucks a hold of your boots and won't let go and then it can drop off deep, too. You guys would probably just go right in and set your traps but i never could swim very good; i just sink right to the bottom like a rock and so i don't really like wading around in there, it's like a death wish.

So, that sounds like a good idea to practice setting the 330 before taking it around the water. There is a place where a tunnel goes under the road and it connects the creek to a big swamp. This tunnel has water running through it and it isn't too deep and so it might be a place where beavers would want to travel from the swamp to the creek. I don't know, really but seems like that would be the only passage way and so since it is only about 4 feet wide that might be a place where a coni would work out? How would be a good way to set a coni there and would that be a good place???

Plinker

Culverts are killer locations for alot of animals.
For beaver that location will work fine as long as the water flow isn't too strong and you don't have a lot of debris floating on the current as it will get hung up on the trap set. You can use one 330 but two 330's side by side would be better. That way when you narrow the set down it won't look very "crowded" to the beaver.
I almost always use long rebar stakes for sets cause i hate finding and preparing branches but dead tree branches are just as good.
Now this part you could do on land before you get to the location it will speed things up. Get yourself a dead branch about 5-6 foot long and about 1.5 to 2 inches in diameter, it doesn't have to be exact this isn't rocket science. Place your 330(s) side by side on the pole. Pull the spring's up and use tie wire to fasten(hang) them to the pole. Place the coni's trigger down, always trigger down with coni's. You can get tie wire at any hardware store. Make sure you use the safety hooks on the coni, you can use clothes pins to hold the hooks in place until you leave the trap set.
Carry the long pole with the traps down to the water. Have two or three upright poles ready to support the trap pole. The should be long enough to push into the stream bed. Now push them into the stream bed in front of the culvert and than fasten your trap pole with the traps with tie wire to the uprights. Use your tie wire and attach safety wire from the trap springs to a nearby tree or some other solid object, this way you won't lose the trap or the beaver when it connects
. Use other dead branches on both sides of the trap to form a loose fence from the traps to the shore, make the only "open" travel way the area where the trap's are, the beaver will naturally swim though this area. The trap pole you fastened your traps to serves as a dive log. Hopefully what will happen is as Mr beaver swims along he'll see the "fence" you've made and swim to the open area's (where the traps are) . He'll approach the open area, go to dive under the trap pole and into you trap(s). Make sure you use dead branches to support the trap if you use green branches the beaver will stop to munch on them. Also don't forget to unhook the safeties before you leave.
I hope this helps if its still confusing let me know and I'll figure a way to make a drawing and get it to you.

mike

Plinker, If beaver are using that culvert the bottom should be hard and not soft and muddy unless the water is so deep that beaver don't get close to the bottom. That goes for any run, hut entrance, etc. If you don't want to step in and feel it then probe it with a stick.

Krauz that's good advice about using dead sticks. A friend was occassionally getting a set botched up and he was using green sticks. And I like the clothespin idea too. Never thought of that. Might remind one not too forget to undo the safety hooks before leaving.

FWIW, I always set my springs before I leave the shop so the trap is as much prepared as possible when I get to want to set them. We use snare cable with a short piece of wire to tie the traps off with. That cable is much easier to handle and wrap around the trap with than wire. For me anyway. If I have to use wire I run it through the trap ring, double it, put the ring in a vise, chuck the other end in a drill, spin it a little, and you have a double strength wire. The water down here rusts wire so bad it doesn't last long.

Instead of wiring the the trap springs to the dive stick, I can generally find a straight stick from a dam or hut and run it through the coils of the springs when they are pulled straight up. Then then brace the bottom of the trap(s) with sticks angling through the bottom corners of the trap and stuck in the bottom. The rebar would probably work better but that is just something else to carry and keep up with on the ATV.

Just exchanging ideas. I learn something every time I talk to a good trapper. Merg

Thanks Merg,
That's the cool thing about trappers, each has a couple of good tricks and tips. There is always something to learn.

I use to run my pole through the springs like you suggest. But because the limbs I found could never be that thick so that theywould fit through the rings I had trouble with beaver wanting to go over and not under the thin (relatively speaking) pole. I was alway adding a thicker "log on top to make them dive. So i fiqured the hell with all that and just wire them to the heavy branch. Now I cheat a little and get Barker's Coni Mounts...a great product and just screw them with a short drywall screw to a limb. Works great. I also use KB stabilizers, another great product.
I still use alot of rebar but I am never very far from a road so I truck everywhere. I suppose if I ATVed like you I'd have to make some changes. But again that's the cool thing about trappers we all adapt to the needs.

Plinker and thekauz,

Yep I'm still learning tonight. I might have to look into some of that stuff you are using kauz. Sorry I misspelled your name wrong in my post.

Where I trap in Southern bottomlands, the environment is a lot different than up north. Plenty of sticks everywhere, and mosquitoes, and the abundant cottonmouth. Fish (both large and small) congregate in the small amount of current leaking through the dams and the snakes hang around there to catch the fish. To blow or rake out a dam in spring or summer, we have to run em (snakes) off the dam. That beaver dam is the epicenter of the food chain in the slow moving bottomland streams.

I love to trap beaver, but I do it mainly for population and damage control so I had to learn how; like it or not. That is why we shoot them or kill them any way legally possible because they cause so much timber loss and crop damage down here by flooding in the summer. Summer trapping is no fun once the temps get much over 80 degrees.

When we catch beaver, we just move them up on dry ground and they are gobbled up by coyotes, feral hogs, and one time by a bear.

Beaver are not worth very much down here, but I think the price is going up a little. I hope so.

I don't think all the folks that hunt and shoot in Europe and Africa are much interested in trapping. Doesn't seem like there are too many trappers around cause we like to talk most of the time. I'm out of town for a few days so I'll see yall later. Good Luck, Merg

Thanks a lot for the great information, Merg and Kauz, which i'm goin to read and re-read. But for now i'm hung up on what was said about wiring the trap to the dive stick. Where do you attach the wire? if you attach it to the spring eyes, it seems like it would just hang there and not be very stable...do you mean to attach it to the jaw. I'll try attaching it different ways before actually setting it in the culvert. Also, i only have the one 330, which you said it's better to have two but, i'll just have to try with one. Someone told me that they saw beavers in that swamp which is really more like a large pond and so it would seem likely they get between there and the creek via the culvert.

Also, i don't think the bottom near that culvert is mucky, and it's not that deep when the creek is down like it is now. I'm going to go check it out today and may set the trap or may just get everything ready and set it the next day, but i'll keep you both posted.

Thanks a lot for the help you all are really great.

Plinker

plinker

If you don't mind send me your email address I'll make a drawing scan it into my computer and email it to you.


kauz

Your post brings back some old memories of my trapping days. I always used the ones that break their neck when they swim through it. All you do is learn their patterns and place some brush in the water as sort of a funnel guide and place the trap in the center. Worked great.

Kauz, thanks for the drawings which cleared up some questions and now i just have to get it done. Warm up is forecast in the next few days, right now it is too cold to fumble around with the 330 which would really be fumbling with cold hands till i get the hang of it.

Dwight, i think you're the choking traps you mention are same kind explained above. They seem to be the trap of choice for most situations.

Still have the MB750 out, and had a huge muskrat in it this a.m. Froze to the ice, so i had to chip it out. Caught by both hind legs.

Plinker

I have not read all the post here but sounds like you are enjoying yourself. I was thinking of something last night you may be interested in. An old guy taught me a trick years ago about boiling my traps in a pot of oak leaves and tea and let them soak overnight. This gives them a dark finish like a poor mans blue job and helps slow rust. Also removes a lot of scent.

Oak bark will do a good boiling job too, I have also buried them in black mud fro a week or so and they come out stained a dark black.

quote:

Originally posted by Plinker603:
The creek was far enough down that i could climb down the bank without drowning and it's not supposed to rain anymore for awhile so i decided to set a beaver trap. I double staked first. Then looped the cable around a half of a cinder block for the drowner. I use a half block because i can't throw a whole block out far enough. Last year i tried using a sack of rocks and i couldn't throw it out very far either and the beaver dragged it up on shore but maybe the sharp edges on the block will be harder to drag. Plus the water is deeper so it should work. Then i used a quick disconnect to attach the MB 750 to the slide lock. This trap is a big one, but it's not too hard to set if you take a board along to put under the trap while you stand on the levers so the trap doesn't sink in the mud. Then i stuck a few willow sticks in the mud for bait and daubed some lure on one of them.

Plinker

Have you tried using a Bailey Live Trap for Castor canadensis(Beaver)?

No, i haven't tried using the Bailey trap...i don't have a Bailey trap and not likely to get one...300+ dollars and i don't need to catch another beaver that bad Hey i'm on a budget here, i already spend more on my hunting stuff than on food and clothes, LOL.

Once caught a muskrat in a raccoon size live trap, though.

Plinker

quote:

Originally posted by Plinker603:
No, i haven't tried using the Bailey trap...i don't have a Bailey trap and not likely to get one...300+ dollars and i don't need to catch another beaver that bad Hey i'm on a budget here, i already spend more on my hunting stuff than on food and clothes, LOL.

Once caught a muskrat in a raccoon size live trap, though.

Plinker

We had them in our Wildlife Management Game Investigational Techniques Manual that I purchased while in college earning my degree in Wildlife Mgt.