Beaver Trapping on the River

Our annual trip to the river that was scheduled for the week after Christmas for a multi-species trapline got pushed back to the third weekend in February.  Since all the seasons closed January 31 except beaver, we narrowed our focus to them. 

The ice and snow, at first, kept us off the river and the shelf ice had kept us from walking the banks.  But a few days of forty degree weather finally coincided with time off work.  We loaded the boat with all the snares and traps and got it backed down the boat ramp over the slabs of ice.  I broke ice several times before getting into the main river channel and open water. 

We headed down river and started looking for sign.  The water was low, about 10 feet lower than last year, making navigation much easier.  With ten feet more of the bank showing and the rock dikes sticking out of the water, slides and lodges were easily found.  Castor mound sets with footholds and drowners went in behind the dikes where lodges were found.  A ½” rebar stake on the trap end, ten feet of drowner cable and a canvas sandbag full of rocks for a weight worked great for us.  We used a variety of footholds; Bridger #3’s, Duke #4’s, CDRs and Katz Brothers 850 – and they all worked well.  We caught beavers up to seventy pounds with this setup and never had a weight pulled up.  I lost one beaver I had by the front foot because he had wrapped the trap chain around a piece of iron stuck in the mud under water and pulled three toes off.  I’m sure I would have held him if he hadn’t had something solid to pull against.  We tried to set footholds on rock or sticks stuck in the mud or they would silt in and not fire.

Snares were set in drift piles and tree tops where beaver were traveling to their lodges and feeding areas.  In Missouri, snares and conibears have to be completely submerged.  My snares are 5/64” diameter cable, the smallest size legal in Missouri, eight feet long with a neoprene whammy and a tree lock.  A twist of #9 wire around a stick with the tag end stuck in the whammy holds the snare loop in any position.  A ten inch loop worked well with most catches around the neck or shoulders.  A little castor on the log above the loop ensured they would swim around until caught.  We didn’t do a lot of extra blocking and had success without it.  These are fast to put in and very effective and was our most productive set with snares.  The tree locks performed great and 5/64” 1X19 cable stood up to everything the beavers could dish out.  We found out the hard way that beavers don’t always tangle up and drown.  Beavers can move their entire cache pile and chew an amazing amount of wood in a night.  Tie the snare off to a flexible tree top and a neck caught beaver may not pull hard enough to choke himself out.  They will also dig your rebar stakes up or pull them if they can get above them. 

We managed to get 15 sets made the first day and added ten more the next. In three checks we caught twenty-one beavers with five of them over sixty pounds.  We used several different brands of castor based lures including some homemade and they all worked well in both snares and castor mound sets with footholds.