Dang It

[Jogeephus]

Bryant, I wish we did have a gov't trapper but the only one I know of is from the USFWS and he stays busy working with the local gov't with the beaver problem on roads and bridges and I think he charges on private land but it didn't sound like he had the time since he's busy with pigs and beavers on gov't lands. I've had fur trappers come but like Caustic says the furs aren't of much value and also the trappers only want to trap during the winter months because they claim the pelt quality isn't any good during the spring or summer but this may also have something to do with snakes.

The county put a bounty on them a while back and payed $20 per tail but all the money was used within a month. (I think they took in 1300 tails.) I spent some time with the guy from the USFWS and he showed me a few tricks which have been helpful. I caught two yesterday morning so this made five for the week and while checking traps and breaching dams on Friday I walked up on three snakes which always adds to the fun. I think I'm knocking a dent in them but its a royal pain because they are so persistent. I have about 150 acres of bottomland hardwoods that is flooded and if I don't get the water off the trees before the sap begins to rise they will die and the land could turn into wetlands which I don't want.

If only I could locate all the lodges and dens. This is much harder than it sounds because the area is not friendly terrain to walk - if you can call sludging through the muck walking - and its not boat friendly either and the thick brush, vines and trees makes shooting them with night vision nearly impossible not to mention all the blood sucking biting critters that come out at night. But when I can locate a lodge I can take out the whole bunch and this knocks a dent in the population real quick and it also gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling inside which I'm sure is a sign that I am a bad person. I also have a few tricks I could use but I hesitate due to some pesky liability and legal concerns.

But like Caustic said, until we get a good market for the pelts it will be a constant problem because if I clear the beavers out more will move in from the neighbors so its a constant battle. Years ago many here would actually make enough off trapping beavers to live on. Now its hardly worth the trouble to skin one.

There is never a dull moment when you have beavers and pigs as pests.

 

[dieselbeef]

tannerite for the beavers...

 

[Jogeephus]

tannerite for the beavers...

I've used tannerite and its useful but most of its energy is wasted on noise and you can end up getting noise complaints. Most of what I do is no louder than thunder but does a nice job.

 

[greybeard]

Now if I could only find someone willing to hunt beavers.

I had 3 mid 20s age guys come here from about 40 miles in late 2015-early 2016 when beaver were first giving me problems, and they did a good job with both traps and bullets, but the last few times I called them, they said they were on their way, but didn't show up. I finally figured out after seeing their stake bed truck in front of the only beer joint in town that they were just telling their wives they were coming here, but really were just chasing that other kind of beaver somewhere till next morning.....

I haven't had any luck with my snares, so I guess will go back to the connibears. No lodges this year--their burrowin into the sides of the canals on the tail ends of the pond. Been thinking about impaling some great big treble hooks inside a small cabbage or some brussel sprouts and see if that works.
I wonder how JMJ is doing with his beaver problem--haven't seen him post lately.

 

[Jogeephus]

I hope JMJ is doing better than me with his beaver problem. Its a job but I know what you mean about how people will talk about trapping or shooting them and it doesn't pan out. I know an older gentleman guy whose offered a $35/tail bounty on his and I've told a couple of guys about this and they all say they are going to do it but not the first one has shown up. He even has the traps and has a great place to shoot over a pond. He's asked me to help but I got my hands full with my own.

I think I have a bunch of bank dwellers too and this makes it doubly hard because I can't find their dens.

 

[Dave]

Back when I was seriously trapping in the 80's we were averaging about $25 each for beaver pelts. They are not easy to skin, flesh, and stretch. It takes some experience to get it down to under one per hour. I would catch 6 to 12 a day but that was all day and burning up a good amount a gas in the pickup. Then I spent 3 or 4 hours in the fur shed just skinning them. I would freeze the hides to finish putting them up later. I am certain if you figured my time and money spent I didn't make wages but I enjoyed doing it and it gave me a break from falling timber for a couple months in the winter. Now the hides are not worth as much. I hear a $15 average. I doubt a person would clear minimum wage for your time trapping beavers.

 

[frieghttrain]

I hope JMJ is doing better than me with his beaver problem. Its a job but I know what you mean about how people will talk about trapping or shooting them and it doesn't pan out. I know an older gentleman guy whose offered a $35/tail bounty on his and I've told a couple of guys about this and they all say they are going to do it but not the first one has shown up. He even has the traps and has a great place to shoot over a pond. He's asked me to help but I got my hands full with my own.

I think I have a bunch of bank dwellers too and this makes it doubly hard because I can't find their dens.

I'd take him up on that deal if I was closer.

 

[Caustic Burno]

Jo beavers are a problem here as well the only trapper I know of works for the paper companies.
I am lucky they don't like the banks on my creek as they are vertical. They build like crazy upstream where they slope flooding acres of pine plantations.
Otters love my place for some reason I don't mind sharing but they do. The devils have wiped out three catfish ponds.

 

[dieselbeef]

yall need some alligators..we got very few beavers or otters

 

[Caustic Burno]

yall need some alligators..we got very few beavers or otters

We got em lots of them.

 

[Jogeephus]

yall need some alligators..we got very few beavers or otters

We got em lots of them.

We have them too. In fact, one of them may have stolen one of my connabears. Thieving lizards.

 

[greybeard]

My banks are vertical as well. The canals were dug with an excavator. Except for erosion over the years they are a vertical drop off 4'-8' straight down. When the water is low, I can see the top of the burrows thru the reeds, but haven't been able to since Sept-Oct last year.






They leave those areas every night and work the main pond shallows for lily pad rhizomes.

I have had alligators, always have had, tho they are currently.....well......extinct.

 

[Jogeephus]

This is one dam I've been dealing with. It is one of many and it takes about 30 minutes to get to it. Its roughly 250 yards long. The flatness of the land allows a dam like this to back up a pile of water. Upstream from here maybe another 30 minute walk is another dam. Then another. Its obvious they've been busy.

 

[Jogeephus]

Another good beaver.

 

[dieselbeef]

well why aint they controlling the beavers amd otters...theyre the natural predator for anything in the water...or almost in the water even....gator aint afraid of no beaver ill tell ya that

 

[dieselbeef]

My banks are vertical as well. The canals were dug with an excavator. Except for erosion over the years they are a vertical drop off 4'-8' straight down. When the water is low, I can see the top of the burrows thru the reeds, but haven't been able to since Sept-Oct last year.






They leave those areas every night and work the main pond shallows for lily pad rhizomes.

I have had alligators, always have had, tho they are currently.....well......extinct.

you upset the balance of nature gb..bring back the gators..for all the storys ive heard ive never seen one eat a calf..theyll eat hogs too..that I have seen

 

[Caustic Burno]

Another good beaver.

I don't understand what makes them pick a spot for a dam . If you wipe out a bunch tear the dam out the next bunch will pick the same spot here.
Now we have hundreds of spring fed branches flowing to creeks. They seem to prefer them to the creeks here.
I don't know if it is terrain or flow rates but the beavers seem prewired to pick a certain spot.

 

[greybeard]

Another good beaver.


I don't understand what makes them pick a spot for a dam . If you wipe out a bunch tear the dam out the next bunch will pick the same spot here.
Now we have hundreds of spring fed branches flowing to creeks. They seem to prefer them to the creeks here.
I don't know if it is terrain or flow rates but the beavers seem prewired to pick a certain spot.

Someone told me (or I read it somewhere) that they are drawn to the sound of trickling water..to dam it up if they hear it.

I don't have enough sticks or small green saplings left on my place for them to build the kind of dam in Jo's picture.

DB, part of that 'balance' is fish, my dogs, and wood ducks. Gators keep all 3 thinned out. In 2004, there was a big beaver lodge and colony out on the end of a peninsula on the main pond, and an extensive burrow network on the opposite side of the pond that I dropped the front tires of my back hoe off into. There was also a 7' gator in the pond that my father could entice up on the bank with a piece of chicken on a long cane pole. Gator may not have been afraid of the beaver, but he sure wasn't keeping their numbers down much.
I had a 5' one in the pond for awhile, that had a habit of waiting till I was feeding my catfish, and he would sidle up and grab one. I used to like to bass fish down there off my little dock at night with a topwater bait. After losing about the 3rd hula popper to that rascal he became 'no longer a sentient life form'.

 

[Caustic Burno]

Makes sense learned something today.

 

[greybeard]

Makes sense learned something today.

Well, don't take my word for it, just something I heard elsewhere, but I do know, that the only time the critters plugged anything up was when the water level was higher on the inlet side of my culverts than the outlet, and the water was making a noise as it fell out the outlet side. This year, so far, the levels have been about equal both sides and no noise, and nothing has been plugged up. I do need to go check further down close to the river, where the overflow runs down a little hill over some roots and makes a little waterfall and see if they have done any work down there. There is plenty of debris for them to work with down there.
I'm still very much a novice/payin-the-stupid-tax at this beaver killing thing.