Getting Skunk'd, not Beaver'd...
Government Nuisance Trapping - Part IV
As Sunday (my final day of trapping those two spots before needing to go to town) came around I was geared up and ready to go find some beaver in my traps! As I made my way slowly down our road I was able to reflect on the hard work that I had already put in over the weekend to try and thin out some of the beaver in our area... This type of work takes time, energy, and sense of perseverance as there are no guarantees on getting anything.
Which is exactly what I caught that weekend, nothing.
All of my traps at my first spot were untouched, which meant that I had to do a “pull of shame” and get all of my equipment out of the water. That took a bit longer than I anticipated as I had to bust through about an inch of ice that had accumulated on the water’s surface from an extremely cold night.
After pulling my first batch of traps, I headed to my last hold out, where a beaver had nudged my trap out of the way the day before. Once again, as I neared the spot I was met with an adrenaline dump as my trap had moved... but, that adrenal high left as quick as it had came when I realized that the same exact thing had happened again... I started to think that maybe a current or something other than a beaver had pushed this trap safely out of the way...
All of those thoughts and justifications were quickly put to rest, though, as I investigated the iced water around the trap. Under the ice, I could see trapped air bubbles, which meant that a beaver had in fact swam up to the trap, moved it out of the way, and went on about his or her business.
Laughing at myself I pulled the trap, gave a hat tip to the smart beaver, and then declared warfare on this adequate foe... I would be back in a week and retry my off-season pursuit.