After a bit of a harrowing journey back up to our cabin this past Saturday morning, which included a blown sidewall on my wife's rig, we got settled in for a few glorious weeks up in the mountains.
With my parents coming in a week, we had a lot that we wanted to get done. We needed to chop some more wood, I needed to fix our snowblower, juggle work and kids, and of course... trap.
For me, my target for the week was going to be beaver and otter. I know where a large bank den is just up river from our electric dam that I wanted to target, as well as a known otter-hangout at the base of our towns fish ladder. To confirm the need for this control, our town electric co-op owner called me up to let me know that a humongous beaver dam was reported from several miles up stream in the sawtooth wilderness that was/is allegedly 6 ft' tall and causing a significant slow down in water flow. Something that unaddressed would cause issues in our ability to maintain enough water flow to keep the literal lights on until spring runoff next year. Though, I am excited to snowshoe in with tons of traps in the coming weeks, my first order of business were the problem children close to home.
So, after a full day of work I loaded up my truck with a few footholds on drowning wires and conibears and set out to get things placed. However, once I got out to the bank den, I noticed a problem... all of the waterways I had planned to trap were iced over. That is not inherently a bad thing and once I cleared the snow I could see air bubbles under the ice confirming that beaver or otter were actively using the channels. Yay.
So, crawling hands and knees on ice I got out my ax and started punching through the four inch layer. I knew I made it through when a big splash of ice-cold water shot into my face and removed any drowsiness that still lurked in my body. The only problem that I didn't take into account was that this channel was too shallow for my conibears. If I had placed one and left it, the jaws would have become frozen shut and my efforts would have been for naught.
Therefore, I had to abandon that awesome idea and continue to investigate the surrounding. I found several slides which would have been prime for footholds and drowning wires, but I had limited time left to set before I needed to go tag in with the kids. So, I ended up doing something I have never tried, and put out a conibear on the bare ground about 8 feet back from the water line where it was clear a beaver was coming to get food. I set it in the snow and anchored it was a piece of rebar and called it good. A little castor oil to attract the beavers pasted on the tree above the trap and I went home to help with the kids.
The next day after a heavy snowfall I took my best little trapline helper, Ellis, to go check on what I had set the day before. Dragging her in her blue sled we came upon a coyote kill with blood everywhere and only the pelt left of a small yearling deer. Seeing this within 100 yards of where my land set had been placed I was nervous that if I had caught a beaver it would eaten up by the same pack of coyotes.
As we crossed the small bridge and I could see the slide, my heart sank as I noticed the trap was gone. All around it there was no evidence of a struggle or paw prints indicating something had been drug off. First, I cursed my trap stake for not holding it in place and second my mind went to figuring out how I would find what had toted off my trap. Yet, before that, I decided to investigate the slide into the water to see if I saw any evidence of something coming out of the water... then, to my relief, I saw in a six foot pool of water a beautiful 40+ pound beaver in the deep part of the water.
It must have come up the slide, gotten caught with a perfect head catch and had the power and instinct to turn around and get back in the water. Thankfully the dispatch was fast and the weight of the trap held him in place. With that relief I thought about how I would fish him out. I had left my waders at the house thinking I would not need them, but as always nature taught me a lesson in always coming prepared. I ended up leaving the beaver and taking Ellis home (after some more fun checks and sled riding) so I could get my catch pole and waders.
Shortly thereafter I returned, used my catch pole to snag the beaver by the tail, and pulled him ashore to free him from the trap. Another beautiful large beaver in the books and hopefully a few less sticks to be chewed and left to clog up our electric dam.
Stay tuned for the upriver exploits when I get ready for some real back country beaver catchin' in the coming weeks.
PS: My book is still available at a discount on Amazon... Check out Turning Feral and help support its continued growth!
That’s something I’ve always wanted to do. Super exciting