For those that think front footing beaver is easy

[CoonDuke]

...please post some set pics for those of us who have 50% miss ratios.

[shagnasty]

dude, im gonna say one more time, targeting the front foot of a beaver is a poor set in my opinion unless no other option. the most common mistake by reading and listening is setting in a few inches of water. you ever watch a beaver walk or climb out of the water or go back in? his chest is real low to the ground and dragging it a lot. what you think will happen to a trap in a few inches of water if you dont luck up and he steps on it? snapped trap half the time with hair, maybe a toe nail here and there. a trap placed in deep water will stay working should a beaver somehow take another approach and miss, it is still cocked and snapped traps with no beaver are real low, and most of that is due to water going down or up unexpectedly. if no other option set the trap in at least 10-12 inches of water, a beaver will start walking by front feet in that much water and i dont care who says different. ive caught enough to know who is fluffing and who is telling it like it is.

[ohiyotee]

Heres a point i have found over the years , and that is if you are targeting front foot you should have at least 50 # in your drowned-er bag on a pond and 40# in a current. I have had some bags dragged ashore that where 35 or 40 pounds and that is no good. You know you have enough when you can barely throw it far enough.

[shagnasty]

not directed at dukie but - you know another thing i notice, is alot of people unable to think on their own on the line. if snapped traps, then obviously doing something wrong. if water is stable and snapped traps, move it! create a beaver slide at a better location near the sign if not a great spot to set or anchor. dig the bank out a little more vertical if need be or dig out a shallow slanted bank to create a deeper trap position. i carry several homemade tools with me to make my sets and i would not leave home without them. most of this stuff was self taught. it only takes a few kicked traps for me to stop take a look around and solve the problem. i use pogo anchors on my slide systems. i prefer just cabling to a tree and letting the trap do the drowning, however not all situations allow this, but alot do.

[shagnasty]

another thing with beaver, they will pull out of the current and rest at certain locations, such as point of island. many times they will not go up on it very far if at all, but he stops there, hint! also, look for subtle resting feed holes, etc. many ways to catch beaver, i am not much on the fake castor mound set. i use lure but i use it differently. i dunno, i just trap the animals the way they show me. i dont get in a rut of doing one thing all the time which many times is the worst thing to do.

[Steve Gappa]

Dale Billingsly delibrately targets front feet almost 100% of the time.

So do I.

no secrets- just guiding and trap placement..

To say its a poor set, only means with YOUR techniques its a poor set. Once again, if its not your cup of tea don't use it- but your experiences aren't mine.

I'm not going to argue about it- I know how it works for me. I also- never try to drown beaver in a few feet of water- its always 5+ feet with HEAVY bototm weights on long cables.

If you are getting twist offs- you have too big a trap or not enough water would be my guess.

[ohiyotee]

"no secrets- just guiding and trap placement.." Yes and its the same with the back foot so why not the back foot. I have never had a twist problem with the back foot, even when a 60 # plus bugger dragged the whole works ashore he was there. can you say that with the front. All i am saying is the back foot is better for holding so why not . I can give argument for why not the front so why not the back. greg

[ohiyotee]

Also when you grab him in the rear his ability to fight hard in deep water is automatically cut in half.

[bobwendt]

well, the deal is shag, some will and some won`t. I think a lot more read than post. you`ve probably spread info to a lot more guys than you think.

[tonymalone]

cdr, bridger #5 coil, drowning rod, hind foot , thats what i am efficent at, thats a no problem setup, I just have never got good at front foot catches, would come in handy when not enough water to drown by hind foot, watched dales video, liked it , bad deal down here where I'm from long chains mean hes going to wrap around under water logs, stumps, you name it , real nite mare, when you got a drowned beaver on a long chain wrapped up in deep water, wish we had some of them open banks like him.

[ScottW]

I'm a front foot man myself and I don't see that changing any time soon. When I started trapping all I had for beaver traps were #3 LS's. I would say in my couple yrs. when I was relegated to them and a couple #4 jumps I had probably an 80-90% catch ratio. I later got some #4 LS's and they are currently for sale if anyone wants them because I believe they are best served as a wall hanger when it comes to using them for beaver! Even now when i've graduated to the MB's, and CDR's I still target front foot catches due primarily to water depth for drowning. With these biggger traps you don't need to be quite as fussy with guiding and fencing as compared to say a #3 ls.

I think it mainly comes down to the guiding though. I try to set on a bank or shore where if a beaver is swimming and smells the castor there is only one EASY place for him to come up on the bank. That being if it's all tall grass or sticks and stuff, I clear a little couple foot wide area that looks pleasing and within that I use a combination of sticks and/or grass to guide their front side into about an 8 inch trough sort of coming into shore. With the smaller traps I always used "poke sticks" sticking from the shore out toward the water directly over the shore side jaws so they hit the poke sticks and put their feet down right on the pan. Usually 3-4 pencil sized sticks.

I could add more, but I'm sick of typing. I stand by these methods and in the last few yrs. since I began with the MB's (which I now use exclusively because I've come to like their setup and their catch ratio much better than the CDR's) and CDR's I haven't had even a dozen traps snapped that didn't have beaver in them. Don't get me wrong, if the shore doens't present a spot for this type of set, or if it's plenty deep, I will set for a back foot catch. Oh, forgot to mention, my front foot setups are usually set about 2-4 inches deep.

Happy trapping. ScottW

[Steve Gappa]

Yes and its the same with the back foot so why not the back foot.

I don't set slides, and to make rear foot depths at feeding areas or cutouts, I'd have to dig it out- so why bother when a front foot works as well.

I'm not saying either has a superiority over the other- but I won't say my way doesn't work well when it does. Its habit and no more important than setting a canine trap close or back.

Agreed ScottW

[foxtrapperwoman]

I was talking to a guy today who has very little beaver trapping experience, he got 1 in an MB750 hind leg and drowned ok, but beaver #2 got front footed and twisted off. I think he said he set the trap for the 2nd beaver deeper than he had done before with beaver 1. He had already tried 330's and the beavers were shy of them. The farmers will be tearing the dam out soon, will see if rebuilt. If it is, theres this other guy who wanted to trap them LOL, and see how he does with a 3 footed beaver if it survives being footed. We can't use snares in this county in MD, so its footholds and conis only. This 2nd guy is also not very experienced, same level as me perhaps. I set 1 MB750 last season but the beavers were already wiped out except migrants and they all got stuck in 330's instead. I have been lucky so far that all the beavers I have fiddled with were not coni shy.

[kyboy]

I set for either and have a almost 0% miss rate. I first dig out a trap bed. I set the trap right up next to the bank offset slightly. I surround the trap with a ridge of mud. Its that simple. Beaver has to put his front feet down to walk into the trap. The main reason I do this was missing beaver that worked the set from behind. They would flatten the mound, tuck their front feet in and swim right over the deep set trap. Sign was obvious to tell. All you have to do is make the beaver put his front feet down. When he breast out he will do so. I set all my beaver like this and have only had a snapped trap once in the last two seasons. I use mb750's, CDR's mostly. I havent had a twist off in over two years, even then it was from a beaver getting hung up in a root ball under water I didnt see. This is with a catch rate of about 50/50 front and back feet over a "lot" of beaver. If the bank is two steep Ill dig off a shelf and set deep but other than that I see no need. It really comes down to what works best for you. I have found this method works best for me.

[CoonDuke]

We had 3 beavers yesterday, 2 were by the back foot. Two beavers today and both were by the back foot.

Many of our sets are either at slides or points of islands. We dig out a notch at both type locations and set the trap back in the notch. Some are made with a fake castor mound, some just some lure on a stick. It seems with the steep banks and cutouts, we are getting the back feet.

Shag is right. The downstream points of the islands usually have tracks or a castor mound there...

[Steve Gappa]

I agree kyboy- either works well. On my type of streams, I find it quick and easy to make sets designed for the front feet- but I'll take either. I'm with Bobmaster in that I'm sold on castor sets more often than not. Simple and you bring the beaver to the easier setting locations.

I quit setting slides becasue I did get a lot of misses.

[Freak( Jim V.)]

Shag knows his beaver!

[BK]

CoonDuck, those beaver are so dumb they think at the downstream side of an island there is another watershed entering the river.
That's what triggers the castor mound response, just like where a creek dumps in.
Here I can use 330's if they are half way under the water, I only use foot traps under the ice.

[trappnman]

shag might know beaver, but he doesn't know how to act on a forum. And because "he knows beaver" doesn't give him the right to call other's methods wrong or piss poor. At 28, he doesn't quite know it all.

[ColdSteel]

I am no leghold beaver man at all.I own only 6 MB 750's and use them mostly with beaver at dam breaks when other sets are hard to find and too much walking.I have had much better luck setting back targeting for the back foot bu twhenever possible screw the long cables weights sand bags and risk of pullouts and misses.A 330 is a beaver killing machine and 95% of the time I can kill him in it plus I have 72 hour trap checks on the 330 so I will stick with the simple mehtod