Pennsylvania Game News - December 2010 - 9

ment, either. And neither frostbite nor heatstroke was too high on my list of lifetime achievements. Sure, I wanted to trap beavers. I also felt good about helping farmers and other folks deal with problems from these oversized rodents. I couldn’t afford to waste my time or physical energy on any given nuisance call, though, so I developed some key sets for beavers that were relatively fast and simple to make. As a WCO, when trapping nuisance beavers during the off-season, I liked to use snares because they enabled me to relocate the animal alive and unharmed. In winter months, during the open season as a furtaker, I often ran an extensive beaver trapline using 10x10-inch body-gripping traps with a method I named the indentation set. It’s been a good fur producer over the years, and I use it almost exclusively. While the indentation set is easy enough to construct by hand, most waterways have small channels cut into the bank that have either occurred naturally or have been formed by beavers crawling up on land. All you need do is locate one wide enough for your body-gripping trap that has sufficient room to secure your bait behind it. In the few minutes it takes to set your trap and place your bait, you’ll have one of the best beaver producers on any trapline. When setting for beaver, I always position my body gripping traps upside down, with the trigger forks bent into 90-degree angles so they look like a double “L.” This way the beaver has a clear, unobstructed view as he approaches the trap. Shy beavers are more likely to enter a body gripping trap if they can see the bait directly through the open jaws. The traps are also much easier to handle with the dog and trigger out of the way, because your hands can move freely over the jaws while submerging the trap in deep, murky water (be careful here because the safety hooks on each spring fall free when you flip the trap upside down). One of the tools I carry is a stout shovel for digging up small trees. It has a 4-foot
DECEMBER 2010

handle with a flat blade 12 inches long and 7 inches wide, and works great for carving out small sections of stream bank. When I can’t locate a natural indentation, I simply dig a channel 18 inches into the bank at the water’s edge, while keeping it just wide enough for my body-gripping trap. Then I stick a poplar sapling into water at the back of the indentation, peel off some bark strips for added attraction, and add a dab of castor to a dead stick above my bait. I then place a body-gripping trap at the mouth of the channel. This set is fine for trapping most beavers, but coaxing a shy beaver into a trap often requires a little more finesse. I have no doubts that the most difficult critter to lure into any trap is a beaver that has had its toes pinched in a foothold trap or had a body-gripper slam shut in its face. I’ve always been amazed at how they do the Jekyll and Hyde trick. You may have seen this, too. One minute Mr. Beaver is dumb as a stone and the next he’s suddenly some sort of super rodent with the uncanny ability to evade every one of your traps. When a beaver gets spooked, especially an old bachelor male, it might stay in its den for days, while the remaining population remains active, albeit avoiding your traps like the plague. I don’t know how they communicate with each other, but I’ve seen it take place enough times to know that it does happen. If a beaver watches another family member get caught, or even sees one dead in a trap (especially a body-gripping trap), the other beavers seem to wise up overnight. Hence, trappers should always take measures to prevent this from happening. And a good way to start is to keep traps away from the dam or lodge. Beavers spend a lot of time in these areas, thus they are much more
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Pennsylvania Game News - December 2010

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