
Fiver,
It's a good thing. I'd figured on taking (and bid) this contract for about 25 beaver. The one above makes 14 and it was caught coming into the lower end of the contract, from a small river this all empties into. I've been moving water for 5 days and the dams haven't been repaired at all. That means I've most likely caught what was here. One of the reasons I'm not likely to take that many beaver is it appears the area has been heavily predated by wolves. Look at the pictures and you'll see there are only three yearling beaver of the fourteen caught. There should be 4-9 yearlings for each adult female! The area has no deer tracks anywhere, wolf crap everywhere, and short steep banks around most of the ponds. The wolves have learned to lay on the tops of the hills adjacent to these type ponds, watch the beaver work popple on the sides of the banks, then catch them before they get back to the water. Young beaver don't stand a chance out running a wolf. Pretty easy pickings for a wolf. Good for me, because I bid per contract, not per head on this type contract. Usually the other way around, like a contract I bid last spring at @ 60 beaver and ended up at 87, with 47 dams to boot!

No explosives allowed on this contract, so this is how I tear them out. Start at the bottom by removing the sticks, then chop out the clay and allow just enough water over spillway to keep the clay chunks moving. Then tear out the spillway enough to clean the loose mud off the face of the dam. Stand in the spillway and rake/pry any additional chunks of clay out to the original depth of waterway. When I get to rock/sand I'm done.

This is what it should look like when I'm done. The large lumps out in the middle are large rocks. I'm standing on the main dam when I took the picture here, which is my next project, and will account for most of the water in this pond. I did the same to the lower dam of the other ponds today also but left my camera at my wheeler.
If you go back up and look at the picture of the first dam I'm using for a control next to the road/trail, the dam pictured in the background is the one I opened today. The control dam was not running at all when I got there this morning. Draining the second dam barely had any water going through the control dam when I left. The road is in good shape with no overflow, nor chance of washing it out. It's cheaper to hire me than have a hoe sitting here watching the water drain, and I can catch the beaver. LOL Put in bids on another 13 rice lake projects this morning on the way to this project. Should get word on them within a week.