My Office Today
- Thread starter Rally
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L Ross
Well-Known Member
Are you implying you've never done that?Difficult to see with a crappy phone.
I gotta ask, is that romex wire?
I'm never gettin rid of old garden hose again.
Made mine. Good project.
Rally
NC Minnesota
Paul,
Sounds like your doing alright trapping. I don't plan on marketing any fur until April/May. Should have a better idea of demand and prices by that time. I'll be using all snares under ice, pretty rare for me to use anything but, under ice, except maybe to get my last three Otter. Just trying to catch up on snare orders now.
Ian,
Nice shop, and whom ever poured that floor knows what they are doing. Up here they would have put in at least four floor drains to get rid of all the water/snow melt from cars. I suppose you could leave the doors open for 20 minutes and dry the floor! LOL
Jim,
The air isn't always great. Some of the beaver ponds I chop holes in have some serious "digestion" issues! The gas traps under the ice and expels when I chop/cut holes in it, about knock you out it smells so bad.
Sounds like your doing alright trapping. I don't plan on marketing any fur until April/May. Should have a better idea of demand and prices by that time. I'll be using all snares under ice, pretty rare for me to use anything but, under ice, except maybe to get my last three Otter. Just trying to catch up on snare orders now.
Ian,
Nice shop, and whom ever poured that floor knows what they are doing. Up here they would have put in at least four floor drains to get rid of all the water/snow melt from cars. I suppose you could leave the doors open for 20 minutes and dry the floor! LOL
Jim,
The air isn't always great. Some of the beaver ponds I chop holes in have some serious "digestion" issues! The gas traps under the ice and expels when I chop/cut holes in it, about knock you out it smells so bad.
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Now that I live further from a town, I do dig a bit deeper into my jerryrig bag.
Next time split loom is called for, that sun baked sticky brittle, stinky garden hose is staying in the garbage though.
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trapper9260
Active Member
Rally years ago I had went to a NTA convention and there was a guy from the UP , I talk with about beaver trapping and he talk about the use of snares under ice and I wanted to know how to do it so he took the time and explain it to me and then when I use it i change how I put the snare on the pole to make it easy for me. It works and the interesting part you mainly get the hard to get ones easy. for how I done it i did not need to know where there den is . I did use 330 on them only on the edge where they show where they are going if I find it . Otherwise snares on a pole works the best for me when I done it. Oh I did caught myself a bobcat , since this part of Iowa dose not have a bobcat season yet I had the Game Warden help me to let it go . It was a nice big one. Had no problems with letting it go, I caught it in my coyote set in a foothold.
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trapper9260
Active Member
No he was a guy about my height and built and he worked for the logging company up there and done logging in the off trapping season and then trap for the logging company. I do not remember where in the UP he was from .
Rally
NC Minnesota
Drove 74.6 miles today to start one of my beaver contracts. Truck loaded, everything I needed, nice weather, good snow conditions, and even brought the right clothes. Unloaded the snowmo, cut three popple for bait sticks, did a little scouting in the area to give a better report to the forester I'm doing the contract for. Got to the first beaver house, cut two holes in the ice with the chainsaw, and the roller tip on the chainsaw bar siezed up!!!! Nearest place to buy a replacement is like 42 miles away, and a garage dealer, with prices to match. So home I went after setting two poles. Then to Grand Rapids where I spent $160 for two replacement bars, two chains, and two gallons of bar and chain oil. Some days it's just better to sleep late!
If you look at the picture posted below of the beaver house, under the leaning tree, is what we call a chimney. It's where all the heat from an active beaver house vents, and forms crystals from the heat escaping. Best way to tell if the house is active. If you look farther to the right there is a smaller feeder house also. There is a second house the size of the one pictured on the pond but it has been abandoned.
This is what I'll call House 1, same as above but from the other side. I went back Friday with a working saw, and set up a couple more houses. Had to spend some time looking at a private contract, where the landowner has been trapping beaver all summer to save his driveway. I just went in and looked at the area on the snomo and the beaver houses (2) were both dead, so he evidently caught the right beaver.
I ended up setting five snare poles at house #1, two on East side and three on West side. Only enough water under the ice to have two snares per pole, so will be tough going for a while. That doesn't leave a lot of room for the beaver to swim around and get caught, so doable just harder than a pole with four or six snares. May end up just snaring the runs coming out of the house, but if you notice the dirty snow, where the chainsaw is running in muskeg, gives you an idea how shallow it is here. Just in front of my snomo is the dam, which meanders around through this swamp for about 300 yards. Note the groomed snomo trail my snomo is sitting on. Groomers don't like running over beaver ponds because ice thickness varies and the groomers don't swim well! Just this one house at this stop, load up snomo, then 8 miles to main contract.
This is my first stop at the main contract, I'll call it house #2. This is a bog pond the beaver have formed by using the forestry road as a base for their dam, and is actually holding about 1.5 square miles of water. I took 5 beaver out of here two summers ago, closer to the forestry road, so the beaver moved back in the pond and built this new house . Note the depression in lower right of picture. That is the main run coming out of the house, and where I put down two poles. The ice was so thin up by the house i could just drop my chisel on it and it went right through. Got to be careful around beaver houses, no matter the temps. Also note the taper of the ice from the edge of the house out into the pond. This is caused by the ice sinking throughout the pond. As winter progresses, the tributaries all freeze and contribute little to no water to the pond depth, so the snow load on the ice sinks. This is important when your walking around beaver houses late winter, because the house supports the ice around it and air pockets form up next to the house, which leaves air voids, and whatever thickness the ice was, as the ice water level drops under the ice. This pond like many this time of year when I chop a hole in it, will blow a geizer (SP)of trapped air out for a bit when first opened, and it stinks pretty bad on some ponds. Set a total of four poles at this house.
This is house #3 and house #4 was about 80 yards to the East on the same pond, but I forgot to take pictures of #4. Note the pole standing in center of pic, with six snares on the pole (3 on each side or 3 sets of two). The pole is Poplar and is the bait/attractant, which the beaver swims around in an attempt to chew/ eat the pole and gets entangled in the snares. Note the slot cut in the ice, which is where I lower the pole down through the ice and it sets on the bottom. When it gets to the bottom I turn the pole 90 degrees in the slot, so the snares on the top of the pole are pointing to and away from the house. Also note the bark has been removed off the bait poles under each snare, and is where the beaver will start to cut the pole first, which just happens to be where the snares are. Also note a "safety cable" (hanging off top left of pole), which goes through a loop on each snare end, then wrapped on pole between each row of snares, then the safety cable is secured to the pole laying on top of the ice, like the pole pictured closest to the house. The snares have a nail incorporated in their design (mine) that holds them in place on the pole, just long enough for the snare lock to set, then the beaver pulls the snare off the pole and goes down the pole, so it drowns away from the bottom of the ice, and not, frozen to the bottom of the ice. Most often, if there are beaver still remaining in the beaver colony, those beaver will eat all the bait pole, so when I return to check the sets, I'm retrieving just the safety cable, snares, and any beaver caught in the set. It's easier to rebuild a new pole, than to strip a partially chewed pole, and then build a new pole to remake the set, and also tells me there are still beaver in the colony. I usually take a limb/stick at each house, stand it up near my sets and chop a notch in that stick each time I catch a beaver from that colony, so I know what I've taken out of each colony. Usually works well, but hard to tell for sure how many beaver are at such colonies when Wolf predation has been ongoing, like in this area. The chimneys will also freeze over when I've caught all the beaver. I set four poles at house #3 and two at house #4.
This ^^ is house #5, a bog pond that is hourglass shaped. I was standing in the center West when I took the picture. Note the drop in water depth at the dam, about 18" of dam face showing, which means the dam itself is pretty porous, or the otter have bored a hole in the dam to get out somewhere below the ice. I set only two poles here because I couldn't find much for bait poles like I wanted to use, poor selection of Tag Alder or too old Birch. It was getting late, I'd spent too much time looking around the private contract location, and I didn't want to be getting out in the dark, so this was the last house I set. I got a decent trail cut coming in here, the next pond is about 400 yards beyond the dam on this pond, which opens up to a series of ponds then to a system of drainage ditches. I'll drag some good green popple in tomorrow for bait poles, and hopefully better going than to get into this pond. I checked on a pond on the way out that was dead, so I don't have to go there anymore either, which makes forming a loop for the line a bunch easier. Pictured below is the kind of stuff I'm going to be running in at parts of this contract. Tag Alder swamps, mixed in areas of swamp grass and cattails. Enough snow for a soft ride, but a bunch of Tag Alder and Willow in the way. Hardest part is always getting trails made, then I can bring my sled in with the snomo and smooth it out some.
If you look at the picture posted below of the beaver house, under the leaning tree, is what we call a chimney. It's where all the heat from an active beaver house vents, and forms crystals from the heat escaping. Best way to tell if the house is active. If you look farther to the right there is a smaller feeder house also. There is a second house the size of the one pictured on the pond but it has been abandoned.
This is what I'll call House 1, same as above but from the other side. I went back Friday with a working saw, and set up a couple more houses. Had to spend some time looking at a private contract, where the landowner has been trapping beaver all summer to save his driveway. I just went in and looked at the area on the snomo and the beaver houses (2) were both dead, so he evidently caught the right beaver.
I ended up setting five snare poles at house #1, two on East side and three on West side. Only enough water under the ice to have two snares per pole, so will be tough going for a while. That doesn't leave a lot of room for the beaver to swim around and get caught, so doable just harder than a pole with four or six snares. May end up just snaring the runs coming out of the house, but if you notice the dirty snow, where the chainsaw is running in muskeg, gives you an idea how shallow it is here. Just in front of my snomo is the dam, which meanders around through this swamp for about 300 yards. Note the groomed snomo trail my snomo is sitting on. Groomers don't like running over beaver ponds because ice thickness varies and the groomers don't swim well! Just this one house at this stop, load up snomo, then 8 miles to main contract.
This is my first stop at the main contract, I'll call it house #2. This is a bog pond the beaver have formed by using the forestry road as a base for their dam, and is actually holding about 1.5 square miles of water. I took 5 beaver out of here two summers ago, closer to the forestry road, so the beaver moved back in the pond and built this new house . Note the depression in lower right of picture. That is the main run coming out of the house, and where I put down two poles. The ice was so thin up by the house i could just drop my chisel on it and it went right through. Got to be careful around beaver houses, no matter the temps. Also note the taper of the ice from the edge of the house out into the pond. This is caused by the ice sinking throughout the pond. As winter progresses, the tributaries all freeze and contribute little to no water to the pond depth, so the snow load on the ice sinks. This is important when your walking around beaver houses late winter, because the house supports the ice around it and air pockets form up next to the house, which leaves air voids, and whatever thickness the ice was, as the ice water level drops under the ice. This pond like many this time of year when I chop a hole in it, will blow a geizer (SP)of trapped air out for a bit when first opened, and it stinks pretty bad on some ponds. Set a total of four poles at this house.
This is house #3 and house #4 was about 80 yards to the East on the same pond, but I forgot to take pictures of #4. Note the pole standing in center of pic, with six snares on the pole (3 on each side or 3 sets of two). The pole is Poplar and is the bait/attractant, which the beaver swims around in an attempt to chew/ eat the pole and gets entangled in the snares. Note the slot cut in the ice, which is where I lower the pole down through the ice and it sets on the bottom. When it gets to the bottom I turn the pole 90 degrees in the slot, so the snares on the top of the pole are pointing to and away from the house. Also note the bark has been removed off the bait poles under each snare, and is where the beaver will start to cut the pole first, which just happens to be where the snares are. Also note a "safety cable" (hanging off top left of pole), which goes through a loop on each snare end, then wrapped on pole between each row of snares, then the safety cable is secured to the pole laying on top of the ice, like the pole pictured closest to the house. The snares have a nail incorporated in their design (mine) that holds them in place on the pole, just long enough for the snare lock to set, then the beaver pulls the snare off the pole and goes down the pole, so it drowns away from the bottom of the ice, and not, frozen to the bottom of the ice. Most often, if there are beaver still remaining in the beaver colony, those beaver will eat all the bait pole, so when I return to check the sets, I'm retrieving just the safety cable, snares, and any beaver caught in the set. It's easier to rebuild a new pole, than to strip a partially chewed pole, and then build a new pole to remake the set, and also tells me there are still beaver in the colony. I usually take a limb/stick at each house, stand it up near my sets and chop a notch in that stick each time I catch a beaver from that colony, so I know what I've taken out of each colony. Usually works well, but hard to tell for sure how many beaver are at such colonies when Wolf predation has been ongoing, like in this area. The chimneys will also freeze over when I've caught all the beaver. I set four poles at house #3 and two at house #4.
This ^^ is house #5, a bog pond that is hourglass shaped. I was standing in the center West when I took the picture. Note the drop in water depth at the dam, about 18" of dam face showing, which means the dam itself is pretty porous, or the otter have bored a hole in the dam to get out somewhere below the ice. I set only two poles here because I couldn't find much for bait poles like I wanted to use, poor selection of Tag Alder or too old Birch. It was getting late, I'd spent too much time looking around the private contract location, and I didn't want to be getting out in the dark, so this was the last house I set. I got a decent trail cut coming in here, the next pond is about 400 yards beyond the dam on this pond, which opens up to a series of ponds then to a system of drainage ditches. I'll drag some good green popple in tomorrow for bait poles, and hopefully better going than to get into this pond. I checked on a pond on the way out that was dead, so I don't have to go there anymore either, which makes forming a loop for the line a bunch easier. Pictured below is the kind of stuff I'm going to be running in at parts of this contract. Tag Alder swamps, mixed in areas of swamp grass and cattails. Enough snow for a soft ride, but a bunch of Tag Alder and Willow in the way. Hardest part is always getting trails made, then I can bring my sled in with the snomo and smooth it out some.
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fiver
Well-Known Member
I've been watching a trapping show on the sportsmans channel, they do a lot of advertising for their products, but they show a lot of trap setting and emptying.
anyway just watching that show has taught me a lot about what your talking about, and giving me a better grasp on how/where you'd set a trap, and what that trap would look like.
anyway just watching that show has taught me a lot about what your talking about, and giving me a better grasp on how/where you'd set a trap, and what that trap would look like.
trapper9260
Active Member
Rally you have your work cut out for you. I know what you mean for how it went for you . I had some like that. Hope it work out for you to get the job done . Hope get better for you. Nice to see your post.
Rally
NC Minnesota
Paul,
Always something it seems "The best laid plans of mice and men". I'd rather just be doing the large contracts, easier to plan and execute, but when they find out I'm going to be in the area, I get the private stuff too. Hate to turn it down, because they are decent folks with a problem, but really a nuisance during periods of short daylight hours. Load and unload snomo and different locations takes time, and it isn't like the secondary roads are plowed. Hate running in brush in the dark, but when I get trails cut in, it gets a bunch easier, and less to worry about. Should be down there today but we have a family get together at my youngest daughters. My oldest daughter is up here from KC for a couple days. Nice weather forecast for next week or so, and I'll get a bunch set up the next week. Found a good market for my beaver carcasses so that helps.
Always something it seems "The best laid plans of mice and men". I'd rather just be doing the large contracts, easier to plan and execute, but when they find out I'm going to be in the area, I get the private stuff too. Hate to turn it down, because they are decent folks with a problem, but really a nuisance during periods of short daylight hours. Load and unload snomo and different locations takes time, and it isn't like the secondary roads are plowed. Hate running in brush in the dark, but when I get trails cut in, it gets a bunch easier, and less to worry about. Should be down there today but we have a family get together at my youngest daughters. My oldest daughter is up here from KC for a couple days. Nice weather forecast for next week or so, and I'll get a bunch set up the next week. Found a good market for my beaver carcasses so that helps.
trapper9260
Active Member
Good that you have it work out ,I know it is not easy to run a line in the dark in the winter time for how it out there . good you got a market on the carcasses also , everything helps.