My Office Today

Rally

NC Minnesota
Or you could take a section of known area, clip a know number of hairs and weigh them. Them clip the remaining hair and weigh it. Calculate hairs count based on weight per hair.
You go right ahead, I'm just going to go catch some more! LOL
 
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Rally

NC Minnesota
A XXXX Stetson takes 4 beaver .

I learnt stuff here .
In the case of Stetson each X is one beaver pelt .
That was true at one time, but now they came up with a formula that translates into the actual weight of the felt, made from the beaver. At one time the weight used to include the weight of the leather also, or some such. There is a video of the process on utube I heard, if interested.
 

Rally

NC Minnesota
If you keep catching the #'s of beaver you are. You will have that new hat in no time. How many beaver does it take to make a hat?
Kevin,
The number of pelts used in a hat depends on the style of hat and general appearance of the finished product. I have Trooper style hats made, with fairly long neck pieces on them to keep snow off my neck, and use a trimmed pieces, from the side of the beaver to go on the inside of the ear flaps. The back hair on beaver is quite long and will get in your ears if used full length on the inside flaps of the hat, but when folded up, with the chin ties tied up, they should appear to match the rest of the hat, which is made from the back section of the beaver, and has to be positioned so the hair lays from front to rear on the top and side pieces. You could use the belly section of the beaver on the ear flaps, but then they don't look to match the back sections full length, but the belly pieces are quite soft with no long guard hairs. Lots of folks just use a quilted, or felt liner in the hats and cut them shorter in the back and never fold them up. Kind of like a stocking/Swede cap with chin ties.
You can actually make one shallow Trooper style hat out of a 60" beaver hide if your not picky how it looks, by just using the belly pieces on the outside and back sections of the ear flaps. The folks that sew them have patterns for both styles and I add Leather bills on mine with beaver tails on top and bottom of the bill. If sewn and cut correctly the lengths blend together quite well, and the direction of the fur is correct so it doesn't pack snow/dirt into the fur while on the snowmo or out in the wind. Fur direction also helps the fur maintain it's loft, which holds heat.
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This is a hat I had made to go over a face mask, made out of "Copper Beaver" (shines like a new penny when out in the sun). It just has a leather bull with laced edge for traction, to get ahold of it with mittens on. In fact, the beaver to make it came form about half way between you and I. A run of "Copper Beaver" I got into in the Longville area. The beaver get lighter in color the closer I get your way, redder with thicker leather in the Bemidji area (Birch Beaver).
 
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Rally

NC Minnesota
Tough day yesterday. We are having a big meltdown and daytime temps forecast above freezing most of next week. Snomo about beat me to death running over hummocks on what used to be my trail, and sure didn’t do the snomo any good either. Hated to do it after all the work getting in there, but pulled all the line except five houses I can get to via my wheeler. I’ll have to finish trapping the ditches/ north part of this line via canoe, when the ice goes.
Got another three yesterday, and it seems the weather has the beaver as confused as the weather pattern. We normally have another full 4-6 weeks of full ice conditions, but not looking like we will this year.4888220E-90FE-4ABF-988E-8AE27685CB2F.jpeg54F2EB94-AF98-4230-8D43-182FDED3BBE9.jpeg
This ^^ is house ten and got another nice dark one there yesterday. Note all the water forming around the holes and low spots, makes working around the holes kinda soggy.
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This ^^ is house 11 and 12, where I got another big beaver yesterday. Had to pull these two houses, and won't be back here. These are really not on the contract, but in the middle of two contracts, the one I'm doing now and one I did two springs ago.
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This ^^ is one of many cave ins along the way on the ditches. Dark bottoms and moving water are first to open up. I ran over two spots that caved in as I went over them, I can just feel them sag as I drive over and look behind me to see open spots with floating ice chunks! Adds some to the pucker factor. That's my new track to the left, but I've driven over that spot at least four times and now it's opened up.
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This ^^ is house #6 and caught another one there. I had doubts about this house when I set it up originally because there was no visible feed pile nor fresh chewing visible above the snow. Notice now how bad the ice is sagging and how visible the feed pile is with overflow water all around the house. Few warms day with that dark bottom and sunshine, all those dark areas will be open water in about a week if forecast is correct. Would be real interesting walking around this house then. It's not deep but still plenty cold.
 
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Kevin Stenberg

Well-Known Member
If your temps were anything like ours. You will be totally on the ATV from now on. Highs almost 50 light breeze no clouds. In just 2 days the lakes went from snow covered to standing water.
This is my best time of the year for fishing sunfish.
 

Rally

NC Minnesota
If your temps were anything like ours. You will be totally on the ATV from now on. Highs almost 50 light breeze no clouds. In just 2 days the lakes went from snow covered to standing water.
This is my best time of the year for fishing sunfish.
Yep, and the contract is 78 miles SE of me! I unloaded the snomo, and don't figure to need it anymore. Way too early. You may need to drag a boat out on the ice to fish pretty soon!! LOL
 

Rally

NC Minnesota
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Remember that pond I trapped and opened up late October early November? This is standing on the dam looking South.
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This ^^ is taken from the same spot looking West. All that material is what the beaver dug up and deposited on the road/ trail. The house is just visible top, just a little left of center in pic. Had to drive by it today with wheeler to get the last five houses pulled.
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This ^^ is house two, rotten ice all around and all the poles laying down or the beaver caught had pulled the pole under the ice completely, but the safety poles and cable allows me to retrieve the whole rig. The long pole pictured is the safety pole between the two green poles, which are the bait sticks that the snares are on. Two bait poles, both anchored on the same safety pole keeps the beaver from taking off with the whole rig when the holes don't freeze shut, like in this case.
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This ^^ is just a close up of the beaver caught at house #2. Pulled it over to the wheeler to untangle and get away from the rotten ice around the house. Nice big male.
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House #4 ^^and another nice beaver there. Ice here was really bad, note position of the other bait pole leaning over. The ice between where my ice chisel is sticking up and the house is just about open also. Note the air bubbles under the ice to the area left of my chisel, that's why the ice goes out so fast around the beaver lodges. The air/ gas collects there as the ice settles, so it's always iffy around the houses no matter the temps. I walked out on that safety pole to get the pole the beaver was caught on, because the beaver was tangled up on some brush under the ice. It was fairly windy and the wind was making small ripples in the open water while I fished that beaver out of there. Every time I pulled on the safety cable the ice would sink a bit and make a slight wave!! Finally had to back away from the hole and just pull the whole rig up from safer ice.
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This ^^ is that big house I found and set last. Big beaver there today. Note the bait pole to the right, with snares still attached. The beaver still there had peeled the bark completely off that pole and cut a chunk off about 24" long! I'm guessing there are still some beaver there. LOL
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Same house from a distance. I drove my snomo all the way around this house last Saturday. Note top center at wood line, is as close as I dare drive my 4wheeler today. I was standing to the right of where that beaver is laying, last Saturday. Doesn't take much sun with these dark bottom bog ponds to open them up pretty fast. It also rained on me most of the way out, then started turning to snow the closer I got to home. Wife heard 6-10" forecast for tonight into tomorrow, but they were forecasting 2-4 yesterday, so who knows. I know I'm not likely to be able to get on the ice anymore this year, in fact, with the rain and snow over flowing the rivers and creeks, that country could open up in just a few more days.
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Ended up with another three beaver. Yammi (my Yamaha Big Bear 400) got a workout today. Sloppy snow where the sun couldn't reach and mud where it could. I got everything pulled and will be back down there as soon as it either opens up or freezes again.
 
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Rally

NC Minnesota
Rally, how deep is the water around the houses?
That depends, but roughly in bog ponds from 4-10'. Also varies with water supply in the winter, as tributaries freeze, and pond ice sinks. On lakes here, water can run up to 60 feet deep, but beaver houses are usually at the entrances or outlets of the lakes where water can be @ 15' deep. Lake water levels are usually quite stable throughout the year, so ice tends to be solid and stable. Not so much in the bogs and rivers, where varying tributaries and snow load change all the time. Bogs are really vegetation that floats and change with the snow load, and so does the ice thickness, especially in spring fed bogs. Some of those springs will stay open, or just have crusts on them after a week of -40 temps, because the minnows flock there and fan the water, where oxygen content is stable. In a hard winter here, many of the shallow bog ponds will have winter killed the minnows/ fish, due to lack of oxygen. Some winters when I cut holes like these, to trap beaver, when I return, the holes are full of frozen minnows, or still full of live minnows, so numerous, they keep the holes open for me. I don't have any problem finding Crappie bait.
 

Rally

NC Minnesota
Nope, been there, done that, got the T-shirt. DNR doesn't want anybody catching THEIR minnows and the natives have all the Shiner permits now.
 

Rally

NC Minnesota
Been awhile and I've been running crazy keeping up. Back at the contract and been in there about two weeks now. I've taken 69 beaver out of there so far and may take that many again before I'm done. The weather has been a nightmare, rain, snow, warm day, rain, snow again, freezes some nights etc. I am getting around by canoe at some series of ponds and have a canoe stashed mid contract which I get to via the wheeler. It's 78 miles from home to the contract where I get on the wheeler, but I am storing the wheeler at a friends cabin, where I'm trapping his ground also. His cabin is only three miles from where I get on the wheeler, so saves me a bunch of dragging the trailer around, and I can have a canoe on my truck to use at other locations. I'm trapping 9 locations now and got three more county and one township job to add today, so will have 13 spots working. I'm putting up my beaver now, at least until they start shedding out, which won't be much longer now. It doesn't make any sense to tan poor quality beaver and there really isn't a fur market currently for fur.
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This ^^ pic was taken about ten days ago, and is the far NE end of the forestry road on the contract. The beaver have used the road for a base for their dam and completely flooded it.
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This ^^ is the same road four days ago, after removing 7 beaver, opening the dam, and cutting the top out of the Popular tree the beaver had dropped on the road. I drove my wheeler through there two days ago to access a pond behind/ attached to this one. Most of the water had drained two days ago. There is no culvert here, but will be when the road project is done.
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These next couple pics are a few dams I removed yesterday from a county ditch, which the beaver have water backed up for over four miles, and drains a well populated lake, with many nice lake homes.
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This ^^ is the same ditch, different dam. Note the pieces of floating bog in it's construction!
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This ^^ is a piece of that bog (right center) floating downstream, which I was standing next to as it broke loose!! It literally started pushing on me while I was standing in the water next to it crotch deep in a pair of chest waders.
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This ^^ is the same dam when I was done working on it. Dramatic increase in water flow.
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This ^^ is a cedar log I had to cut out to get the depth I wanted. I dug under the log to get the water washing away the sand under it the first trip in, then cut the log out with a chainsaw second trip in. Worked out quite well and didn't ruin a chain cutting sand, like it when a plan works out.
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This ^^ is the last dam on the same ditch, actually part of the original river. It's hard to see in the picture, but the dam was V shaped and quite porous. It consisted of large chucks of water logged bog and small rotten sticks. I flooded it by removing the dams upstream from it, then just started picking at the point of the V. Only took about 15 minutes and the chunks of bog started washing out.
Had to make three posts to get all the pictures in.
 
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Rally

NC Minnesota
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This ^^ is another location I'm trapping now. It's a snowmobile trail with a bridge over what used to be a small creek, this is looking almost North.
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This ^^ is same spot looking South. Note the beaver have built the full length of the bridge and it's about 8 feet deep. Note the missing material from the face of the dam closest to the camera. That's how much material a backhoe can reach without wrecking the bridge, and they can't blow it out without ruining the bridge Note the fresh mud on the bridge, closest to the camera and the flat grass on the downstream side where the water flattened it once the hoe had the water flowing, temporarily. Beaver patched it overnight!!
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These ^^ are my first day check of the six traps I set there when they called me.:cool: Back there tomorrow
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This ^^ is a beaver dam cross over from one pond to the next. This is about as close as it gets to perfect for a trap/ snare location.
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Seven ^^ I caught yesterday.
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This ^^ is a pretty nice beaver I nailed on a board to dry today. It's a "Blanket" beaver, the next line out on the board is a "super Blanket". The board measures 32" x 48"
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This ^^ is a dam I dug out a couple days ago. Real pain, just about solid sod from years of being there. The willow roots in it didn't help any either!
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Another ^^ I dug out a couple days ago. I'm hoping those pieces of bog on the face of the dam stay where they are. There are several upstream also, so I may have to dig out out there tomorrow if they break loose before the water receding settles them in place.
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Lots of Canada Geese nesting here now. ^^
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This ^^ is where I have my canoe stashed in the middle three lakes on my contract. Interesting canoeing through rotten brush.
 
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Rally

NC Minnesota
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Second pond where I have the canoe^^. Not a single beaver in the first two ponds in the chain of three except in the third pond, which has two active houses, but I've taken seven beaver out of there so far. Going back there in two days and remove the three dams.
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This ^^ is how I get my canoes back in the brush on the contract. When I pull the dams on the three pond location I'll be moving the canoe to another flowage with two ponds on it. Yamaha Big Bear 400. Good machine for what I do.
 
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trapper9260

Active Member
You got your work cut out for you Rally , some of the place looks when I use to trap for rats back in MA by canoe for all you need to go through to set your traps. That was many years ago now. Just that there was no beaver dams around there at the time. it was rivers and brooks I was in . That is a nice beaver you got on the board. Nice to see your posting.
 

Rally

NC Minnesota
love the canoe carrier, bet you didn't pick it up at the wal-mart.
Not an in-store purchase for sure. Like everything else, I had to make it. Comes off by removing 6 nuts, and I usually leave it where the canoe is. Going to be moving the canoe tomorrow after pulling three dams.
If I were doing that kinda stuff I'd depend on hand grenades and dynamite. But then the beaver would rot on the bottom.
I can get explosive certified, but can't afford the insurance. Lords of London will insure me, but starts at 7K!

Got one canoe spot pulled today and set up five new spots. I'm in three corners of one county and EC part of another county now. Was setting up the final spot at about 6 and the foreman from the NE part of the county calls and he has 3 new spots for me to set up too!
 

L Ross

Well-Known Member
Not an in-store purchase for sure. Like everything else, I had to make it. Comes off by removing 6 nuts, and I usually leave it where the canoe is. Going to be moving the canoe tomorrow after pulling three dams.

I can get explosive certified, but can't afford the insurance. Lords of London will insure me, but starts at 7K!

Got one canoe spot pulled today and set up five new spots. I'm in three corners of one county and EC part of another county now. Was setting up the final spot at about 6 and the foreman from the NE part of the county calls and he has 3 new spots for me to set up too!
Just a thought. I have friends that work for MNDOT and they are explosive certified to blow dams. Could it be possible to have insurance coverage extended to you by agencies your are doing beaver remediation for, such as Counties?