Trapping three spots for a township. It's 97.8 miles round trip. Considerably warmer there than here or on my other contract which is 107 miles north round trip. Spot #1 for township is a small pond on the edge of town and junction of a set of RR tracks. Easy in and out with a small dam at the outlet ditch. Only problem is the amount of empty shotgun hulls laying along the RR grade. Caught one beaver there and it had shot in it when I skinned it. Pond only had two beaver to start with from the looks of the house and recent chewed trees. Did they shoot the other beaver or not, so I'm waiting for further activity and did my third check today with just one beaver caught and no repairs to the dam, which I partially tore out. Ice is iffy at best down there also.
Spot #2 is a drainage ditch used to drain a rice field and intersection of Minimum maintenance road. A broke down John Deere hoe there that has fresh truck and human tracks around it every time I go there. Obviously somebody is working on it but getting the wrong parts or can't fix it. It was being used to dig out the ditch and keep the culvert open until it broke down. Beaver has a small house on the bank across the ditch from the hoe where they couldn't reach it with the hoe. The beaver has no feed pile out in front of the house so hadn't been there too long or they dug it out before the hoe broke. Culvert is plugged under the road and the hoe had been trying to push a log through the culvert to open it up also sometime before it broke. Township supervisor told me the beaver rebuilt the dam in the culvert after they broke it out with the hoe and log, but nobody had been shooting at the beaver. Empty .22 shells and shotgun shells on the road!! I have snare poles set, conibear set in run coming out of the house and had three footholds set on the bank before it froze. No activity or evidence of the beaver still being there. Not enough snow to form a chimney on the top of the house to verify heat inside the house. I think there is a single beaver here ,still alive, but more than a little spooked at this time.
Spot #3 is a lake, shaped like an octopus, and surrounded with $3000,00.00 "cabins". One main outlet creek, that the beaver decided to dam, to raise the water level, so they could have easy access to a grove of poplar on county land. The beaver house is in the main lake on a prominent cattail/bog point. It's a big house, about 25' across the bottom and in fairly shallow water. In short, pretty easy trapping when I can get to it. Problem is, there isn't enough ice to get on it and cross the lake from where I have access, and the houses close to it are seasonal occupants. I get paid per beaver caught and mileage. This lake is my pay day when I can get on it. I've got traps set where they were cutting, but they aren't cutting now that there is thin ice. The feed pile out in front of the house is about 25' around roughly, so they aren't in need of any more food. Soooo, I drive down there and hope to catch a beaver and pray for -20 for a couple days. Of course all my buddies are calling and telling me how well they are doing pheasant hunting also!!!