7 beaver and 3 coons! I only had the coon traps out 2 nights and beaver trapping this time of year is tough! The beaver just aren't moving due to the water being hot and they're feeding on vegetation in the water. I'm planning to break some dams in the morning to see if I can force them to move.

If all goes well I should have a couple coyote traps out sometime this weekend and can run them for 2 weeks.

Well I broke a couple beaver dams this afternoon. If they're still in these shallow ponds they'll have to do some work tonight. I left them a couple traps to stumble into while they work.


There are 17 of these short dams scattered over a mile so I've got plenty of work to do myself.

Empty traps again. No dam repairs last night and the water level was down 8 inches in the ditches. I cleaned the breaks out again this morning and cut them deeper. I'm going to do the same this afternoon and if nothing has been done overnight I'll be pulling traps out and sending the backhoe in to finish tearing these dams out.

My theory is there's no running water in these shallow ditches and the water temp has gotten so hot that the beavers have moved back into the creek.

You have sure enough got a mess on your hands with removing those dams.
What's your typical first step in removal when you decide to attack one of those things? Chainsaw? Hand to hand combat?
We have three surrounding a beaver pond at our place and it would be impossible to get any machinery in there such as a backhoe for removal. Just trying to get some ideas.

Tannite is what I would use!

What is tannite?

Either by hand or blow them up if you can't get equipment to them.

None of the dams had been repaired this morning so I pulled all my traps out of the area and hopefully the landowner can get a piece of equipment in there this week and save her timber.

Dad used to use dynamite. Tannerite could work I'd wait till the middle of the day while they are in the hut and blow them to pieces

One coon and one possum this morning. Doing some nuisance coon trapping for myself this week and should have a few coyote traps out next week.

It's tannerite, and its a store bought form of very stable explosive. They have it at Academy Sports last time I checked. It can only be set off by shooting it with a rifle.

The girls had one possum this morning in a live trap and said it has a pouch full of mouse size babies. Guess I'll have to deal with that this afternoon.

Nothing in the traps today but ants. I'm going to rebait everything tomorrow morning with shelled corn and see if maybe the ants will leave it alone long enough to catch.

I'm going to try a few coyote sets but the ants have me worried about working them too.

Another chufa eating nest robber gone!

Looks like better weather for ducks than coyotes the next 10 days. Bout to head out and see if I can punch in a few sets anyway.

Pretty sure it's illegal to trap coons in the summer. I wouldn't be posting these pics.

Thanks polywaug! I trap under a nuisance control permit from the state.

Rain every day in the 10 day forecast and high humidity made me put all my traps under the shed today. I am going to set up a small nuisance beaver job tomorrow so hopefully I'll still be posting a few catches.

Finally got a couple traps in the water this morning. 3 snares and 1 conibear on a nuisance job so hopefully a couple beaver pics this weekend.

Caught 1 beaver and stomped a poor old cottonmouth to death this morning.

nice Hank