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Post by Bill on Dec 7, 2012 8:56:54 GMT -5
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Post by twomoons on Dec 8, 2012 11:19:01 GMT -5
I think the difference is that Bill and Dean clean skinned their beaver so they didn't have to flesh them. In addition they wanted theirs prefectly round on the streacher boards. Dean, our friend was the tightest fellow there was and he would wet and streach a hid till he got a kit up to a blanket beaver. The fur buyer would hold them upp to the light abd read the prices through the hide! As to smell Dean smeled like castor and skunk from Nov 1 to January 15 every year!
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Post by Bill on Dec 9, 2012 9:04:52 GMT -5
Your right on how thin the hides got. ;D ;D ;D ;D As far as the smell went I never noticed at all. I do remember getting sent home to change my boots once due to the smell of my boots. Was checking my traps wearing my uniform boots and didn't have any thing else to wear. I miss running my trap line. Still have about 4 dozen #4 Montgomery traps and an assorted number of other traps. Sold the rest which consisted of a whole pickup load of traps to a guy I worked with. He didn't show up the next day after he picked the traps up and that was the last I heard of him. Tried to find him but he must of picked up the traps and went home and packed up and moved. Even the store was looking for him. I gave up looking and wrote it off and being stupid. Now when someone says they will pay me on payday I just tell them to leave it lay and pick it up when you get paid. Always have been a bit too trusting. Got all my conabear traps and coon traps and stretchers.
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Post by jabba on Dec 10, 2012 7:28:28 GMT -5
I ran traps when I was a kid... 1980 (ish). Back then you could still make some dough. I sold coons for $35 a piece then. Fox's were over $100 and a yote brought $65 or so. I never caught any beavers though...
I'd like to though. If I knew where I could get one now... I would.
Jabba
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Post by Bill on Dec 10, 2012 8:22:54 GMT -5
Don't look for Beaver dams Jabba. Out of all the trapping I did for Beaver I can only think of one stream that had any Beaver dams on it and it was a mess. Took a lot of beaver off of it and it didn't seem to make any difference. They just kept building or rebuilding. Most of the Beaver I caught were in holes in the banks. Even the ponds I trapped on. Conabears worked well on these. Size 330's were the best. Just stake one out in front of the hole and when the Beaver came out he tripped it and Bam you got a Beaver. Spring trapping was more fun though. That is when the breading season started and scent mounds worked best. The males would travel up and down the stream in their territory. I would trade castor with Dean every spring. His castor came from a totally different stream and it smelled different. When I made scent mounds which was a spot on the bank that came down to a low shoreline or sandbar that a beaver could get up to easily and then I would wet that area to make it shine from the water which would attract a traveling Beaver and then put down a handful of mud and take a stick and dip it into the jar of castor and stick it into the mud pie. It really pisses a Beaver off to have another Beaver encroach into his territory. If you watch the approach that a Beaver makes and the depth of the water you can predict where his chest will hit the bank and he dropped his feet. You could ever predict which foot would set down into the trap. Some guys like to drown their Beaver by putting in drown wires with their trap set hooked to the wire so that they could go to deep water but could not come back. I tried this method but lost a number of Beaver from them drowning and then getting sanded in. When you pull the trap up the Beaver would stay in the sand and you got nothing. Didn't have much luck digging one out of the sand either. Use to use about a 16' chain on my traps with 2-3 swivels in the chain plus one on each end. Took a lot of chain but I usually had the Beaver sitting on the bank or swimming in the water when I got there. Had a lot of wring outs before I learned that trick. Beaver will get to rolling and if their on a short chain without enough swivels it can wring off a front or back leg and get away. Caught a lot of Beaver with legs wrung off but once I learned the long chain trick I found that I seldom had that problem. Also one of the best smells I have ever smelt was coming down to the creek bank in the early spring morning with just a hint of ice on the edges of the water and Beaver having worked the bank all up and down the stream with scent mound and you could smell it in the cool morning air. MMMMmmmmmmmmm that smelt good. One thing I hated the most was leaky waders. Barb wire and waders do not mix either. Dam that is a lot of good memorys.
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Post by deputydon on Dec 10, 2012 8:50:10 GMT -5
Yes it is a lot of memories Bill !!!! And your right the smell of Beaver castor on the crick in the spring morning is AWESOME !!! Better than any perfume or aftershave I can think of.... I'm lucky enough I still get to experence this every spring....
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Post by twomoons on Dec 10, 2012 15:48:00 GMT -5
Here in town they are makking dams like crazy. I am breaking the dams and trapping them with leg holds when they come to fix it. I did have some snares out too. Can't use connibears in town though.
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Post by Bill on Dec 11, 2012 11:25:00 GMT -5
Usually you don't have problems with Beaver creating dam's unless you have fairly shallow water and a large supply of material's for them to build dams with. I have noticed that some places with problems like this clear the banks of brush and that usually solves the problem except for upstream or downstream. Downstream from you Two Moons can be a real bearcat as I have seen some really big floods come from that direction. Mostly due to all the crap the flood pushes ahead of it which blocks the flow and backs it up a bunch then when it lets go it makes an even bigger mess. The only sure way to control it is if the farmers all keep the banks clean. Course then the water just makes a deeper trench but it flows well. ;D ;D Course as dry as it has been its pretty easy for everyone to forget the problem and let it build up.
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