# Beavers



## Live Oak (Dec 22, 2003)

Well.......................it looks like the beavers took a liking to the creek running through my farm. I was down there yesterday and noticed the water backed up while looking upstream and went to investigate. At first I thought it was a jam of leaves and logs and junk but when I saw all the neatly placed and cut branches on a dam that could fill up 5 pickup trucks; I realized the pesky little rodents have moved in.

Chip!!!! I'm gonna be needin' some of that dynamite!   I am gonna check with the game warden and see what can and cannot be done about getting rid of them. I sat for about 30 minutes with my trusty 9mm waiting for the little critter to come out, but not dice. 

I don't so much mind the dam or the beavers living there but they cut down every tree in sight if you don't get rid of them fast. I love the "dock and boat beavers"   :lmao: :lmao: :lmao: :lmao: Can't get enough of them. :cowboy: :eat:


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## bigl22 (Sep 16, 2003)

beavers are MIIIghty good eatin' when they are fairly young--


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## parts man (Sep 24, 2003)

Chief, make a small breach in the dam, the beavers will here the running water and come to repair it. It may take some patience, and may only work once or twice,, btu should give you a little satisfaction anyway. 

If you know any trappers, you could get tehm to come clear them out.


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## Chipmaker (Sep 16, 2003)

I have a constant problem with them daming up my creek, and when the creek gets low, a lot of times I find them swiming around in my pond. Next to shooting those things, the next best thing I like to do is blow up beaver dams...no fun doing it with the beavers in it though. No season on beavers here but I think Alabama has as many beavers as Canada and those northern states do....Breach the dam as already suggested, and set back with a gun and in no time those critters will show up at the breach to evaluate and repair the damage..........perfect time to practice sniper skills:furious: 

When I blow a dam I usually use a piece of pvc pipe with ammonium nitrate and diesel fuel and a piece of dynamite......I put the AN / DF and dynamite into a piece of pvc pipe (usually use 3 or 4 inch PVC)with a plastic bag and lots of duct tape on the bottom end (keeps the contents in and the water out) , that I worked way down and in and under the dam, the further you can get it under the main structure the better, so you can take the dam apart at its foundation. Once I get things situated, light the fuse and take cover.........the sound of rushing water after the explosion / flash is nice!

I usually use an entire bag of AN, as some of those dams are really tough. I have already used 5 gal plastic buckets with lids with the entire contents placed in a plastic bag as an additional step to keep water out to contain the AN/ etc, but placement is a bit harder.

I remember back when I was still in high school I was big into trapping......My best friend and I saved up to go ona trapping expedition from where we l;ived in Pennsylvania to a place in Alabama, that had advertised in Popular Mechanics and sports Afield magazine as a hot spot for Beaver, muskrat and otter trapping.........We drove day and night to get to this haven for trappers, which turned out to be a lot of fish ponds and miles of streams and creeks. The owner put us up in a small old camping trailer (that was the lodging) and since the price of the trip also included 2 meals a day (we really enjoyed that home cooking provided by this fellows wife, and we had a field day trapping.........Now I live about 30 miles from that same exact location we visited back in the early 60's... and that fellow is still alive and remember who I was, but his wife died, and he is no longer raising fish ........but pelts are not worth your time anymore to bother with trapping.


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## ducati996 (Dec 27, 2003)

And I thought this was about another type of "beaver" 
 :furious:


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## CatDaddy (May 30, 2004)

You could always use potasium permanganate & sugar in a pipe bomb to bust up the dam.


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## CatDaddy (May 30, 2004)

Oh sure, but then there's shrapnel to deal with.


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## ducati996 (Dec 27, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Keweenaw4310 _
> *DUC, So were you planning on trapping beavers for their pelts until you figured out we were talking about small woodland creatures.
> 
> I have some PVC & diesel fuel laying around, but my ammonium nitrate & dynamite supply is running a little low. I think I'll just stick to a rake & shovel for now.
> ...


:furious: :furious: :furious: 

The Beaver around here are easily caught with paper - Its green and its used for currency :furious: :furious: 

You guys scare me with the home made bomb stuff....can either of you PM me with the correct ingredients? :smoking: 

Ducati


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## Chipmaker (Sep 16, 2003)

> _Originally posted by CatDaddy _
> *Oh sure, but then there's shrapnel to deal with.  *


Shrapnel adds effect just in case a beaver is making a get away, you still stand a chance of nailing it. 

Getting on a beaver dam in this neck of the woods can be quite hairy, as most always have cotton mouths nested up or sunning on them..........but if the dam and beaver gotta go then you gotta get up close and personal with the dam........

Heck I think a bag of Ammonia nitrate and a diesel fuel even counting buying cap fuse and dynamite would be cheaper than buying sugar and PP........but I bet PP and sugar could get interesting.......not sure exactly what its capable of when used as an oxidizer such as Ammonia Nitrate would be.


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## Argee (Sep 17, 2003)

Partsman summed it up with "If you know any trappers, you could get tehm to come clear them out."

That's what I did when they invaded my creek area..

Randy 10
Beavers 0


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## parts man (Sep 24, 2003)

With all your talk of pipe bombs, you're gonna have the "Dept of Homeland Security" knocking on your doors!!


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## CatDaddy (May 30, 2004)

<img src=http://www.cox-internet.com/countsmackula/images/snitch.jpg>


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## CatDaddy (May 30, 2004)

*Dam Beavers*

Odd beaver story from my end of the continent.
Link


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## Archdean (Jul 15, 2004)

Beavers have always been hairy regardless of the pop trend to have hairless Beavers!!

IMO Beavers without hair could easily confused with Mushrats!! And could severely depress the market for fine pelts!!


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## leolav (Sep 16, 2003)

This is going down hill faster than a sppeding bullet!!


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## DeereBob (Sep 16, 2003)

Man,
You guys got to get a grip on things. This thread reads like a scene out of the movie Deliverance. I have been soaking up all this Eastern Mysticism here in Beijing China this week and finally got on the net to check up on the forum only to come across this thread. Sounds like you guys are suggesting using the equivalent of B-52 carpet bombing to get rid of a chipmonk.


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## Live Oak (Dec 22, 2003)

Well, the wife and I spent nearly 4 hours breaching the now 3 beaver dams. Since I went there last week, 2 more beaver dams have appeared and the first dam was now double in size and was holding a small lake behind it. I was able to lower the water level about 3 feet but the beaver were nowhere to be seen. I am working on meeting with the game warden and spotlighting the beavers as I am discovering that they come out at night to do their work. 

Chip, you were right about the beaver poop! Those beavers crapped all over that dam. What a mess!   

I did catch something though.........while the wife, kids and I were walking the new farm; we heard what sounded like a dozer or backhoe down on the river bottom and I caught myself a creek gravel thief. I made him dump out the 30 tons of gravel he had loaded in his dump truck and read him the riot act on being charged with treaspassing and the fines he would get for taking creek gravel without a permit. I also filed a report with the Sheriff office.


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## bontai Joe (Sep 16, 2003)

I was at my mom's house in suburban north NJ when her neighbor came over to admire my tractor. They had a small little tractor and were thinking of upgrading. As the conversation progressed, she asked me about the beavers she was seeing in her lawn. I looked at her quite surprised as the area was absolutely not beaver habitat. I asked her where she had seen these beavers, and she pointed to a hole in the ground at the edge of her property and told me that they lived in there. She had mistaken a groundhog (woodchuck) for a beaver. Gotta love city people


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## Chipmaker (Sep 16, 2003)

What did you do Bontai, drive y our tractor to your mothers place?  

I knew a fellow who was quite a few bricks shy of a load, who was not able to obtain a drivers liscense, so he bought a fully oaded cub cadet to get around on........He put lots of miles on that machine, but very few on the mower deck........and was doing pretty good until he got caught driving on the roads by a state trooper one day...........It was not unusual to see old "Clarky" driving the shoulders of a road going to town or to the local tavern.


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## bontai Joe (Sep 16, 2003)

Chip,
It is over 50 miles from my mom's place to my house. At 6 MPH top speed on a Deere 316, that would take over 8 hours, and a couple of tanks of gas. I have one tractor at her house and 2 at my house.


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## Archdean (Jul 15, 2004)

And who among us has not at one time or another mistaken a hog for a Beaver especially at closing time??


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## Argee (Sep 17, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Chief _
> *Well, the wife and I spent nearly 4 hours breaching the now 3 beaver dams. Since I went there last week, 2 more beaver dams have appeared and the first dam was now double in size and was holding a small lake behind it. I was able to lower the water level about 3 feet but the beaver were nowhere to be seen. I am working on meeting with the game warden and spotlighting the beavers as I am discovering that they come out at night to do their work.
> 
> *


Chief,
The quickest way to remedy the situation is to have them trapped.


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## Live Oak (Dec 22, 2003)

*The Beavers Back AGAIN!!!!!!*

The beavers are back! #[email protected]$: :argh: 

It is simply amazing how they build these dams and how much material they move and the amount of water they hold back. 

I am gonna try driving a piece of steel pipe through the base of the dam and well back into the water behind the dam so the water will drain out through the pipe. 

I am told if the beavers can't figure out where the leak is and the water drains out; they will move somewhere else. 

Now if I happen to see one between now and then, I will be getting a bit of target practice. :soldier10


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## Live Oak (Dec 22, 2003)

Well, a follow up on the beaver situation.............or should I say situations.  Last year we had some heavy rain falls that washed out the beaver dams along with the beavers. Problem gone.

This year we have beavers in at 5 different locations and boy are they destroying some timber! #[email protected]$: On one place along I have 5 beaver dams! 

I managed to shoot one last week but that is probably one out of at least 40 or more according to the game warden and a trapper he recommended to me. I have the trappper coming in to trap the beavers along with coyotes, otters, mink, and other pests this November. 

In the mean time I will be hanging out around their dammed up areas with my trusty .22 single shot and .223 Ranch Rifle. These things need to be eliminated now especially since we are planting tree seedlings. It is just amazing how destructive these animals are.


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