Here we are almost done.

[Rally]

I pulled the line because I had to go to Alberta Canada for Delta Waterfowl, for eleven days. I opened the dam a little before I left and reset it when I got back. She was repairing the dam when I got back, so i just put a foothold in a small spillway I made, and had her this morning. I go to show the forrester on the way home and he gives me another contract. This one is 3.5 miles of CCC ditch straight in the bush and 3.5 back out, all in a canoe. Should be able to get it cleaned out before the bugs get too bad. I'm thinking about getting a kayak for this job. Lots of brush and a few dams to pull over.

[trapper9260]

For how you said you need to do the trap job you stated I use to trap rats back in MA with a canoe the way you said you have but it was down trees and brush I had to work over. I would still stick with a canoe sense you can fit more and more room. But that is just me.But I gotten use to use a canoe that way for trapping beside doing dry land trapping.Hope it all works out for you. Also good for you to get the last beaver too.

[Rally]

Well I started setting up this contract today. The forrester said, from looking at maps, that it was only dammed up about three miles. LOL I'm in about four now and still no serious drops in water level. I'd only brought in 20 traps and my snare bag, thinking it would be a short ride. I ran out of traps and stakes and still can't see the end of the high water. Ended up setting 26 by tieing off some snares to trees. There is only one way into this area, by canoe, which means canoe in and out. Worked out well. It is an old CCC ditch, dug in the mid 40's, and drains about 60 square mile area. Here's a couple pictures.
This is where I start in.

A side logan.

At about two miles in it gets a little narrower but all the areas to the east or west are still flooded.


I pulled the bow of the canoe into a big beaver scent mound, to set it up, and all of the sudden a big old Canadian gander came busting out of the brush, just cussing me for all she was worth and doing the broken wing splash. Here's why she was so upset. I pulled out and left the area without setting it.

I was in here until 1930 hrs, so the beaver were already starting to move around on my way out. I caught two on the way after just setting them. Both in snares, a three year old male, and a yearling female.The three year old wasn't very photogenic, so I had to shoot it before the picture but the yearling stayed put long enough I could get a picture of it still alive.


Heres 58 from my spring run, ready to go to the tannery. I've still got 49 to put up before I send them out.

I'm going back in there again in the morning, with more stakes and traps, and maybe, I'll find the dam holding the majority of the water.

[trapper9260]

From the photos is a place I like to get into in the regular season.I had trap some nice ones when after rats back in MA usen the canoe .It was worth the trip then when you got 2 on the way out.It will be interesting to see how many more there is and also what the size the dam is also.Thank you for posting the photos.

[Rally]

Got four more today, and set a few more. The picture is of a big female(about four years old) I took at a small house half way through.

I found the dam holding most of the water at about 4.5 miles in. I'm standing on the East end of the dam when I took the picture. If you look in the far off about 10 o'clock position of the picture, you'll see three Balsam trees. That is the West end of the dam at those trees! All the water to the North isn't suppose to be there.

Here is what the ditch is suppose to look like. I'm standing on the far East end of the dam, and the picture is looking almost straight South.

This dam is holding about six feet of water, but I cross a total of 9 dams. Some are just flow through type dams, which hold a small bit of water, but will only drop about an additional 3 feet when the upper 8 dams are opened. the dam I'm standing on for the pictures is about 12 feet wide at the base and will make quite a show when I dig it open. Probably take about four days to drain it from start to finish, if I catch all the beaver first! Beautiful day for a canoe ride today. Bugs aren't bad yet, but will be in about a week. All that bog makes plenty of skeeters.

9260,
In the winter there are a few cats,weasels, rats, and fox, but this is also the center of Wolf country. Very few deer and small game left in this area. It was real good deer country about 10 years ago. I usually trap this on a snowmobile for beaver and it's quite rare to even see a deer track anymore.

[trapper9260]

Nice photos .Sad to hear about the wildlife being clean out like you stated.They should be manage, but I will not get into that.I think you know what I mean.

[472x1B/A]

Thank you very much for the pictures Rally. This thread is turning out to be very interesting and informative. Here in my area there is only small to medium sized streams or rivers. When I was running long lines at each stop I would set from 4 to 10 traps. On to the next stop and 3 or 4 up to a dozen depending on the sign or amount of tracks. Then on to the next stop etc. etc.. Sometimes if my brother was helping we would run 40 to 50 mile lines. We would start in July or August getting permission slips for lines like this, so it would all be ready to roll. 'Sometimes" ol' farmer Bill, ( When word got out that we would trap for the fur and a rabbit or 2 all kinds of land owners would contact us to clean out coons, flat tails or skunks.) So, you be careful out there Rally, I envy you.

[Rally]

Well I've taken fourteen beaver out of the contract and started opening some of the dams. I'm doing a slow release to keep from washing out a road about 4 miles south. If you look at the vegetation close in this first picture, you can see I've dropped the water level about a foot. Doesn't look like alot but consider in all these pictures everything pictured has been flooded as far as you can see.This is about 1.5 miles into the contract area.

I let that drain two days and returned, to see if any beaver had rebuilt any of the dams and do some major dam removal.
This is the first dam we had to remove. It was under a snomobile bridge that runs parallel to the hwy, but a 1/8 mile south. I couldn't take the pictures until the end of the day because the water was up to the top of the dam and I wasn't going to get my camera wet. Those steel beams are hard, I've still got scabs on my head to prove it. LOL Had my brother along to help and his little dog (JJ). This is JJ standing on the snomo bridge doing his best inpersonation of "quality control inspector" while I was under the bridge.

This picture is standing on the main dam looking North.

Here is the main dam after we opened her up to about half of final depth.

This is a picture of my brother Bill, after the snomobile bridge. Note the water mark on his clothing. LOL Also note the hat is is wearing because it is the last time you'll likely see it. He was cleaning out a gap in the third dam and was pulling on a large branch. It let go and he went down the spillway with my beaver fork. Lost his hat but kept the beaver fork.There is alot more pressure on these dams than alot of folks realize. We even managed to swamp the canoe coming back upstream. Tried to canoe through one of the dams we had opened but managed to take a wave over the port side as she twisted in the break. Had everything floating accept the traps and beaver forks. Lost a set of castors and a boat cushion, which I'll probably be able to find tomorrow when we go back in. We don't wear waders when doing these jobs, just knee high boots and old clothes. Tough to swim with a pair of full waders on. Check out the water stains on the vegetation behind the canoe to get an idea how much water we released the first time. It should be about three feet lower than that tomorrow. The bugs are starting to get bad.

Hopefully there are no more obstructions downstream and the beaver in the three E-W ditches stay where they are at. May get a contract on the E-W ditches also.I'll try to get some more pictures tomorrow.

[Rally]

Here's the pictures of the snomo bridge. I'm not sure why they didn't post to the first, nor why I can't get them in the original, but here they are anyway.

[Rally]

I ended up going alone today, and just deepened what we'd done so far and cleaned out some debris that washed into the tear outs. I'm thinking a final tear out in two more days should do it. Deffinately moving some water from this flowage. Checked some tributary ditches as far away as four miles and they all show signs of the water going down. There is a big select cut going on now just West of this contract. I'm pretty sure that is why I got the contract. Skidders and processors don't swim well. Here are a few pictures from today.
This is the main ditch at about one mile in. This will be going down about another two feet when done.

Can you tell where the beaver feed pile was at? The house is on the right adjacent the feed pile. Took six out of that house.

This is the worst spot in there. Years and years of logs floating into a jam, with floating chunks of bog amongst them. I'm taking the chainsaw next trip in and will open this up also. If i don't remove this the chunks of bog will start growing grass on the logs and is just as bad as a beaver dam. The beaver didn't do all of this. If you look close you will see some of those logs have been cut square(chainsaw). Too bad it is so far in to this wood, as alot of it is Ashe and would make great firewood.

When you move alot of water this is what normally happens. The loose pieces of bog and logs end up in the tear outs, so a clean out day inbetween major removals helps keep the drain on schedule.If I just go in and open all the dams wide open the first time in, I won't have any water to travel in by canoe, and could cause more erosion downstream. I use old flow through type dams and beaver feed piles to control as much debris from getting into the tear outs as possible. The beaver feed piles just filter out the floating muskeg and lots and lots of small sticks.

This is the main channel looking North, the same location as I started this thread at, I'm standing on the East end of the main dam.Note the receeding shoreline on the left and stains on the vegetation. I took it down another 18 " or so today also. I opened the far North end of the channel today under the snomo bridge about 30". That should give me a good "flush" the entire length of the contract and clean some of the tear outs I deepened today in between.

9260,
Here are about 60 Canadian geese in a flat spot just NW of the main dam, on the way down. They were real photogenic, at least until I hit the paddle on the side of the canoe!

This is heading West along the main dam. If you remeber I said the end of the main dam was at the cluster of Balsam trees, well there they are at about 10 o'clock in this picture. If you look in the cenetr of the picture there is a ditch coming into the main channel. This is where I mentioned in the first picture in this thread, that the water to the North wasn't suppose to be there, well it isn't far from being gone now.

This is that ditch, which runs W-E, and I'm standing on a beaver dam about 1/4 mile up that ditch, west of the main dam. I opened this dam up to see if there were any beaver farther up, as I had taken an odd female, and not caught a matching male here. I'd left a trap in the tear out(about 18" deep) to see if that male would attempt to repair the dam.


And he did!! If you look close you can see just his tail floating in the center of the picture. Caught him in a foothold trap on a 10' fiberglass drowning rod. I left the trap in place. This ditch runs about 3.5 miles and drains two lakes and everything inbetween.

In this picture I'm looking back East from the beaver dam in the W-E ditch where I just caught the beaver. That is the main channel as far as you can see in the picture and the geese were there on the left(North) on the way down. Getting pretty low tide in there!!

It says I can only post ten photos to a post so will start another.

[Rally]

If anyone was wondering, this is a "beaver fork". A rig I made for pulling these dams apart. Does a real nice job without bending all the teeth like lighter forks often do. Kind of a chop pull motion to get the mud moving in a tear out. Still have to handle all the larger logs and clumps of floating bog.
Attachment 169254
This is what I call a "flow through" dam. These dams are so old and porous that the majority of the water flows through them or around them. Note the water is lower than the top of the dam. These are normally made up of mud and very rotten logs, which break when I tear them apart. Really easy to work around.
Attachment 169255
This is the same dam from a little farther downstream. Note the flowage coming around from the left. Once these old dams are no longer maintained by the beaver, and the water is held higher by a larger dam elsewhere, the water finds it's own path around these old dams. They stop alot of trees from getting to the main tear outs farther downstream and the water just diverts around them. I tear them out the last trip in.
Attachment 169256
Tip of the day!! If your wearing knee boots and tearing out beaver dams, every time you get in or out of the canoe your bringing a couple gallons of water onboard with you. If you have fancy pants, like these pictured, you can just raise your foot higher than your knee and the water will run out the torn out knees. If you don't and raise your feet higher than your knees, that water ends up "higher" than you want cold water!! Also important when your in water that is high in blood sucker population. LOL
Attachment 169257

[trapper9260]

Now that is interesting for all you posted. as for the geese.For what you said happened after about the paddle ,remind me of years ago in MA, I was going into a pond that is part of a main river and it was late at night and dark to check my trap with the canoe and there was not many house around but as soon as i splash the water the geese took off and made alot of noise and then you see the light go on around the pond. As for the main dam .How high was it about? That is alot of water that you had to drain out. Nice to see the photos thank you also there was a good amount of beavers you took out.What was the biggest one was about also?

[472x1B/A]

Great pictures Rally. Thank you very much. Bet you don't want to get caught out there after the sun goes down. The bugs would eat ya alive.

[Rally]

I didn't make it out today, it was pouring rain all day.Had a talk with the forrester to give him a report about the project. He gave me two more contract areas and the go ahead on the W-E ditches. Setting tomorrow and hope to get in to pull the plug on the last couple feet of water.
9260,
The big dam on this project was holding about 6' of water, but I cross nine dams total, most of which only hold 18-24" of water. There are really two major dams, the other about in the middle(where we swamped the canoe) which was probably holding about 4 feet of water, maybe a little more. The biggest beaver was a female about 45 lbs. I trap this ditch about every third winter, so the beaver don't get too big. This whole flowage dumps into the Mississippi River, so it repopulates pretty well in a couple years. This is the highest I've ever seen it and they are logging to the west of the contract, so it pays for them to get some of the water out.

472,
Some years the "drone" of the skeeters at night make it hard to carry on a conversation with a person standing next to you. This area is definately going to be making some skeeters in a couple weeks. I wear a Boonie hat and carry a skeeter net that goes over it when they get too bad.

[trapper9260]

Sound like some of the places here that I trap of how high the water can get. Yes that is not that big of a beaver.Good that you are able to keep them in check.What do you do with all the skins of them? I know here when I done some ADC works years ago you could not keep anything of them.

[Rally]

9260,
By law in Mn, when doing ADC beaver, we are not allowed to keep the hides. Not that they are worth anything anyway, with current market values, but I still think we should be able to part them out and at least utilize some of it.
I set up the two new contracts today. Tomorrow we are going in to finish the ditch, and check the two new ones on the way.

[trapper9260]

I hear you on the law.too bad to have some parts of the animals go to junk when some of it can be used.It was sick when I done some here in IA .All i could do is put them on the bank. The Game Warden was check on me also since he was the one that gave me the permit at the time to take care of the problem.That is the way it gose at times. i know that the fur is junk.But at lease if could use some thing on them would of help out.Like the castors or the meat.but that is the law. Now the state of IA had change the law on ADC too much that it is not worth it to do any of it around here.