Fully prime beaver?

[Camdec]

I’ve only trapped beaver before freeze up and after spring thaw. Have tried through the ice a couple times, but man that’s a lot of work. I’d like to catch a few for a personal project, but need shearing quality. Is late November or early December still to early?

Would prefer to wait for fully prime, but also before there is 18” of ice if possible. Thanks for any advice.

[Red Bullets]

Originally Posted by Camdec

I’ve only trapped beaver before freeze up and after spring thaw. Have tried through the ice a couple times, but man that’s a lot of work. I’d like to catch a few for a personal project, but need shearing quality. Is late November or early December still to early?

Would prefer to wait for fully prime, but also before there is 18” of ice if possible. Thanks for any advice.

In my opinion only...

I would say a beaver in Alberta is fully prime by mid to late December. Around Xmas. By January and later a beaver's guard hairs will start 'singeing' (guard hairs curlng up at the ends) from rubbing on the bottom of the ice going in and out of its den. In deep water houses, singeing may happen a little later as ice thickens. The best grade of pelts will have completely white skins or a very very slight blue tinge.

Be safe on early ice.

[Camdec]

Ok thanks Red.

Question for those that trap under ice. What percentage of sets made are baited sets vs setting in runs? I’ve never felt real confident in my ability to pin point the runs so would prefer to use baited conibears if the success rate is similar.

Thanks for comments.

[Marty S]

If you are just taking a handful of beaver, go now on first ice and see and mark the runs, you will have perfect bubble trails on first ice. Push a dead stick on one side of the run and the same side of every run you mark. Very easy to kill a bunch in the run if you have them pinpointed.

But lotsa guys love snaring their beaver under ice off bait poles. This is going to be #1 with many trappers when you can’t pinpoint the runs.

Also, if you want good beaver, stay away from shallow water and as red pointed out, shallow runs. You will take super quality beaver Jan-Feb-March under ice, they should be most-all be shearing quality thru those months.

[338wea]

Originally Posted by Camdec

I’ve only trapped beaver before freeze up and after spring thaw. Have tried through the ice a couple times, but man that’s a lot of work. I’d like to catch a few for a personal project, but need shearing quality. Is late November or early December still to early?

Would prefer to wait for fully prime, but also before there is 18” of ice if possible. Thanks for any advice.

They are pretty decent in the fall,they seem to have better hair in the earlier winter or late fall months,
http://www.outdoorsmenforum.ca/showthread.php?t=263165
here's an old thread about what your looking for

[KegRiver]

Originally Posted by Camdec

I’ve only trapped beaver before freeze up and after spring thaw. Have tried through the ice a couple times, but man that’s a lot of work. I’d like to catch a few for a personal project, but need shearing quality. Is late November or early December still to early?

Would prefer to wait for fully prime, but also before there is 18” of ice if possible. Thanks for any advice.

An active run will often have only a few inches of ice and it's not uncommon for a good run to have only paper thin ice by mid January.

One of the ways I used to find runs was by testing for thin ice.
Right over the run there might be less then six inches of ice while just a foot to the side there could be a foot or more of ice.

It used to take me about an hour to fully set up one colony, that is two or three run sets and a bait set off the feed pile.
I almost never used traps.

You are right, using traps under the ice is a lot of work.

I also prefered snares because they had a much higher potentual for a dual catch in one set.

More often then not there was no room or very limited room for more then one trap per set where I could put three or more snares on one pole.

It was not uncommon to get up to six snares per pole on deep runs.

The deeper runs can have ice over a foot thick and some can be too deep for available poles to reach bottom. So I prefered the shallower runs.
Four to five feet deep was ideal. Under three feet was not good.
Over six feet was too much work most of the time.

And it's a trade off, as mentioned the shallower runs can lead to more rubbing. Rubbing causes hair loss.

Singe is caused by exposure to strong sunlight and is seldom an issue during winter months.

For the most part rubbing is more of an issue late in the winter. I've seen hides that had almost no guard hair in late February and all through March but never in November or December.

Because of that, if I were targeting sheering hides I'd concentrate my efforts on mid January to Early February.