
A fine example of a beaver house. 
been caught by all four feet at differ- 
ent times; both forefeet were missing 
and the hind ones all scarred where 
they had wrenched free from the grip 
of the steel trap. We have never 
known a beaver to wring off a hind 
foot, although we have caught many of 
them that were minus one or several 
hind toenails. If a beaver is caught 
securely by a hind foot he will stay in 
a good trap no matter how it is fast- 
ened; in other words, he is not able to 
draw free from it. But where any 
trapped animal threshes about in a 
trap he is certain to wise up all of his 
fellows within hearing distance. And 
to confine any wild thing to the merci- 
less grip of a steel trap indefinitely is 
certainly a cruel practice and some- 
thing which all of us should avoid. 
F ROM a purely mercenary point of 
view, it pays to drown your catch, 
for you are at least assured of its be- 
ing there when you get around. The 
best all around drowning set is made 
with a stone, for beavers, say, at least 
fifteen pounds in weight. If you can 
locate a fairly flat stone, like a slab 
of shale or a slice of granite, you will 
have less trouble in making the set. 
Avoid using slick round stones, for it 
is very necessary to fasten the traps 
securely to the “anchor” and wire or 
cord will slip off a smooth stone. Wire 
is all right, but a good heavy cord, such 
as is used for backing fish nets, is far 
better. If using a flat stone the trap 
can be fastened more securely to it and 
such a stone affords a good resting 
place for the trap—under water of 
course. Some fasten the chain to the 
stone, instead of the trap itself, but 
there is no advantage in so doing and 
it gives the animal a little more free- 
dom and a greater chance of escape. 
When making a drowning set along 
the shore where there is deep water, 
720 
it is sometimes 
something of a 
problem to find 
a resting place 
for the stone 
and trap. Oc- 
casionally it is 
necessary to 
build up a plat- 
form of some 
sort. The stone 
must not be 
held in any po- 
sition so se- 
curely that a 
beaver, when 
plunging for 
deep water (as 
he invariably 
does when 
caught) will not 
be able to loosen 
it and drag it 
down into the depths with him. When 
loosened from its resting place, the 
weight of the stone will naturally 
carry it to deep water, and when Mr. 
Beaver attemps to regain the surface 
it will hold him back and drown him. 
One should consider the buoyant power 
of water and remember that a small 
stone “weighs less’ in it than when 
hefted in the hand, above the surface. 
It is necessary to have some sort of 
a “leader,” long wire or rope, attached 
to the trap, so that it will not get be- 
yond the trapper’s reach; the other 
end, of course, being staked near the 
surface where the trapper can reach it 
handily. A beaver, caught in a set 
where this drowning method is ob- 
served, will immediately plunge for the 
deep water and will never regain the 
surface, drowning within a few min- 
utes. While the initial plunge may dis- 
turb his fellows, the beaver is dead be- 
fore he has a chance to communicate 
the results of his dreadful experience, 
a factor which goes a long ways to- 
ward the successful trapping of the re- 
maining ones. 
eee drowning stakes, under certain 
conditions, may take the place of 
the stone. The idea is simple: stakes 
with prongs pointing downward are 
forced into the bottom of the pond, a 
short distance out in the water from 
the trap, at a sufficient depth to drown 
the animal when he becomes entangled 
in them. When the beaver plunges, he 
will go the length of the chain and 
leader and, while scrambling and 
scratching on the bottom to secure a 
foothold, the chain will become entan- 
gled in the stake prongs and hold him 
there quite as effectively as the stone. 
But the stake set is a mighty hard one 
to make unless conditions are about 
right. Often it is impossible to drive 
a stake securely enough to hold the 
fiercely struggling animal. Personally 
we will stick to the stone, even if we 
have to scour a hillside, looking for a 
suitable one and pack it several hun- ~ 
dred yards. IT PAYS TO WORK. 
‘View another method is the sliding 
pole. A long slender pole, with 
short stout prongs, is forced in the 
mud, slanting downward into the deep 
water and with the prongs pointing to- 
ward the bottom of the pond or stream. 
The trap ring is slipped onto the pole 
with this idea: when the animal dives 
he will drag the chain along with him 
and. the ring will slip over the prongs 
all right GOING DOWN, but when he 
attemps to regain the surface the ring 
hooks and he is held there to drown. 
We don’t like this method for the sim- 
ple reason that it takes twice as long 
to use as the stone set and is by no 
means as sure. It’s hard to arrange 
things so the ring will slip down free- 
ly. Sometimes it’s necessary to make 
a larger ring of stiff wire. If you have 
lots of heavy wire you can do away 
with the sliding pole entirely, using the 
former in place of it and twisting 
prengs in it to hold the chain ring. 
Nee and again the trapper will lo- 
cate a place where the animal, in 
diving fer deep water, goes through a 
lot of submerged brush. In such cases 
a long stout cord will serve just as well 
as stones, stakes or sliding poles. Sim- 
ply attach your cord to the end of the 
trap chain and fasten the other end 
to the shore, or where you can reach 
it readily. The beaver will swim till 
the cord stops him, then as he tries to 
regain the surface he will become en- 
tangled in the brush and soon drowns. 
To get him out of there you’ll have to 
fasten your knife to a long pole, reach 
down and sever the cord, and if he 
doesn’t come to the surface tie a hook 
of some sort onto your pole and drag 
him out. These things are handy to 
know, for there’s no telling when you’ll 
buck up against a proposition that 
might otherwise stump you. 
Sometimes I’ve made a set along- 
shore, fastened the trap to a dry log, 
one end of which was rested lightly on 
shore (to keep it from floating away) 
and left it to Mr. Beaver’s devices. 
The animal would get in the trap and 
start for deep water, dragging the dry 
log with him. If he tried to get on the 
log it would roll with him and the 
weight of the trap was sufficient to 
drown him when he became weak with 
exhaustion. Once in a while the log 
would get caught in a brush clump, 
some distance from shore, and I’d have 
to build a raft or wade out to it. But 
as I usually planned on having a raft 
anyway, there was no possibility of 
the animal’s escaping, once trapped. 
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