Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Europe beaver hunting ?

pleas lets keep this clean but i have heard acounts in the nordic counters beaver can be hunted as well as traped i have always been curiose how the hunting was done.i heard one way from swedan was to use a dog to find the dens then put a nest above and belowe the den and use a terrire to drive them out into the nets to be club or speared

One way:
https://youtu.be/79N4j0NFzMU

https://youtu.be/AQO6Euv_kB0

Thanks, Dinny

Ah just shoot em, evening hunts esp spring, fall. Sitting in the sun is the most fun.
Or the more common swimming from here to there, very simple. Night time is even better.
Don't over think it. Be careful, in the spring you can wipe em out, unless that's what you want.

I get a permit from the DNR every year to use any way I want to get rid of the beavers....usually bust the dam in late afternoon come back at dusk and shoot them with a suppressed 22 lr....a shotgun with #4 buckshot works great but a little loud....

I shoot them to stop property damage.

Shoot the last hour of the day and into night when they come out to patrol.

Open the dam to bring them in. They sense water flow, water level dropping, and water sound.

Open the dam early in the day if water drainage is a goal because they do not repair them in the daytime,

Get a high elevation stand to shoot down onto them. Bigger target.

I find a the water takes a lot of energy out of a bullet so I use something bigger than 22 LR. 22 mag or hornet, are perfect if trying to keep noise down,
Buck shot works if your gun patterns well, but I found a tight choke with #2 shot is good when you're standing on shore. Its a head shot so a turkey gun mindset would work.

A fishing rod would be handy for retrieval. You have to hit them hard and perfect to get a good floater.

perfect summary above.That's what i do.

My brother belonged to a private club that had a very nice clubhouse located on a pretty little lake. They got the bright idea to have some landscaping done around the clubhouse. They had some relatively large, expensive, decorative trees moved to the lawn. A colony of nearby beavers thought "meals-on-wheels" had been brought to their neighborhood. The trees were apparently a real beaver delicacy and they attacked them with gusto. This resulted in complaints from the wealthy folks who paid for the landscaping and they wanted something done...soon. The board of directors appointed my brother and another intrepid soul, who were junior members of the board, to foil the offending rodents. They took a multiple pronged approach. First, they tried steel cribbing wrapped 'round the trees and quickly learned that beavers weren't stupid and just pulled the wire from the trees. Cage traps were a waste of time and money. Next, they tried chemical warfare with a beaver repellant which seemed to not only attract the beavers but also make them horny...as witnessed in some videos. Some prickly raspberry bushes were planted around the trees and seemed to work. But, the lawnmowing crew threatened to quit if they had to trim around the raspberries. By the next spring, most of the protected trees were damaged in some way and everybody was unhappy - except the beavers. My brother and the other BOD member decided that the solution, and some measure of revenge, would be to kill the damn critters, in a personal and bloody manner. Blowing them away with shotguns after the club closed would be just the ticket. They set up in tactically chosen spots loaded for bear - or beaver - with buckshot and flashlights. Along about 2:00 a.m.. on a bright moonlit night, the buddy touched off a 3" magnum of #4 buckshot and yelled, "I got one of the bastards!" Taking their flashlights they approached what appeared to be a small and anorexic beaver. They had killed the groundskeeper's housecat.

At the next board of directors meeting, my brother resigned.

True story - mostly - names were changed to protect me!

A number of years ago, beaver started building a feedbed in the slip of my boathouse, and were denning in the cribs under the docks. This was in far northern NY, actually right across the water from Ontario. Anyway, NY has laws about what you may or may not do with beaver, so I asked the local supervising game warden what I should do about them. (We were kids in school together, known him forever.) He said, "Don't talk to me about beaver. You know how to handle beaver." I shot a number of beaver after that. I've shot a lot of them with a .22 LR (head shots when they're swimming), a number of them with a .44 mag revolver, some with a .25-20 and at least one I can recall with a 10mm Glock (It's what I had on me at the time.)

I've used rifles in 22lr, 22 Hornet, and 223 rem. They all work, but I think the Hornet is just about optimal. Next I want to try tannerite.

Easiest way to open a dam short of dynamite.....tannerite.....easy to get over the counter.....

I used to do a fair bit of beaver trapping and always took along a scoped 22 rifle to shoot any that I saw, usually in the evening while setting traps. A precision shot near the ear did the trick and then retrieving the kill could get a bit inconvenient but made for good laughs with the guys later on. I usually shot about a third as many as I trapped. One of the more enjoyable pass times I ever had.

Yep, I'd tell about not being able to tell between a cat and a beaver. Some people shouldn't be out in the woods. Period.

A local agency guy needs to do control when they begin plugging culverts and flooding roads hereabouts. Says they are oblivious to lights at night when he's taken 7 or 8 from a stand beside a single culvert.

Cookie caught this one a couple evenings after he thought he had the family cleaned out.

Only beaver shot I'm allowed to keep on this machine.

I have broken dams to hunt them. Don't shoot the first one that is the scout. It will go back and get some buddies to help then you shoot.
I caught a big female in a trap one time in a river and.she wasn't drowned. I ended up shooting 2 of her kits and a couple of grown ones when I ran the boat up to her. I didn't recover them but They just popped up and I kept shooting them in the head close by. I guess she was in heat. Never had that happen again.

Been a while, but used to love it!

I sometimes shoot them here on the farm at night. Game warden gave me a depreciation permit for hunting at night with a light. I usually use a 223. They cause me lots of problems, so I shoot everyone I can. I often dig a hole in their dam early in the morning so water can run all day. Just before sundown I set a light that throws the beam over the hole and the water just in front of the hole. They usually come to do repairs as soon as it gets dark.

More beaver shots!!

I can't believe a kid in Manchester, KY doesn't know how to snuff out beavers...

I bet Richie Farmer could teach him how to.

First, he must master spelling.A seemingly insurmountable task.