Just unpacked from a beaver set. I can say this has been quite the experience. I’m tired, had some action tonight, worked hard earlier busting up the dam. I thought I was going out there with my NV setup but ran into hiccups on my pre-hunt sight in.
Below was my intended setup minus the Caldwell turret.
Ended up dumping the Pard NV008s LRF and the external IR torch because I didn’t take enough time enough time sighting it in again after swapping scopes. After two unsuccessful sight-in attempts I said screw it. It cost me an hour. So I threw on my Bushnell Engage 4-16x44 IR FFP and sighted it in. After two bullseyes from 25 yards I was ready to go. I went out with my thermal scanner, my ScanPro headlamp, and a rifle-mounted torch. Unfortunately no videos or photos other than a few thermal images of a beaver that was pretty close to me on the other side of a thicket in what I assume is their feeding area on the other side of the dam. That is unless the trail cam picked up some of the action. I also have photos of the dam, pond, lodge, and other elements of this permission.
This is a beaver lodge
These are areas that I dug out today to breach the dam.
I’ll try to work on updating the thread this weekend as I’ll be working this permission this weekend. All I can say is this is a different type of hunting. A lot to take in.
View of beaver pond through an AGM Asp Micro TM160
This is the beaver (I spotted through some brush with a thermal scanner the black spot on the photo below ). I didn’t know it was a beaver for some time . It didn’t appear to have moved much. I thought I was picking up a patch of water through the thicket until I scanned minutes later and it was gone. The water was still warmer than the air so it showed up black as well. Shortly after I spotted a beaver on top of the dam and shot it standing behind my Primos Trigger Stick bipod. The animals’s position was close to a perfect broadside, I knew the range, i knew my holds, there was no wind, and a half moon. I would not have known it was in the area without my thermal scanner. I didn’t hear it move onto the dam. It was tough to hear over the running water from the breaks I dug into in the dam, industrial activity, and automobile traffic in the background. It was also quite humid this evening. It rained the night before. Humidity was around 74%.
I’ll return to the pond tomorrow to see if a carcass floated to the top of the pond somewhere. I also need to see how much patchwork they’re going to do tonight. I suspect they may try to build a new dam downstream a bit. About a half hour before I left, I heard them fell a pretty good sized tree. Despite all of the activity, I left by the time I’d notified the Sherriff that I’d be out of the area. One thing about it, this is new territory and I’m working on this permission in another state. They have different regulations and I had to talk to a couple of agencies and departments. These beavers are destroying a bridge here and they have destroyed quite a bit of timber as well as breached several people’s ponds in the area. I’ll post more about it tomorrow.
Thank you to
@Monkyshine and
@TheIceman for sharing your knowledge and guidance.
