beaver trappers, castor sets.

[steven49er]

I build my castor type sets different than most.  I almost never make a mud pie.  All I do is take about a 16 inch or so piece of popple and shine up the top and drive it in the ground.  Then I put some lure on a stick, and viola beaver in the morning.  I like the bait stick in case the wind is wrong, the beaver will see it for a good ways and think that another beaver was working there.  I dont build a castor mound and a bait stick both because it has been my experience that fresh mud attracts muskrats.

Any body else do it like this?

[wormbobskey]

Its been my limited experience that muskrats are pretty much atracted to any set you could make along a creek or river. They seem to really like beaver castor, but than a lot of critters are attracted to castor. Of course I'm targeting both beaver and muskrats at this time of year so I really don't complain to much if a rat is caught, but naturally would rather have a beaver waiting at the end of the drowner.I always try to set my beaver traps deep enough to miss the muskrats that will check out the set, but always seem to catch a few in my beaver sets anyway. I usually don't make the typical castor mound in that I don't pile up mud. I just dip a stick in the castor lure and stick it into the ground above the trap. I think 5 trappers could take instructions from the same trapper and they will all come away with different ideas on how a set should be made. Its just human nature to add your own style to a set. Worm