Not in November, but how about Sunday?
Set a WCO job for beaver Saturday evening. Just as I was going to put the traps in, one of the neighbors comes buy to check on me and let me know there was a decent sized bear running around. He had trail cam pics of it getting fallen apples, maybe 100 yds from the creek I would have traps in. I figured my sets would be under water and didn't give it any thought beyond that.
I set several traps including two at the den. Just after finishing my sets, I tried to force the beaver out of the den by shoving a pole down through the top several times, but no luck. One trap near the den was next to a slide, so I put a touch of castor up there to encourage the curiosity. Figured the traps would handle it and headed for home.
Well, apparently they did....
From what I can tell, the bear came buy, maybe keying in on the castor, and proceeded to tear into the den after the beaver. The beaver must have came out of the den and into the trap, or maybe it was already in the trap and the bear found it. It's a pretty small creek. Anyway, the set was torn to crap and it looks like the bear drug the trap with the critter off, tangling and setting off the other set in the process.
Now I need to see if I can go find the remnants and my trap.
The good news is that there has not been anymore activity at the location and so the beaver problem is taken care of. The client is a repeat customer several times over for the last ten years. I should get my $, and hopefully not be short one trap. Will let you all know what I find, if I do.