How to Hunt a Beaver

Introduction

Because of their interesting behaviors and nature, beavers, which work very hard in many cultures and places and are noted for their excellent performance in structural work, are the types of rodents that can be easily avoided in hunting if certain characteristics are known.

Beavers are one of the largest rodent species in the world, spending most of their time gnawing trees and building shrubs and soil foundations.

What Is the Best Time to Hunt Beaver?

Let’s Get to Know the Beavers!

Beavers, which belong to the group of rodent animals that feed by gnawing on trees and live on the shores of the water, are known by many for their ingenuity in engineering and construction. The average length of these animals with round heads and short ears, excluding the tail, is 70 cm. Likewise, they weigh up to 30 kilos on average.

Supportively, they are known to have scaly skin on their broad and flat tails extending up to 40 cm. Thanks to these tails, they are very good swimmers, and they use their tails as a trowel to compact the soil with mud during the construction of dams and nests.

As for their behavioral aspects, beavers are known to be hard-working animals and live in groups and families. Usually, these family groups are led by an adult pair of beavers and a colony of offspring called kits and yearlings.

Likewise, beavers are always with their kits in the area where they work to mark their habitats—in this context, knowing which beaver is of which gender can sometimes be time-consuming and challenging for the hunter.

Besides, speaking of hunting, beavers have a behavioral defense mechanism called the “dear enemy effect” against their enemies. According to this mechanism, beavers can identify between familiar and non-familiar scents, which are hostile or not, so you should pay attention to the wind as it carries the scent toward your prey or not.

So, When & Where to Hunt Beavers?

With the necessary equipment and reinforcements, beaver hunting is very advantageous as it is possible at most times of the year. However, to get productive and positive results, it is necessary to hunt in a certain season, considering that beavers may seasonally take a break in the summer months in some regions, or they stay in their nests for protection from the cold.

In this case, this season coincides with the best autumn months, namely September, October, and November. As mentioned before, beavers are among the rodents that can be found worldwide. They are mostly found in wet forests and temperate climates, so they are abundant at the waterside around Europe, Asia, and North America.

Practical & Bonus Notes about Beavers

Beavers stay in the same wetland until they have trouble eating or run out of stock; this can be equivalent to about ten years.
Beavers are not hibernating animals. In this direction, although it is seen that they stay in their nests in very cold weather, they never hibernate due to their active nature. They usually stock up by accumulating enough food underwater and struggle with this harsh winter weather.
Beavers are animals that live an average of 20 to 30 years.
Known for their physical resilience to travel long miles, beavers usually leave home and set up their domains when they are two years old.
Since they do not have external genitalia, enlarged nipples can be observed when distinguishing their sexes and distinguishing female ones. Alternatively, if the secretion is brownish, it is male; otherwise, if it is clear or whitish, it is female.

What Is the Best Gun to Shoot a Beaver?

When we look at history, beavers were mostly hunted by trapping method, and in line with the developments, this technique started to leave its place for rifles or shotguns. In this direction, stalking, bow hunting, or walking up with dogs were also preferred in beaver hunting besides the methods mentioned.

Here are some methods for hunting beavers;

Bow Hunting
Stalking
Walking up with Dogs
Trapping
Rifle Hunting

Choose the Best Gun to Shoot a Beaver!

As we can say that the best rifle choice is the .223 Remington, with its advantageous magazine capacity, and the .204 Ruger can be a very good choice. Apart from these two, .22-250 Ruger, .243 Winchester, Creedmoor, and .300 Blackout can be added to the list for different alternatives. In addition, .223 AR15 and .270 Coyotes are among the options that can be examined.

What Time Are Beavers Most Active?

First of all, it would be useful to mention the feeding habits of beavers as a background explanation. Beavers continue to feed on leaves, inner bark, alder, birch, cottonwood, willow, and other deciduous trees, and their favorite food is twigs of aspen.

Beavers also like to eat shrubs, ferns, aquatic plants, grasses, and crops with corn and beans. In this context, beavers, which have a very rich and extensive diet as food, also feed on coniferous trees such as fir and pine.

Once you learn a little about their eating style, you can also adjust your timing to match the area they are fed by referring to their activity.

Although beavers are mainly active at night, they can spend time outside at certain times of the day. But to coincide with the best time zone, you can find that beavers are quite active an hour before dark or in the minutes that coincide with sunrise.

Conclusion

Briefly, beavers are animals that live in family groups and are available to hunt at dusk, mostly in the autumn months of September, October, and November. You can easily hunt beavers with the method that is suitable for you if you know that they also have a behaviourally scent-based defense mechanism, in line with the information you have gained about their feeding styles and habitats.

Among these techniques, besides trapping, which has existed for many years and is popular for rifle hunting, the best rifle choice will be the .223 Remington.