Best ways to destroy a beaver dam?

Dynamite and a thermal

Good friend had beavers take residence in his lake. He killed several with a .22 with a thermal when they would swim in the lake.

Break the dam and wait them out from shooting distance at dusk. They will hear the water running and come to repair it just before dark.

Wait till after duck season.

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Best ways to destroy a beaver dam?

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by best, do you mean most cost effective, do you mean the most fun way, or do you mean in a way so it wont be rebuilt?

An excavator, a rifle, and a little time

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I’m just blown away how something so small can cause so much damage and how effective they are

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they are natures engineers

Make a dam set with a 330 connibear and persist until the water runs out.

I can’t get any heavy machinery back there unfortunately

I love this topic. I’ve been at war with these little bastards for a long time. Can’t tell you how many enjoyable nights I’ve spent waiting on them to come out. Lost count of how many didn’t make it back to the hut. I’ll say this…

Good luck.

If you have the time, you can do it, but you have to stay on top of them. Tear out a portion of the dam and wait on them to come repair it. If they haven’t been bothered…you might get a shot at one early evening or even on an overcast day…but once you get after them, it’ll be nighttime only. A good headlamp with a regular white light works until they figure that out, then a green or red headlamp will work.

Trapping (like already mentioned) will speed things up. I don’t know how to trap effectively, so the neighbor hired one. I’d rather shoot them.

I used 12 gauge turkey loads until my shoulder cried uncle…then switched to CCI segmented quiet 22lr hollow points. They also load the segmented bullet in their mini mags, but all of my shots were close. The quiets are probably effective to 30 yards, mine were way closer than that. The segmented round is less prone to ricocheting than regular hp ammo. The clemson pond leveler drain system is something I was going to try, but after I got them under control we brought in an excavator and tore out all of their dams. I believe they decided to move up or down the creek. Haven’t seen them in several months.

Your local greenjeans office will give you a permit to hunt them at night. They also gave me a hardcopy of the clemson pond leveler plans (I never built one). I’m not saying it’s the best, I just found it interesting.


Clemson pond leveler

They are amazing creatures and if they would’ve contained their ponds to my property only, I would’ve let them be. They backed up water into my neighbors hay fields and then I had to do something.

Good stuff. You answered a bunch of my questions

How many did you end up killing you think? Im worried just how many are in the lake. It’s amazing and infuriating at the same time of what they built and how destructive they are.

So they never just go away to another waterway? Say if I destroy their damn they will just rebuild?