We have been successfully using the dam break set with the large 12x18x39 Comstock Swim Through Beaver Cage Traps for a couple of years now. Until the advent of this versatile cage trap, a set like this wasn’t even a dream.
Trappers have relied on Conibear type body gripping traps to take beaver for years, but using them in a breached dam usually spelled disaster. Often the result was a wised up beaver and a sprung trap. If not sprung, the traps would quite often end up buried in a foot or two of mud, grass, leaves etc., often the only hint of set showing were the tops of the stabilizing stakes.
The swim through cage trap with powered doors, set upside down and concealed in the dam, in the water on the top side of the dam offers an excellent opportunity to take beaver while using a small leak as the attractant. We have been promoting this set for some time, but always setting one at a time. However, with only one channel to set, the other day I decided to place two dam break sets, one on each corner of a narrow 15 foot wide dam. The result was a double! Both adults were taken together.
What I did find unusual was the fact the first trap was out of place and under water, something that I had not encountered in the past. The trap with beaver in it had been moved 3 or 4 feet. It is difficult to know if the captured beaver had reached out, causing the trap to move of if the other beaver had moved the trap after the first was captured. Beaver number one was submerged, while the other beaver was alive. The second trap had moved only slightly. A trail camera would have solved the mystery. Bottom line, both sets worked together.