Best ways to destroy a beaver dam?

Tannerite, about 50 pounds

YT

LINK

I prefer the perforated pipe.

If you want to really know what kind of animals are on your property put a trail cam on the dam. It's amazing what all you will capture crossing the dam.

Excavator

Dynamite

Fire

An excavator, a rifle, and a little time

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.

First, you have to catch/kill them before removing the dam. Just placing a 330 in a dam break is going to lead to frustration from a lot of snapped traps and educated beavers.

If you plan on shooting, thermal us the ticket.

As far as Sonic Boom, it’s very effective when placed right. You have to keep it dry. 1.5 or 2” pvc with caps glued on. Takes about 1 lb per foot of pipe and I rarely use over 3-4 lbs.

Take a metal pry bar and force a vertical hole down into the dam. Shove the pvc as far as you can get it. Back off a safe distance behind cover and let her rip.

Put a lockon up near the dam then destroy part of it before a full moon.

Late night sit with a 22

I have dug out beaver dams and they come back. You have to find their hutch. Bring a drink and a good rifle with night scope. Shoot what you can. Wait for the worst week in Winter. Buy as much Tannerite as you can afford. Bury it deep as you can in the hutch and blow it. Set on fire and they will leave the area for a while. Watch for them to build new hutches in the area and burn ASAP. You have to stay on top of their mission.

We used dynamite. Not sure how my BIL got it but it worked really well