Fishing and blowing up beaver dams

[Skiff]

Just returned from a trip to The Pas in northern Manitoba, following the Saturday get together of MB MFFers, and I think being without a computer is almost harder than being without a TV.   My brother and I only had time to fish in the South Saskatchewan River for about 10 hours over two days, and the first day was nothing but little, bait-stealing burbots (Ken 2, Me 1).  Couple of days later we got out again, this time we caught some real fish, and I started with a fat sucker, but Ken got 4 pan size walleyes (Me - 0) which we fried up for supper that evening.  Yummmmm.

Then the afternoon of Oct 7th, the beaver control officer for the municipality came by with explosives to eliminate 4 dams on the creek that’s beside my brother’s ranch, and we went downstream about 5 miles by boat. The farthest dam was a big one, about 6' tall, blocking the entire creek, and backing water up for miles.  It was interesting that he used fertilizer-based granules and filled 2-liter cola bottles.  This was the main explosive, which he wrapped with detonator cord, a high explosive that travels at 5000' a second, then duct-taped each bottle to a stick, so he could jamb it deep into the dam wall on the water side.  Six bottles and 6 sticks of yellow dynamite, also wrapped and linked together with detonator cord, ending in a blasting cap, was the full charge.  He had us back off about 100 yards while he triggered the blast.  Man, was that loud!  I had expected a big rolling, BOOM, but instead it was a sharp “CRACK” like a huge high-powered rifle, and most of the dam went about 100' straight up.  It was raining logs, mud and water for what seemed like a half a minute.  The hole blown in that dam was about 8' wide, and easily 3' deep, so beavers weren’t going to repair that one soon.

The next three dams involved slogging the crates of charges through a muddy swamp, and dense willow brush to get to them (so THAT’S why he wanted us along), and was hot, dirty, muddy work.  But 5 bottles and 5 sticks on one dam, followed by 2 more shots to clear out the willow roots, the same (5 + 5) on the second dam, and 3 more bottles and about 8 sticks of dynamite on the last dam cleared out the last obstruction.  Now my brother’s 80 acres of flooded pasture will drain down - the water was right up to his yard fence.  And it was sure interesting to see how dam-blowing is set up, but as usual, none of us thought to bring a camera, so I can’t provide pictures.

Here’s some pictures of fishing at The Pas:
Brother fishing

Me

Small burbot

White Sucker

And finally - some nice eating size walleye!

[The Rocket]

There you Monophil Looks like a all out great day

[Trophy Hunter639]

Hey Monophil Sounds like you had an exciting trips blowing beaver dams up man that must have been a cool site to see I see you got some use of the chairs PP gave you.Glad to hear you had a good trip

[grumpymoe]

nice to see you back to civilization Monophil... ...geez...pretty hard to tell you two are brothers!!! ...at least you got your mug in one shot with that sucker.....tightlines bud....Grump

[Skiff]

Fishing was slow those days, we can usually limit out in about 2 hrs.  You can't see them, but the ground was nearly white with Spitz shells at my boots, that's how slow it was! That picture of the sucker - I should have called it "Two White Suckers".    The chairs were indeed from Perch Pounder, and I gave one to my brother, who is 4" taller, 10 lbs thinner, looks hardly like me, and is really physically fit.  He transported and stacked 1000 straw bales for his horses the day before I got there.

[Thriller]

Quite the adventure...and all I did at that time was go to work day after day.

[trapperdirk]

I've been there a time or two myself blowing beaver dams up Monophil and always get under some thick trees if I can because some pretty big chunks of wood go flying way up skyward besides the moose and loon sh!t . LOL Prob is it all has to come down at sometime . . Now what gets done here often is the best time to blow dams is once the ice gets on they are blown but it's a tad harsh because the water level drops and the beavers feed bed freezes in so he starves and he can't rebuild to bring up the water again . Brutal but for some it's the only option if beaver are not trapped and a more permanent solution is required .
  Great pics and cross over of species .
 
                                     TD

[Bobman]

We used to get beavers blocking up the creek on our property and no matter how well destoyed the dam was it didn't take long for it to be rebuilt.  The only way to stop them for good is to trap them.  It's pretty cool watching the dam go BOOM though.

Monophil - even if the fishing is slow it's still better than workin', eh?