Forget seals, anyone know good strategies for hunting beavers?

[Shadowdweller]

I never seem to see them in the winter, can't track them in the summer (at least maybe without very high tracking skill) to see where they like to land.  Meat doesn't work as bait.  Lumber doesn't work as bait (yes, I've tried).  Do vegetables?  Does anyone know which traps can take them?  Small deadfall?  Light lever?  Is there a good way to attack them without completely ruining the hide?  Blunt arrows?

[Mati256]

Sadly I live far away from any lakes to hunt beavers but blunt arrows should work.
Any trap even without bait should work if they step on it, if they even go to land.

I vaguely remember starting a topic in the old forums requesting a water trap for beavers.

[Shadowdweller]

They do go to land...very unpredictably.

[spamgoose]

I've only tussled with the legendary beaver a few times (they seem ridiculously rare), but I tried one strategy and it worked each time.

When I noticed them, I saw where they liked to go to land. I backed off a bit (just outside of being able to see them, when I've zoomed out the map), started sneaking, hid behind a tree and let an hour or so go by.

When I burst back into that area I always found them quite far inland (about the centre of the tile area), then instead of going towards them, I moved to between them and the water. Every time for me, they panicked and tried to run past me. I found them slow and was able to club them fairly easily. One time, one of the beavers made it past (I got distracted watching their movement), but the next day it was back to the same area and was an easy kill.

It's possible I've been lucky... but I suspect that, similar to seals, they have a favourite shore they like to use.

Edit: Regarding tracking. One of my characters was good enough to see the tracks and that was easy. Other times, I used my seal strategy, which is to spot them on the water (on raft or punt), back off, let them move around, back off if they get close again, repeat. You might have to zoom out and come back again in an hour, but usually you get a sense of where they like to go.

[spamgoose]

I vaguely remember starting a topic in the old forums requesting a water trap for beavers.

That would be great. It would be nice if "animals signs" gets added one day too. For this particular topic, beaver lodges. In the winter, it was somewhat easy to hunt beavers (given the right tools), simply by drilling into the lodge and hauling them out.

[PALU]

Given that beavers eat "fresh" bark from slender trees, you won't have any luck with bait for beavers. You can, however, place deadfall or pit traps where they go ashore, but you need a bit of luck for them to happen to enter the traps.
I've only hunted beavers once, when a group of them invaded my character's homestead, interrupting activities all the time. It took quite some time to manage to kill them off, as they flee into the water all the time.