The Beaver Tree

 

Last year after deer season had shut down until October I felt the onslaught of cabin fever coming on strong and I knew I had to do something quick.  I looked over at the old sixteen gauge leaning in the corner against the wall and thought of the perfect remedy.  I slipped in to my my boots, stocked up the stove, closed the damper, and headed for the marsh hoping to bag a rabbit or two.

 

Outside of a few kicking towhee's and some scolding titmouse's I don't think I saw much wildlife.  But, I did stumble upon the tallest beaver tree's I've ever seen.  When I saw the first one I thought a deer hunter had cut the sapling down to clear a shooting lane.  I spent a lot of time investigating the tree's and came up with the only solution: they were the highest cuttings from a beaver I have ever seen -- and I have spent close to three decades roaming through beaver habitat.  I have trapped beavers that have topped sixty pounds but, even these guys weren't reaching up and cutting as high as these saplings were topped, so I was still a little skeptical about what actually cut the trees down.

 

Several weekends later I took a tape measure down just to satisfy my curiosity.  If memory serves me correct the tallest cutting was at forty-two inches and the shortest was at forty inches.

 

A couple of weeks after that I was talking to a neighbor who had suffered some beaver damage and had shot one that tipped the scales at eighty pounds. Someone told him it might be a state record, but the very next day he was crappie fishing at Patoka Lake and he talked to a couple of trappers who trapped a beaver that tipped the scales at eighty-four pounds.  Maybe because trappers are a rare commodity anymore some of these rodents are getting a little super-sized.