Beaver pond planting success

Anyone been successful draining and planting a beaver pond for ducks? Any tips?

I’ve never done it, but it sounds like fun. I’d try and do 2-3 Clemson levelers (or similar) with PVC pipe. There’s lots of YouTube videos on what you’re describing.

Whenever beavers are in the mix it’s gets real fun real quick. My duck hole had a levy pushed around with several pipes for drainage. Just pulled one and the beavers will be along soon to play games. Beavers used to dam it up and it was too wet to plant except maybe late summer and some millets thrown in.

Corn is Cheaper and more Dependable.....

Wheat is golden

Our beaver pond is natural, no levies. This past july/aug it got just dry enough to spread some millet where the water had been standing. It turned out awesome and the ducks loved it.

I did it the year Katrina hit. Had a nice stand of millet and all the seed washed away. Could see the ducks hitting downstream but it was a terrible year in my beaver hole. Fought snakes, beavers and mud to get it planted. Probably would have worked well without torrential rain but I was so frustrated that I never repeated the effort.

Beavers make it nearly impossible to control level. You’re going to have to stay diligent bc water at the wrong time will kill grow. Millet is best bet for seed. I’ve tried most options over the years, but millet is the only one that ever produced any results. A lot of effort for low probability of viable results. We stopped trying.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-itleYKfmIo

Jap millet works deer will enjoy it too. Soybeans not so good they get soggy ducks won’t eat them. Wheat works but keep the water off.

Don't be discouraged drain the water with a long pipe that the beavers cant block plant your rice it will be the best duck attractor you can have

Thanks guys. Gonna start draining this after the spring and plant it late summer. Hope to get 6 acres of jap millet going!

This is how you do this.....

You let the beavers do all the hard work building the dams. Then you bust a hole in dam. Install a riser box taller than their dam. Put all the boards in.

They build it back around the riser box's outlet pipe placed through their dam... you just place the box in the deepest part and a little further back from the dam so that they don't pile sticks in front of it when they re-build.


Late summer kill the beavers. I have never NOT been able to kill every one in a pond with a few 330 connibear. Pretty simple task IMO although some are going to argue that it's tough to kill them. I think I agree in larger bodies of water but in a little beaver pond like we are talking about as a duck hole... easily done IMO.

When you are ready to drop the water and plant pull the boards. Throw Jap Millet on the mud. Add a board or boards to the riser to achieve your desired water level and re-flood your beaver pond progressively as the duck season goes.

Beaver gets back in there just clean sticks out from around the riser box, throw in some boards and just bring the water all the way back up and don't worry about it again until next August.

BUY THE BEST POTATO FORK YOU CAN FIND TO PURCHASE FOR BUSTING AND WORKIGN ON BEAVER DAMS. Best tool ever for dealing with a mess of sticks.