Any area that contains a potential food source for predators is worthy of a calling setup. If there are terrain features—such as open spaces—that give you a view of incoming targets ... even better. And if you can put another terrain feature at your back to funnel those targets to your front, you have an official "hotspot." Want one? Just have your local beavers build it.
And you don't even have to ask, because it's what they do instinctively. Think about it. Beavers build dams, dams back up water to form ponds, and water freezes in winter (if it's cold enough). This effectively gives the predator hunter a large, open field. Any body of water will attract prey animals, so the paws-and-claws gang will often hang around hoping for a meal, even in winter when things are frozen and food becomes more scarce.
Beaver ponds vary in size, but if you can find one at least 75 yards across, there's a good bet that one side has a feature making it difficult for predators to approach from that angle. It could be a tangled thicket or even the dam itself. A little scouting should quickly reveal their favorite angles of approach.
Check out every beaver pond in your area as a possible calling site. I never miss the opportunity to call near one, and I'm seldom disappointed. One pond in particular is on my regular hit list and it produces regularly. This one is 135 yards across and has a spruce thicket full of rabbits on one side. An open field on the other side tells me there are no coyotes behind me, so I set up with my back to that. I stopped there 2 days ago with my son-in-law, and in just 8 minutes we had a coyote coming across the ice on a charging run.
My son-in-law played it cool and let the coyote get to the middle of our kill zone before springing the trap. At that point, he air-mailed him a 39-grain Sierra BlitzKing and the coyote went down in a heap. It was an instant replay of dozens of kills—including a triple—that I've made on that beaver pond.
A word of caution, however: Ice is always dangerous. I went for an unscheduled plunge into this pond a couple of years ago. I wasn't alert enough to recognize the breathing holes sometimes found around a beaver's lodge. They can freeze over lightly and become covered in fresh snow, making them difficult to spot. But if you step on one, like me, you'll find it.
So, remember that beavers are your buddies and can build you a great predator-calling site. If you live someplace too warm for water to freeze, eat your heart out. While you're grilling steaks on the deck, we're killing predators on frozen beaver ponds.
