Mink Trapping Part 2

I claim that animals are their own best scent. If experience is worth anything I am sure of it. About the first trapping I ever did (1877) I ran out of mink bait and came across a rivulet running into the main creek and mink track in plenty. Well, what was I to do? I must set a trap. I took a piece of the hind quarter of a mink. Being a green hand at the business I did not know whether it would work or not. But the next time I visited my trap I found out the plan was a success, for I had Mr. Mink safe and sound. Ever since I have had occasion to use the same for bait.

Another ill.u.s.tration I will give which proves beyond question that this theory is a correct one: In 1878 I set a trap in a hole in the bank, the water not freezing all winter, but ran a stream over the trap, out of the hole. I used no bait. But I believe I caught every mink coming that way. Every mink caught of course would freshen up the place with his musk. The result was 15 mink. I believe other animals are the same; but skunk and civet are not so particular what they eat; anything half decomposed or rotten will answer.

The civet is very troublesome when they find your mink trap. In setting in water (he will not go in water if he can help it) he will make a hole at one side and get your bait in spite of you. At other times he will crawl over all your stagings and reach in, like a monkey, apparently as limber as Indian rubber, and get your bait. In dry land sets they walk right into your trap and you can get rid of them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TRAPPERS "SHACK".]

A few words about scent. I never did believe in mixing a lot of stuff together as some say, says a Canadian trapper. Now if a mink is attracted by the odor of fish oil or the scent of muskrat musk or of blood or the scent of the female mink, that does not say that we should mix them all together and expect it to catch every mink that comes along. Would you expect the mink to distinguish the smell of each of these substances when they are all mixed together? If we like chicken, sweet potatoes, chocolate cake and mince pie, would it make it better to mix all these things together? I don't think we would like it.

As for the fox, the very best scent or decoy is the matrix of the female fox, as has been described so often, but it is hard to get.

Next to this I think comes skunk essence and it should be sprinkled around quite freely, as the fox is not afraid of it, like some trappers are, and it also helps to kill the smell of the iron of the trap. Now don't think by this that you should rub it on the trap.

Just sprinkle it around the trap.

But none of these scents will attract an animal as far as some seem to think, and I find that one of the most important things is to find where animals use and set your traps near these places. Of course you must study the nature and habits of your game or you will not know how to set the trap after you find the place. Then set your traps carefully, work hard, keep your eyes open, use reason and good sense, take care of your furs and you will be successful.

For mink I use a No. 1 or No. 1 1/2 trap. The latter is preferable.

For scent that obtained from the scent bags of the mink or weasel, mixed with anise oil, is the best decoy I ever used, says a Minnesota trapper. This scent is found near the root of the tail in two round bags about the size of a pea, and is a yellow liquid smelling very strong.

After setting the trap I scatter feathers around and over it. The mink, seeing the feathers and scenting what he supposes to be a weasel, will dig up the whole works looking for something a weasel has overlooked, and he is mighty lucky if he don't get in the trap.

Canned sardines make good mink bait, and the sardine oil is good to mix with the scent in the scent bottle. Skunk scent and feathers attract and allay suspicions of all bird eating animals.

CHAPTER VI.

PLACES TO SET.

There is one place on my line of traps where I have caught six mink, says an Iowa trapper. I have no doubt but what this particular place is on their regular crossing place in going from one stream to another. I have a few good places but they do not equal this one. At these particular places I do not remove my traps during the entire trapping season. I find a man gets fooled quite easy at times by putting in traps at places that look extra good, when, in fact, it proves to be no good at all for mink. I often read of trappers who say to set traps at hollow trees, in hollow logs, and every place where a mink is liable to go. Well, a mink is liable to go any place.

Also just as liable not to go, too. Now if you should place a trap in all these places you would have traps strung all over creation.

In my locality after a mink leaves a ditch or stream you cannot tell what direction he will go. Perhaps he will start across some farmer's field down between two rows of corn. Now I expect some of these nights Mr. Mink is going to take a run down through Farmer Jones'

cornfield. He is liable to. Shall I place a trap between every row of corn? In my locality with snow on the ground they travel through fields more than any other place. I will tell you boys, I have three pet sets that I use, and which I stay just as close to the streams with as I possibly can, for the condition of the weather is such at most times that it would not pay to change the location of traps.

Some trappers will tell you that if a mink will throw his scent where he is caught you will get another one soon at the same place. Well I do not believe it, except from the female at mating time. I think when an animal throws a scent it is a danger signal.

Many trappers have told me that a warm night was the night to catch mink, because that was the time they ran most. That don't go with me either. It is just because mink can smell bait better on a warm night, as the old trappers around here hardly ever set without bait, and think it is a wonder that I can catch mink without bait. In fact, mink run well on cold and disagreeable nights, just as well as on warm nights. I make it a point to have my traps in the very best condition previous to a change in the weather, no matter what the change may bring, there will be lots of mink on the move during the change.

Now boys I am not going to advise you to make any particular set, but if you have two or three good ways, stay with them. They will bring good results. A man can spend lots of time trying to do something with some fake set and perhaps neglect some better sets during this time. A few good sets, well handled, will surely bring good results.

If I am to judge results from the conditions in my locality, I will say that fifty traps are too many. Twenty-five gives a man plenty of work here. During snowy weather you can set your traps with northeast east, or southeast protection and it is all right, until the wind gets to the northwest, then look out, for you will have some digging to yet your traps in good condition. By that time the wind is in the south. Then it begins to thaw, then the water soaks through on your traps, then by the time you get around again they are frozen up solid. Then how a fellow wishes for more weather with a "sameness"

about it.

An Eastern trapper says: My favorite set for mink is the water set. I find a place where the water don't freeze up, and if there are any stones around I lay a stone on each side of the stream, and then I get a flat stone and lay it over the two stones. I place these alongside the stream, making a hole like when the water comes out.

Then for a bait I use fish, brook trout if I can get them, or most any kind of fresh water fish. I put a piece of fish back in this hole so it lies in the water and set traps in entrance, and you are sure to get most every mink that comes along.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A GOOD MINK STREAM.]

This set is for November, December, January and February until about the last part, when running time begins. Then I like the runways best, and you will find them under driftwood and along banks where the water has washed the bank so the trees standing on the edge have leaned over and made a hollow under the bank. I have taken a good many mink this way and also with the water set. I took twelve mink last year that I kept, and had six get away by gnawing off their feet under the jaws of the trap.

The following is from an Indiana trapper: Here is one of the many mink sets I have been successful with: Go along a creek, find a log, one that is somewhat crooked will be better, as some part of it will sink below the surface of the water, roll same into the creek and tow along to a place where the water is two to three feet deep, take a strong wire 6 or 7 feet long and fasten to the under side and to one end of the log, fasten the other end of the wire to a stout stake and drive down solid near the middle of the creek.

Now find a place where the water stands above the top of the log, and chop out a place for the trap deep enough so the trap will be 1 or 2 inches under water. Now take some mud and smear over the fresh cut place so it will have an old appearance. Now set your trap and cover with a few water soaked leaves and a few pinches of mud. This set should be made where the water does not run too swift. Muskrat will bother this set some, as long as there are any near, but they are troublesome about most any water set for mink.

The fur bearers here are fox, mink, skunk, opossum, racc.o.o.n and rats, and none of them plentiful, writes a Tennessee trapper.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WHERE SIGNS ARE PLENTY.]

I will tell you how I captured a shy old mink that had run my line of traps for two years. I had made up my mind to catch him or trap on the balance of my days. I set my trap in the spring where he had been wading; the first night he threw the trap and that seemed to make him shy of the spring.

I took a piece of muskrat and nailed it to a root above the trap, and the second morning I visited my trap I had a crow, not mink, and the mink had killed the crow by biting him through the back of the head.

That made me more determined than ever to get that mink. I arranged my traps all nicely, and the third morning I found a muskrat and he was cut up badly by the mink. I took the fresh carca.s.s of the rat and rebaited again, and the fourth morning to my surprise I had another crow.

It seemed from the amount of tracks that they had fought a duel and the crow had come out ahead, for he was still alive. I fixed my trap all back again and the fifth morning had a fine muskrat.

Well, I had about given up all hopes of catching him at that place so I decided to move my set 200 yards up stream, where there was a log projecting out over the water 2 feet above the water, where he traveled under. There I gouged a hole back in the bank one foot back so the water would flow back in enough to cover the trap, and I baited with a fresh partridge, and the next morning I found my mink.

Now boys, this does not look as if they were very shy of human scent, does it?

First find a den where they have been going under the ice or where they have been eating a dead rabbit or chicken say an Iowa trapper.

Next I select my traps, Newhouse No. 1 or 1 1/2 or Hawley & Norton 1 1/2. I examine them to see if they are in good order. When setting at a den or where they have been eating some dead animal, cover with leaves, feathers or snow; fasten to a stick that can be dragged a short distance. I bait with chicken, rabbit, birds and mice. Fish is also good. Brush away your tracks and do not approach too close. If the traps are undisturbed, I leave them for a week. Frequently mink do not come out every night.

When setting where they go under the ice, I use a No. 2 Jump Trap. If the water is not too deep, lay two sticks in the bottom of the stream about two inches apart. Between these I lay bait, generally mice. Set trap, and fasten it to a stick on top of the ice. Cover trap with moss and leaves and you will generally get him, or, at least, that is my luck.

I will always remember my first mink. I found the den. They went under the ice and the hole was below the water. I set my trap carefully, baited with sapsucker and the next morning I had him. Set trap back and caught another one.

CHAPTER VII.

INDIAN METHODS.

Oftentimes while walking through the winter wood I find the track of a mink, that starts or ends in a brook or pond, says a New England trapper. To set a trap in this case, if the snow is light, I do as follows:

First, I use a drag around the woods where the track is seen. To make this I kill an old hen or rooster, split it open, and mix equal parts of fish oil and the juice that comes with oysters. If the track is very old, I add an equal part of oil of a.s.safoetida, and put the mixture inside the hen, leaving the entrails in and sew it up loosely. Then I tie it to a rope, and starting at the point where the track leaves the water, drag it through the woods, not very far, ending in the brook again. At several places along the line I secrete traps, exactly in the path made by the drag.

A mink, striking the scent will follow it, and, there being no bait to scare him or arouse his suspicions, will run along the track until he gets into one of the traps. This is a good set to use in woods where a bait would mean having your traps lifted by John Sneak.u.m. I don't know how it will work with others, but I have had fine success with it, especially in the cases of old "bait-shy mink."

Here is another set shown me by an old half-breed Indian. We were in a light canoe, and were paddling up a little reed-fringed brook, from ten to thirty feet wide. In the weeds were several muskrat houses. As it was spring, they were all finished and the rats were no longer working on them. The old man set two traps on the house, and barely under water. Then he put a few drops of the scent that is found in a sack just under the root of the mink's tail, on a leaf on the very top of the muskrat house; and then placed a small piece of muskrat with the fur on, beside the scent, fastening it with a skewer.

He said, "mink, come 'long and smell 'nother mink an' muskrat on top house. He clim' up, get caught, an' all drown good." "But," said I, "muskrats will climb up too, 'cause you've got muskrat meat for bait." "Oh-h-h no!" he chuckled. "Muskrat he heap 'fraid of mink. We have mink to-morrer-wonca, numpaw, yawha, yawminee mink (1, 2, 3, 4 mink). You see? Then you no call ol' In'jun big fool." Sure enough next morning he had s.h.a.gipee (6) mink to show for as many sets. The principle was that the muskrat wouldn't climb up, for he would see the fur and smell the mink scent, and think it was a mink.

[Ill.u.s.tration: INDIAN TRAPPER.]

Mink often follow muskrat trails, especially in the fall before the snow comes. To set a trap in the trail would mean to catch a rat, and make a meal for a mink; so I post a rooster's head about two feet from the trail and set a No. 1 1/2 trap under it. The rat isn't likely to leave the trail for the head, but the mink will, unless he is hot after a muskrat.

When brooks unite and form a "Y" there is often a little sand pit left in the crotch of the "Y." I hang a piece of muskrat meat with mink scent on it upon a small stick leaning out over my trap, which is set in two or three inches of water, and staked out so as to drown the mink.

An Indian subscriber of the Hunter-Trader-Trapper and who writes of his experiences occasionally to that interesting magazine, in one season caught with dog and trapped in Northwestern Pennsylvania 104 mink. The name of this Indian is John Lord, and he has trapped as far west as California. The ill.u.s.tration shows him to be a young man. The picture shown here was taken in 1905 when he was hunting and trapping in Pennsylvania.