CAUGHT IN MIDWINTER.
In setting mink traps along the shore of lake or river I take the fish whole in the canoe, and as I set a trap cut off a section with my belt axe, beginning with the tail. Each bait will be an inch or an inch and a quarter broad lengthways of the fish. You make your bait stick very sharp and run it through crossways of the section, piercing the skin on both sides. Long after the flesh part of the fish has rotted and fallen away, the skin ring will be yet in evidence shriveled up dry on the stick, but yet useful as bait.
In using partridge or rabbits for bait, it is very much towards their lasting powers to not remove the skin or feathers. Cut the section you want with a very sharp axe, run your bait stick through the portion of meat and plaster down close on top all the feathers, hair or skin and tie securely if in mild weather. If in cold weather, all that is necessary is to place each bait stick, primed, out of doors over night, and the next day you can carry them in your bait bag like so many knots.
In conclusion will say that a few drops of oil of anise is the best alluring scent I have found for mink. A final word of advice. Unless your traps in water-set always have a tossing pole, otherwise when you visit your line you may have the chagrin to find only the paw instead of the animal. As the minister says, one more word. If it is your intention to return on your tracks when visiting your trap road, be sure and clean out, bait and reset each trap as you go. In mild weather or towards spring, animals run as well in daytime as at night, and I have often, by observing this rule, found on my return at different times almost all kinds of animals caught while I was at the other end of the road.
CHAPTER V.
BAIT AND SCENT.
The mink is very hard to catch, as all or most all experienced trappers tell us, so therefore we must believe them, says an experienced Canadian trapper. Some say that mink are afraid of human scent. In one sense they are but in another they are not, as I will prove to you in the following paragraph: