One evening I was at the shop and I told my father I was going down to place my traps and see which was the smartest, the mink or me. I had noticed he would go by my traps and climb up a little bank and jump down over a root, so I set the trap there and covered with leaves. I had four traps set close together, and when I went to the sets the next morning I found him with a foot in each. He didn't dig and gnaw everything in reach as he was too badly tied up.
I thought I would get them all now, but I never got any more till last season. I wrote to the Oneida Community for a price list of traps and they mailed me one, and sent an advertisement of the H-T-T. So I subscribed at once and received the October number. In reading the letters I saw Brother F. M. Frazier's letter headed, "Advice to Young Trappers." I was impressed with the old gentleman's tone of writing so I wrote to him and asked him for help, and explained my difficulties to him. He gave me some fine sets and told me things I never thought of or heard of before, although I have since learned that they had been published in the H-T-T.
I purchased about thirty-nine second hand traps Nos. 1 and 1 1/2. December 30th found me setting traps for mink. I carried out Brother Frazier's plans and directions. I made thirteen blind sets, and on Monday morning went around to see if anything was doing. The first trap I came to was sprung and had a mink's toe in it. I felt pretty bad, but that was more than I had gotten in a good while. So I went to another trap, and before I got there I saw everything gnawed up, and on going closer up jumped an old mink on a log near the trap. His eyes sparked but I soon put an end to him, and I have been catching mink ever since.
On February 1st I moved some of my traps down a river near here. I made most of my sets in water and used rabbit for bait. I made enclosures and put bait in back end of same and the trap at the entrance. I noticed a hole near the creek that emptied into the river and I set a trap at the hole. I have noticed that hole for several years and had been seeing a large mink on that creek for eight or ten years. I have seen his track where he would go in that hole every time he would go along by it, but when I set my traps there I didn't see any tracks. The next time I went there I found a large brown mink in my trap, but it wasn't the "big one."
I didn't get any more there for some time, neither had I seen the big mink track since I set my traps down there, but on going to my traps one morning I saw that something was doing. When I came close I saw that there was something big in the trap and had dragged the trap back in the hole the full length of the chain. I took hold of the chain and began to pull. I soon pulled him out as far as his hind legs and he looked so big I let go the chain and he went back in the hole. I pulled him out and put a 22 between his eyes and that settled him. He measured thirty-two and a half inches from tip to tip on the board. How is this for a large mink, brother trappers?
CHAPTER X.
NORTHERN METHODS.
As for sets, I think it all depends upon the country and seasons. For mink in my country, Ontario, I prefer a hollow tree turned up at the roots, setting a No. 1 trap, baited with either fish or muskrat. Such a set should be on the bank of a lake or river, as a hungry mink going along the shore is always running in such old roots and logs. As for water sets, they keep freezing up, and another thing, it is not natural for a piece of meat to be hanging on a string.
A Michigan trapper writes as follows: Now brother trappers, are you energetically putting in your leisure time during September and October looking up new grounds for hunting and trapping and finding signs and trails of coon, mink and fox, or are you lounging around and putting all this off till it is time to take out your line of traps?