At first he will probably forsake one hole only to take refuge in another, but when he finds that you are really after him, and that there is, moreover, a dog in the racket, he will try the dodge of swimming under water. Then is your time. Watch for him at the shallow places, where he will prove an easy mark. Have guns loaded light and aim to have charge strike a little to one side of body. The concussion will be sufficient to stop him, and the fur will not be injured as in firing point blank. It is exciting sport for the mink is like "greased lightning" in his movements, and if given the least chance will outwit both dog and man and escape.
An old New Hampshire gunner told us that he and his partner once got sixteen mink this way in one week, the best of which brought them twelve to fifteen dollars a skin. He knew absolutely nothing about trapping so resorted to this method instead. We have mentioned spade, bar and guns as comprising the necessary outfit, but of course various other implements of one's own invention and manufacture can often be used to advantage. Some make great account of a piece of wire with a sharp hook at one end for thrusting into the hole and drawing the mink to the light, as a trout from the water. Others use a long handled spear to thrust under banks, or to pinion the game when going through shallows. A truly barbarous practice besides the further objections of greatly damaging the pelt of the animals taken thus.
BROKE THE FASTENING.
Another mode of capturing the mink is to lie about the streams on wet and foggy days and shoot him. They travel a great deal in such weather. By selecting a spot where you can keep well hidden, yet commanding a long stretch of beach under some overhanging bank, you stand a good chance to secure a shot if you have plenty of patience. Of course you would not be apt to get many in a day, but one mink represents a pretty good day's work at the price they are selling now.
One characteristic of the animal should be borne in mind when pursuing this method of hunting him, and that is his persistency in going whichever way he wishes to go. If a mink starts to go up a brook he's going up before he gets through with it, or lose his life trying; and down the same. The more anybody or anything tries to prevent him, the more desperate and reckless he grows in his efforts to accomplish his aim. So if one sees you and turns back startled don't follow him, but just crouch down in a convenient hiding place and wait for him. The chances are ninety to one that he will soon be back again.
I have known trappers to have good success taking mink with a common box trap such as is used in catching rats about the house and barn, and I am inclined to think that aside from its bulkiness this is a pretty good sort of trap. Some use poison as for the wolf, but the use of this on animals was always repugnant to me.
Perhaps the queerest method of which I ever heard was that mentioned by a gentleman in Illinois. He claimed to have caught mink with an ordinary fish hook, baited, and attached to a piece of wire.
I do not believe, however, that any of the methods mentioned in this article are equal for effectiveness and true sport to the regular way with steel trap or deadfall. Some of them, it seems to me, I could not be induced to make use of on any account. And yet, as already stated, one might find himself in circumstances that would justify their adoption.