CHAPTER XII.
ILLINOIS TRAPPER'S METHOD.
I for one will say that the mink is a very shy animal, but I do claim he can be caught if you study him and set your trap in the right place. I will suppose that you are trapping along a small stream. All you need is plenty of traps, a belt with a small hatchet attached, a small caliber pistol, and a pair of hip rubber boots. A pair of these boots are as necessary in a trapper's outfit as the main spring is in the watch or clock. Be sure to have your traps in good working order.
Oh yes, I forgot the scent. This you can make yourself by cutting up a couple of cats and muskrats in fine pieces and let them rot good, then add some fish oil and four or five different kinds of oil that you can buy at a drug store. To make this scent all the better you had better put in about one-half pound of limburger cheese. Now then you got her to smelling just right, and every mink that gets a whiff of this perfume will say, oh joy, and hike off in the other direction as fast as his legs can carry him. I took a little bottle of this great scent with me once on a trapping trip. I carried it in my coat pocket. I was leaning over some roots setting a trap when the cork came out of the bottle--well, you know the rest. I never need to hunt for this coat when I want to put it on, for it always makes itself known.
You are now ready to set your traps. You might take a couple of dogs and several small boys to help track up the ground. This the mink can see and smell, and it makes them easier to catch. Now then with your traps on your back, get down into the water, and be careful when going in and out of the water and not make tracks in mud and on side of bank.
The place to set your trap is on the edge of the water. Walk along in the water and examine every hole just even with the water's edge. Some of the holes may come out several inches under water. Set your trap here in water 2 1/2 inches deep, turn spring to right and cover trap with a muddy leaf, fasten trap with a stick run through ring, and have chain stretched out in deep water as far as it will reach. You will see that you haven't touched a thing but your trap and stake. As for the trap, the running water will clean it of any scent you may have left on by handling, but the stake I splash with water and wash a little. If in setting the trap you touch or step on the bank, wash out your tracks with water.
Now then move on, and if you come to a tree on the bank that has lots of roots just even with the water, examine it close, for here is a good place for a mink den. If you find a hole set your trap as before, being careful to leave things as they were. A place where the bank guides the mink into the water is a good set. If you set a trap and have reason to think that the mink will walk around it, then stick up small sticks and little bushes so as to make a fence to guide your mink into the trap. A mink is not afraid of it, for he sees bushes in the water, and it will not scare him a bit.
The way just spoken of, of sticking sticks across the water, is a very important way to catch mink, and I advise all trappers to give it a little more thought. If you trap along a ditch or very small stream just try it. Stick your sticks across the stream just like a little fence, leaving three gaps, one at each end and one in the middle. Set your three traps in here, and I bet you will get nearly every mink that goes up that stream. Of course, stand in the water while you are doing all of this, and your success will be doubly better.
When you put out a line of traps where there are mink, hide every trap as carefully as you can. Suppose you set a trap uncovered at what you suppose to be a muskrat hole, you don't know but what some mink might come along, and on entering the hole he sees the trap--well, it don't take him long to leave the place. Then boys, the very next hole that mink goes into he will look for another trap. You don't need to fool a mink very often until he becomes educated, and then catch him if you can.