Trappers, have you not had your mink trap set and baited under a shelving bank and seen mink tracks going up and down by the bait and they would not touch it? Get some sticks and stick them from bank down into water that is five or six inches deep, is the advice of a Maine trapper. Leave a place for trap up next to bank where he travels and cover nicely with fine rotten wood, and you will get more mink setting this way than you will with all the bait you bother with, that is, if you pick out such places along the brook and stick up sticks close enough so he cannot get by without going over trap.
EASTERN TRAPPER AND TRAPS.
I don't mean to say that bait isn't good, because I have caught a good many with bait, and there are lots of times when I can't find such a place and of course use bait and scent. Some say mink are afraid of human scent and set the trap with gloves, and that they are foxy and hard to catch. I don't think a mink knows any more than a skunk, and I can catch them just as easy. Last winter I went to my trap one morning and found two toes of a mink in one and one toe in another, and inside of a week I had both of them in the same trap and in the same place.
Mink are not very plentiful in some places which makes some people think they are hard to catch, and others don't know how to set a trap right for mink.
The first requisite in trapping mink is water, either a lake or river, says a Minnesota trapper. Small streams are to be preferred, and the swifter the current the better. Why? Because swiftly running water does not freeze so quickly, a fact every boy knows.
Next, select a spot on the shore where the bank is steep, ascending directly up from the water, and place your trap (a No. 1 or 1 1/2 of any good make) in about two inches of water and about six inches from the bank, and fasten trap by driving a stake full length of chain out in the water. Many trappers advocate the use of both bait and sliding pole or spring pole, but personally I do not care for either, unless there is danger of trap lifters "swiping" your game; in such cases the sliding pole is the best, as it is more humane and game is entirely concealed. If the bank is not too high set your trap from the top and place in position with a stick, for by so doing you do not make any muss around the trap.
Now let me caution young trappers about setting too many traps for one mink. One trap well set is better than a dozen just slung in or even well set and carefully concealed. It is not necessary to have four or five traps within a radius of six feet as young trappers often do. I discovered a case of this kind once.
For two weeks once I was after a sly representative of the mink family but without success. Every trick in my command was tried without success, but one morning I determined to try for him up a small spring creek, where he was in the habit of going. I hesitated about putting my traps on this creek. I had hesitated about putting my traps on this creek as the owner usually lifted all traps found there. As there was no snow there except small patches I was not aware of another trapper's work on this brook, but a few drops of blood on a patch of snow caused me to open my eyes, and I was not long in discovering his traps. A blind man could have done that for they were literally thrown in, some almost upside down and others with the spring half out of the water.