An old hollow log is also a good place for mink with a trap at each end. You will notice when there is a light shift of snow that mink cross old logs, limbs, boards and dams that are across streams. Put your trap in the center of crossing place, as you cannot tell where he will get on or off at. Always cover traps when not setting in water. Old hollow stumps, trees, openings in fences, stone walls, or flood-gates, drifts and the like are good places to set traps for mink; path openings in brush, in fact anywhere you see signs of their travels, as they most generally have a route which they follow more or less. I have followed them across country from the headwaters of one stream to another, to swamp and swales where the muskrat abounds, turning every "hole inside out," so to speak, and they seem to know them all.
For bait I use fish oil, you can get it almost anywhere and it is cheap and good, the older the better. Place a few drops on the end of a tile, roots of a tree or stone, or in fact anywhere you have a trap but not on your trap. I never put it on dead bait but just sprinkle it around. A mink likes to kill his own game. Make him think there is some around and hunt for it, which he surely will do if there is nothing but the scent to find.
To be a successful mink trapper you must study his trails and set your trap accordingly.
Most methods that I read for trapping the mink are for trapping in the north or far north. Now some of them are good, while others are useless here. From my observation of the habits of the mink in Virginia, I don't think they have any fixed abode (in trapping season any how). Wherever is most convenient after a full meal or light overtakes them they den up for the day, and the next day may be snugly sleeping under the roots of a blown over tree or under the banks of a creek five miles away. The building of barricades of rocks, old chunks or pens of sticks and bait within is time and labor thrown away. Now, young trapper, I am going to give you four of my favorite sets for mink, that if you will follow will give you some success, if there are any mink where you are trapping.
Follow along ditches and find where they cross, usually called secret ditches, which come into the main one, set your trap at the entrance of the covered one a little under water, and cover with water soaked leaves. Do not use bait but may use scent, or a decoy. One may be fixed by making a box about 6 inches square, 12 or 18 inches long, of old boards, with hoe plant in bank at desirable place so as to look natural. Set your trap in front.
Another is to get a piece of hollow log 3 or 4 feet long, place in mouth of ditch or branch where it comes into creek, anchor with stakes or weigh down with stones, close one end, place trap at other, under water if possible; place bait in log. This is a sure set for coon. It took me nearly half a day last September to cut a log, get it in branch and weigh down with stones to keep high water from washing away, but caught four mink and two coon at the entrance.
Another is where banks are steep along small streams. Set trap in water, cause anything that may come along to pass over trap by a row of dead sticks, weeds or a bunch of old weeds. I have also caught many by placing two old logs five or six feet long, four or five inches apart in shallow water near a steep bank, cover with a larger log. If you have plenty of traps you can set one in each end. Do not use bait but can use scent. Be sure to search out all the old hollow logs near streams and set trap in or near entrance--place bait in log. By following these rules any one, where game is fairly plentiful, can catch some mink.