After an experience of 34 years in trapping mink I presume I can give a few points, writes Mr. Moses Bone, of Iowa, that may help younger trappers who wish to trap mink. The mink is very cunning and hard to catch in a steel trap unless you know how and where to set, which is about the only secret there is in catching mink. I have had people write to know what scent I used and how I set traps. A man can learn better methods as long as he traps--experience is the best teacher--and unless he is willing to work hard he will never make a successful trapper of any kind of game. A trapper simply wants to shoulder his traps early in the morning and travel ten, twenty and perhaps thirty miles a day; he must foot it, for no other method of traveling will do. The writer has done it many times, starting before daylight and not getting home until after dark.
As before stated, my experience as a mink trapper began 34 years ago, my brother and I trapping together, and we began putting out our traps the first week in November, 1867. There were very few trappers then and mink were plentiful. In four weeks we caught 101 mink and 50 muskrats. The mink were mostly in prime condition and brought $300.00. Rats at this time were worth 25 cents each.
At the beginning of the trapping season my brother in one night caught 15 mink, the largest catch I ever knew. In 1873 I caught 10 mink in one night, but it took two days to visit my traps, walking 60 miles. In 1878 I caught 15 mink in one hole where the water ran all winter, and I never had to bait the trap as the scent was enough to attract every mink coming near. In the past three years I have caught 90 mink within a mile of home. Several years ago I caught 8 in one place.
I use steel traps, not so many as I used to, as trappers are numerous nowadays. Water set was always my favorite way of catching mink, setting about two inches under water, in a spring, ditch or where the water ran swift, otherwise the water will freeze over. Of course when very cold weather comes, dry land sets must be resorted to. I always use No. 1 steel traps. No. 1 1/2 is better for skunk or coon. For bait use chicken, rabbit, or still better, muskrat, but they must be strictly fresh.
In order to make mink trapping interesting one must make it pay, and where there are plenty of the animals the scientific trapper can make it pay, for they are about as easily caught as any other game when you understand your business. Mink fur is not good and prime before the middle of November in Iowa and states in same latitude, and it is useless to catch them earlier.
When you see signs of the mink set your trap as near as you can get to a spring, ditch or running water with a steep bank a foot or more high. Here dig a hole in the bank 6 or 8 inches inward and low enough to let the water flow in. Now get a forked stick, cut off one fork say an inch long, leaving the other 6 or 8 inches long. Sharpen the end of the long fork and run it through your bait (remember bait must be fresh) up to the fork. The bait is now fastened on the stick and run it in the bank back in the hole as far as you can.
If any mink comes along they will find it. Set your trap near entrance, but always in the current. Take weeds or sticks, say a foot long, stick them in the mud, making a lane so the mink must pass over the trap in order to get the bait.
If you wish a good scent to draw mink in the spring of the year, collect the scent bags of the muskrat and preserve them in alcohol, to which is added 5 cents worth of oil of cumin if you like. I discarded all scents, however, 30 years ago, finding nothing better than fresh bait, the more bloody the better. The mink has a good smeller. For dry land set I go on the same principles, but cover traps with leaves, grass or fine rubbish.
This method is very successful for mink, and in fact for almost any fur bearing animal that travels up and down a creek, says an Illinois trapper. The first thing to do is to set your trap near the shore so it will be about two inches under water. Stake the trap or fasten it to a drag, just as you like. The trap should be a No. 1 1/2 or you can set two or three No. 1 traps together. Now after the trap is set, get some weeds or brush and begin at the trap and make a V shaped pen, leaving an opening where the trap is about ten inches wide if you are trapping for coon. The brush or weeds, whichever is used, should extend several feet from the trap in either direction.
After you are through it should be like illustration No. 1. This, we will suppose, is for catching animals coming down the creek. Now go down the creek a few rods and set another trap, but have the narrow opening of the pen pointing up the creek, as in the illustration No. 2, which will catch an animal traveling up the creek. If these pens are made right, then a mink will walk into the pens and through the opening nine times out of ten instead of walking around them. Try this method once and be convinced. These pens should be about a foot high.