NORTHWEST TRAPPER AND MINK.
If brush is used it should be fine so it will lie close together so a mink cannot pass through. If there is danger of the creek washing the brush away, then fasten it by driving a few small stakes in the ground to hold it.
Remember that no bait or scent should be used. If footprints are left on the ground, then splash water on them. Remember that half of the pen is on the shore and the other half is in the creek, providing the creek is a wide one; this depends on the width of the creek. It is a good idea to trap on both sides of a creek; one is sure then of catching an animal whether it goes down on one side or the other. This is the only method I use and it has proven to be successful.
If a mink is hungry and finds bait that has been left for him he will pay no attention to human scent, while if he is not hungry he will not take the bait be it ever so fresh. A mink will sometimes make a trail in the fresh snow by passing several times over the same route and then never use that trail again. I have known otter to do the same.
I caught two mink last winter in a ditch, setting trap in the water. The first night I caught a medium sized mink and the third night I caught a small one, and would have caught every mink that went up that ditch if it had not frozen up and snowed so during the time that I could not keep the traps properly set.
If a person sets out a line of traps in this country, Iowa, while there is snow on the ground, he is simply going to a great deal of trouble to give them to some one.
In trapping mink I watch for signs, and when I locate a mink I consider it mine and it generally is, while if you bait up a trap somewhere that you may think is a good place to catch a mink, it often happens that you may make a good many trips to your trap before you get a mink, and you may say to yourself that it is human scent that keeps them away, when perhaps there has not been a mink near the trap. My advice to young trappers is not to set where a mink may go but set it where you know he is going, and you will find it no trick to catch mink.
I have many different ways of trapping the mink, says a Pennsylvania trapper, as I set my traps only where I see their signs, and as the signs are often different, and found in different kinds of places, one way is not enough. I use Blake & Lamb No. 1 traps mostly for mink. I never stake a trap down except in water set. On dry land I fasten to a brush clog.