I trapped over the same ground all winter and caught four mink in one place and three in another. I see that some trappers think that the scent of the mink will scare them away, but that is the best scent I could find when trapping mink on rat houses. A large rat will make a hard fight for a small mink if he has a fair show, and when a mink gets into a fight he will throw out scent like a skunk. For that reason I think scent is all right to attract mink to traps.
Now if you set a trap and use this scent with a little muskrat musk, when a mink comes along he smells the musk of both mink and rat, and begins to look around or rather smell around for the remains of the rat to make a meal on. If you have the trap and scent in the right place you will have another mink on your list.
Of course there are a few old fellows that are educated that are pretty shy of anything that isn't natural to them. These fellows you can catch in blind sets somewhere along your line. About the best place I can find to catch mink is where they drill into a rat house to catch rats. They smell around till they find a soft place on the south side of the house and dig a hole just large enough to crawl through, right into the rat's nest.
CHAPTER XIX.
DEADFALLS.
First a little pen about a foot square is built of stones and chunks or by driving stakes close together, leaving one side open. The pen should be built smaller and tighter than shown in illustration, so that a small mink or weasel cannot get in from the back or sides. The pen in illustration is purposely large so that triggers and bait can be seen, giving the inexperienced deadfall trapper a better idea of how to set.
The stakes should be cut about thirty inches long and driven into the ground some sixteen inches, leaving fourteen, or thereabout above the ground. Of course if the earth is very solid stakes need not be so long, but should be so driven that only about fourteen inches remains above ground. A sapling say four inches in diameter and four feet long is laid across the end that is open. A sapling that is four or five inches in diameter and about twelve feet long is now cut for the "fall."
Stakes are set so that this pole or fall will play over the short pole on the ground. These stakes should be driven in pairs; two about eighteen inches from the end; two about fourteen further back. (See illustration). The small end of the pole should be split and a stake driven firmly through it so there will be no danger of the pole turning and "going off" of its own accord.
The trap is set by placing the prop (which is only seven inches in length and half an inch through) between the top log and the short one on the ground, to which is attached the long trigger, which is only a stick about the size of the prop, but about twice as long, the baited end of which extends back into the little pen. The figure 4 triggers can be used if preferred, but the two piece is as good if not better. The bait may consist of a piece of fish, chicken, rabbit or any tough bit of meat so long as it is fresh, and the bloodier the better.