Snow sets are largely used for the shyer animals such as fox and wolf altho trappers use this set for any land animal when they think conditions right. Traps when set for foxes and wolves are usually set just before a snow fall, if the trapper is enough of a weather prophet to do this.
The water set is used mostly for otter, beaver and muskrat. Mink and raccoon are also caught in large numbers in water sets. Fox trappers in the Northeast catch many foxes in springs at water sets before hard freezing weather sets in.
MINK AND OPOSSUM TRACKS.
I will give an excellent method of trapping animals on land writes an Ohio trapper. Fasten your bait to the body of a tree about a foot from the ground and near a den or other place frequented by the animals you want to catch. Dig up the ground at the foot of the tree and cover the loose earth with leaves, also place your brush drag near the tree and after the animal begins to eat the bait, set your trap right under it and about six or eight inches from the tree and fastening the trap to the brush drag. Replace the leaves over the trap and cover the chain with leaves or dead grass. Do not disturb anything around the trap but leave the drag, etc., just as it was before the trap was set.
For mink fasten the bait on the side of a log, one end of which rests in the water and the other on the bank of the stream. The bait should be at least ten inches from the ground. Set your traps under the bait and staple the chain to the log. The first mink that comes along will pass under the log and stopping to investigate the bait will get his toes pinched. The best covering for this set is dead grass, leaves or snow. The best bait for mink is the head of a fowl or a piece of fish or muskrat.
About trapping mink in their den; first, if you find a den where a mink is living, says a trapper, don't by any means mash the brush or grass down around the den holes, but approach it very carefully with not less than two traps, all set and ready to place at the mouth or entrance of the den.