SALT SET.
A good many trappers, both amateur and professional, speak of mink
being hard to catch. I can't see it that way, says a Pennsylvania
trapper. Really they are as easy as the water vole or skunk with me.
I simply set all my traps bare, no covering whatever, you clog your
trap when sprung. I lost a good many by so doing, so now I set bare
at all times for both skunk and mink, and I get my share of them.
I use both bait and blind set; water set I think is the best, that
is, in bitter cold weather when the ice is thick. My way of making, I
call it the ice set, is to take a piece of oil cloth or an old buggy
top cover will do, and put about five pounds of salt in same and sew
up; have it about two inches thick. Don't make it too solid, leave it
loose enough so you can work the most of the salt around the edges to
bed trap in. Now puncture with needle to let fumes of salt through;
cut a hole through the ice at the edge of the water, scrape out hole
to bed salt in; but first put a stone in the hole, and bottom and
side it up with stone to keep the mud from clogging the needle holes.
Now you will wonder what the salt is for; simply to keep the ice from
freezing the hole shut. I had nine of that kind of sets set last
winter and trapped seven mink. The hole will never freeze shut.
Always set trap under water.
Last winter I complained to my better half that I had better take my
traps out of the run where I trap, as I couldn't make a water set
because my traps froze over night. She said, why don't you put salt
around your traps? That put me to thinking so I got an old piece of
oil cloth and got her to make four for me on the sewing machine; I
put a five pound sack of salt in each one.
The best place to set is on the inside of a curve. In slack water you
will have to keep moving your set as the water rises and falls.
Undoubtedly that is the best cold water set I have ever tried, and it
has been a complete success with me.
I use the cubby set for mink. Before severe weather sets in I take
two boards six or eight feet long, lean them against each other V
shape, put water vole carcass (rabbit, chicken or fish is also good)
in center and a trap at each end, about one foot from end. I also
have the hollow log set. It is on the same principle as the cubby
set. A cubby is easily built. You can make them out of stone if you
can't get boards.