LOG AND OTHER SETS.
My advice to all young trappers is, study the nature and habits of
your game and you will be successful in taking all kinds of fur
bearing animals. Here is one of my methods, writes a trapper, of
taking mink around swamps and lakes where there are shallow springs
that never freeze up.
The bait house: This should be built in about two inches of water, as
follows: Get some sticks about one foot and a half long and drive one
end in the mud in the shape of a horse shoe, with the tops leaned
together and a door left in one side about three inches wide. The pen
should be a foot wide. Now get some moss, grass or weeds (the moss
from an old rat house is best) and cover over well. Lay a chip or
chunk of wood back of the house and place a piece of fresh muskrat on
it. Set the trap under water on the door with spring pointing to one
side. If there is deep water near by the drowning wire is the best
way to fasten traps, and if water is shallow fasten the trap to a
long stone of about eight or ten pounds weight and place back as far
as the chain will reach from the house.
There are certain springs around all lakes and swamps that a mink
will visit every time that he comes that way, and if a house is made
at these springs and kept baited every mink can be caught.
The bait hole: This is a good method to use along creeks and rivers
before the water freezes over in the fall. Find a steep bank a foot
or more high near the water and dig a hole back in a foot deep and
about eight inches high and level with the water. Scoop the dirt out
in front of the hole about two feet wide and two inches under the
water; but don't get the hole so low as to let the water back in. Let
the water come up to the mouth of the hole and set a No. 1 steel trap
square in front of the entrance with the spring pointing away, and
fasten so the mink will drown.
The log set: Find where an old log lies in the water, stick chunks of
wood in under the log on the bank so the mink will have to pass
around in the water under the log. Set trap, a No. 1, in an inch of
water square under the log and stake out in deep water as far as
possible. If a little bait is sprinkled on each side of the log it
will hasten the capture of the mink.
[Illustration: THREE LOG SET.]
The ditch set: Early in the season the mink are great rovers and
explore every ditch, hole or hollow log near the stream, and a trap
set in the ditch in shallow water will often get one. If the ditch is
too wide, drive a row of sticks across and leave an opening for the
trap. Set the trap in the opening and fasten it back as far as
possible.
The dry log set: Mink have a habit of passing through every hollow
log that lies near the stream and if one can be found like this it is
a good place to catch them all winter. Put some bait back in the log
and set your trap in the entrance. Cover the trap and chain with
powdered rotten wood, sprinkle it all around near the trap, and
fasten to a drag or small pole.
These five ways are the only methods I use. Sometimes I set a trap
for a few nights where a mink travels around a small bog between the
bog and the bank, and very often get one in these places.
In setting for mink on land I go about it in this way:
First, I prepare my traps by boiling in hemlock boughs. Before
setting my trap I dig up the ground with a trap hook. Dig a place two
feet across and set the trap in the middle and cover lightly with
fine leaves, putting some under the trap to keep it from freezing to
the ground.
Don't be afraid to dig up the ground thoroughly, as a mink will
always stop and investigate such a place. Have your hook long enough
so you will not have to walk on the new ground. Fasten your trap to a
springy bush or brush-drag.
After the ground freezes you will have to shelter your traps. I have
used the following ways with good success:
Take two good sized chunks of wood and lay them about six inches
apart. Set a No. 1 1/2 trap between them at each end, put your bait
between the two traps and cover it with small brush and grass. If you
can find an old hollow log it is a good place to set. These two sets
you can use all winter.
Red squirrel, chicken, rabbit, partridge, muskrat or turtle are all
good baits.
When you get a mink or rat alive let it bleed around your trap. It is
also a good plan to hitch a string around your bait and drag it from
one trap to another.
A man that follows the woods has some queer experiences, says a
Pennsylvania trapper. Some eight or ten years ago I was hunting the
Allegheny Mountains. It was in January and we were camped on the Elk
River. There was a light snow on the ground. My trapping partner told
me he would show me how to catch mink with the land set. Taking our
traps we went down the river until we came to some logs that lay
across a hollow. In some places the log was from three to four feet
from the ground, and other places it was not over two feet. Sticks
and limbs had lodged against the log, leaving small openings. In
these open places we set our traps, covering them over with leaves.
We caught several this way.
Now that will do in West Virginia, but in Pennsylvania in this part
of the state it takes a water set or a deadfall to catch the mink. In
the H-T-T I have seen a great many different opinions in regard to
trapping mink, some claiming they have no trouble in catching mink,
others cannot catch them only with the water set or deadfall.
Now my experience is that it depends upon where I am. In the sandhill
region of Virginia I could catch mink only with the water set, while
in the mountains they were very easily caught with the land set. Much
depends on what kind of bait is used. I once had a line of eighteen
traps baited with birds and chickens on the Nottoway River, and out
of the eighteen traps, I baited one with the carcass of a muskrat.
Well, I didn't catch any mink in the traps baited with chicken offal
and birds but the trap baited with muskrat won.