POINTS FOR THE YOUNG TRAPPER.
It is better for the novice to serve a few season's apprenticeship on
the muskrat or skunk before attempting the capture of the shrewder
fur bearing animals. Boys, if you live near a trout brook, a creek,
pond, bog or spring hole, where there are fish, frogs or clams, you
may be sure that any such water is frequented, or at least visited by
mink, though your unpracticed eyes may fail to detect signs of their
presence; and by procuring a few traps and setting them according to
some methods, you can realize a good bit of pocket money every year,
and at the same time have more real pleasure than you get from all
other sports combined. Don't be discouraged if you catch nothing at
first. Visit your traps regularly, keep your eyes open and your wits
about you, be patient and persistent, and success is bound to come in
the end.
The young trapper's first essay for the mink should be with some sort
of water set--dry sets requiring much greater skill and caution--and
of the many methods employed the following is perhaps the most
effective for one so simply contrived. Having chosen a suitable
location for your trap, preferably some good sized pool with the
water still and not too deep at the edge, and the bank rising so
abruptly that the set will not easily be over-flowed; gather up a few
dead sticks 1 1/2 inch thick and break into stakes about 15 inches
long. Drive these firmly into the ground to form a three-sided pen
four inches wide by eight inches long, the open side at the water's
edge.
Hollow out a little place for the trap and place with the spring in
line with the entrance, as the animal's foot will then be less likely
to be thrown out by the jaws closing; press the chain down into the
mud out of sight; fix the ring pole, running it well out into deep
water; put the bait (fish, bird or squirrel) in the pen, pinning
securely with a dead stick, lay a few sticks over top of pen, and
cover trap carefully with rotten leaves fished up from the bottom,
dropping on a few pinches of mud, and sticking a row of short twigs
on the outer side to keep them from spreading or floating away. Then
if the water falls the trap will remain nicely covered.
You now have things pretty well in shape, unless you apprehend
trouble from trap thieves. In such case you cannot conceal your set
too carefully, for a theft may not mean merely the loss of a trap,
but possibly a valuable pelt as well. An excellent mode of
concealment is to cut several fir, pine or hemlock shrubs and stick
them up, as if growing about the pen, which is most likely to attract
the eye. Also throw a scraggily top of some kind into the water over
the ring-pole to hide the catch after drowning. Lastly, rearrange as
naturally as possible the leaves and dead stuff disturbed in your
work, see that nothing has fallen on the trap, spatter a little water
about and your set is complete.
Another good way is to drop two traps side by side in shallow water,
surround each by a little circle of rocks and hang the bait by a
thread about 12 inches above them. In trying to reach the bait Mr.
Mink runs a good chance of blundering into one of the traps.
Better yet, get a shallow box having a weatherworn appearance, bore
half inch holes in the sides, and sink in the brook so that the water
coming in through the holes will cover the bottom to a depth of three
inches. Drape the sides with moss and weeds, put in some live trout
and two or three traps along with them, and for those mink that are
so particular as to want to take their food alive, you have a set
that insures them a warm reception.
Yet another method is to find an over-hanging bank with a narrow
strip of beach between it and the water. Beginning at the water,
drive stakes at an acute angle out to the bank, both up and down the
stream. At the apex of the V shaped fence thus formed place trap
under water. No bait is needed.
I was speaking of water sets. One more and I will pass on to the land
set, for though an almost endless variety of the former could be
given those presented, with such modifications as will suggest
themselves under varying conditions, will serve as a very good
elementary education for the young trapper. The following was given
me by an old trapper: We were riding together near a brook when he
said, "I set a trap here three years ago, which I have never had an
opportunity to visit, but I will wager you there is a mink in it if
it is to be found." Whereupon he left me for a few minutes, returning
triumphantly with the trap and the skeleton of a mink's foot in the
jaws.
His way was to go along to shallow rifles, pin a piece of meat to the
bottom, place the trap a few inches below it, and a little above
drive a short line of stakes at right angles to the current to keep
off drift. High water or low, cold weather or warm, you were sure, he
asserted, of every mink that came up or down the stream. And my own
experience has gone very far towards making this claim good.
Now, all of the foregoing sets are easily made, and may be used by
the novice, after a little practice, with every probability of fair
success, but when we leave the water for dry land greater
difficulties will be encountered. There is a smell about iron which
wild animals are quick to detect and recognize as an indication of
danger. Water destroys this scent, but of course in the land set this
advantage is lost.
Various directions are given for killing it by smoking or steeping,
but I have found that if the trap be properly covered there is small
need of spending time in this way. And right here let me say that in
dry sets success hinges largely on the skill with which you cover
your trap, especially if bait be used, and it is best to use bait
until one has gained a pretty good idea of the habits of his game.
The bait may be protected by a pen of stakes such as is described in
my first water set, but placed a little back from the water in as dry
a place as possible.
At the entrance dig a cavity somewhat larger than a trap, with a
shallow trench leading around to one side for chain. Line with fine
sprigs of hemlock, and set trap evenly and firmly. The hemlock will
not only keep trap and chain from freezing down (a thing to be
carefully avoided) but also help to neutralize that tell-tale smell
of metal. Get some moss of a dry, fibrous nature, and containing no
earthly matter to freeze. That found on rocks is generally the best.
Tear out a crescent-shaped piece of a size to half fill trap, and
fitting snugly between pan and jaw and two small pieces to fill in on
back or trigger side of pan--or only one piece, like the first, if
using a trap with spring on the outside.
If you have done your work properly, the inside of the trap is
completely filled, from jaws to pan, with no chance for anything to
get under the pan, and no wad of batting beneath it (as is used by
some) to become swollen with moisture and prevent its free working.
Now go around trap on the outside with moss, pressing it in so as
nearly to cover jaws, lay a thin leaf over pan, and cover with well
pulverized rotten wood, which may be found in any old stump.
Lastly, throw on bits of leaf and pinches of dirt until it resembles
as nearly as possible the surrounding ground. Don't be afraid of
covering too heavily, so long as you don't put too much over hinges
of jaws. You want it so that the iron will not be washed bare with
the first rain. But avoid any appearance of a mound, as nothing
arouses an animal's suspicions quicker than this. The chain may be
covered with loose earth and stump dust. Some advise hitching to a
clog, but I generally use a stake, and seldom, ever lose a mink by
footing. But if a green stake is used be careful to smear the exposed
end with mud to remove its fresh appearance, and to secure the bait
use a dead stick invariably.
Many guide books speak of leaves as a covering for the trap, but the
fact is that dry leaves are something that the mink habitually
avoids, doubtless not liking the rustling sound given out in
traveling over them; hence it is best to use them in land sets
sparingly, and to locate your trap so that the shy fellow will not
have to wallow through a carpeting of them to reach it.
I have had excellent luck by placing trap at the edge of a bank a
foot or so high, with a good runway underneath. The mink smells the
bait from below and springing up to investigate often lands plump in
the trap, when if he had been afforded the chance for a closer
inspection he might have gone on without troubling it. You may think
this a small thing, but it is just such trifles that circumvent the
shy fellows.
In making your set do all the work from the back side; also approach
on the same side when visiting. Go no nearer than necessary to see
that everything is all right, and make your stay in the vicinity as
short as possible. If any part of the trap has become exposed cover
with stump dust. A small fir stuck down by the trap with branches
projecting over it will serve as a protection from rain and snow, but
is seldom needed when trap is covered as above described.
Always be on the lookout for places to set when hunting or fishing.
Let your eyes run along the strips of beach and boggy, peer under
overhanging banks and among piles of drift, and scrutinize closely
every log spanning streams. You will be surprised to find how often
you will hit upon footprints, droppings, holes and runways, the
knowledge of which will be of the utmost value to you when the
trapping season arrives.
[Illustration: SOME NEW YORK STATE SKINS.]
If you trap the same section year after year you will get to know the
favorable points so well as to do with half the traps necessary at
the beginning, and get much better results at that; for one trap in
the right place is worth half a dozen, clapped down haphazzard. Some
places are good for one or more mink every year; an old hollow log
near the water, a passageway among roots or under a fallen tree
trunk, a narrow shelf along the face of the bluff, a particular hole
or den--any of these, if kept guarded by a well set trap, may prove a
little bonanza for you every season. In such places it is better to
use no bait, a little fish oil perhaps excepted, as you will then
take unawares many a sly old fellow to whom a morsel of meat, no
matter how cunningly arranged, would be simply a signboard of danger.
I remember well my first experience at this style of trapping mink. I
noticed what looked to be a well worn little path on the bank of a
stream leading down under a big pile of drift. As an experiment I
placed a trap in this path, and to my delight found a fine mink
waiting me at my next visit. Two more mink followed within a week in
the same place, while a trap nearby carefully set and baited was not
molested.
I had supposed I knew about all there was to trapping, but this
opened my eyes a bit. I began searching out and setting in similar
places, with the result that my usual catch was doubled that season.
One day on looking into a hole which had rotted into the foot of a
big ash standing on the bank of a stream I saw a small dead fish
lying among the roots as if it had been left there by some creature
that had taken itself off at my approach. I promptly clapped two
traps into the cavity, taking care not to disturb the fish, and soon
after had a mink as a reward for my trouble.
But the best natural situation I ever discovered was under a high,
overhanging bank--just the sort of roadway every mink coming along
that side of the stream would be sure to choose--at a point where a
willow tree completely blocked the way, except for a narrow passage
perforating its tangled roots. One trap could guard this effectually,
and, as in the trunk of the old ash, it was entirely protected from
snow or rain. Of course a mink could get around the trunk by taking
to the water, but so far as I could judge they seldom did so, and
each year as long as there were any mink in the vicinity I was sure
of several here.
Mink in fact prefer traveling by land as a rule. For this reason a
trap placed at either end of a log spanning a stream that is too wide
for them to jump forms a most killing set. Drive a few stakes on each
side of a log at the ends to prevent the animal from jumping shore to
one side of trap, and use extra strong traps, as you are likely to
drop on a fox or coon with this set. No bait is needed. In winter any
spring hole, even if near human habitations, offers good
possibilities. Mink visit them to burrow for frogs, and one of two
traps sunk in the mud and shallow water are pretty sure of an
occasional catch. And they are but little trouble to tend as the warm
spring water prevents freezing.
Now a word about bait. In my opinion the very best bait is fish;
trout, pickerel, shiner or any other fresh fish, being all about
equally good. But salt fish should never be used for mink, though
after being smoked it makes a taking bait for coon. Red squirrel I
consider next to fish. They are plentiful everywhere, and the mink
makes many a meal off of them in the absence of his favorite food.
The oft-quoted chicken's head has invariably failed for me, nor have
I found the flesh of the muskrat such a killer as is claimed by some.
Partridge heads, wood mice and frogs are all good. In the absence of
anything else I have sometimes used English sparrows with fair
results.
Don't be too generous with your baits. A section of small fish an
inch long is sufficient and much less likely to arouse suspicions
than a larger piece. In carrying bait in your bag, wrap in an old rag
so it will not come in contact with the metal of hatchet or traps,
and wash clean before using. Locate your traps on long, comparatively
straight reaches of the stream, as mink often make short cuts when
traveling and might miss your set entirely if placed on a bend. Above
all, study your game and don't get too knowing to take a pointer.