Chapter XVI: 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.

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.