Archive for Mink, Muskrat and Ermine.

From TopJimmy on Mink trapping
Most of the sets are just watching their trails and figering out where they are going into and out of the beaver huts. The snow makes all the difference. Then we just set the hole with a 120 guarding it and sometimes lure the hole with Mink Master, or a half of a hind end of one we have caught and skinned out. That hind end really seems to work on them. Of course we had another trap that was fired with the hind end in the 120 this trip. The mink must have had another entrance and came from the back side to get the quarter and carried it into the 120 so we didn't get him. We reset the hole and should have him soon!

It helps if you slice the scent glands on the hind ends too really puts out that good musky smell

Posted by Recondo

I havent caught many mink, don't normally target them. But I pulled three mink off the Tannana from the same set in 4 days.
I found where the ICE had cracked and fell in like a sink hole next to the bank. I drug a large tree limb out to the edge of the hole. I then stuffed branches 300 degrees down into the hole leaving a pathway for any critter running the bank underneath the ice.
I baited the center and lured a few of the sticks with an old jar of mink lure that I was wanting to get rid of. I wired off two Jump 1's, one at each end of the path way and then covered the hole with a spruce branch and took off.
Was out the next day and was running late and darn near blew off checking it as it was out it was out of my way across the river. At the last minute I detoured to decided to check it. Sure enough I had an irrate double on Mink. Apparently they were mad at each other as well. Pulled one trap and a day or so later nabbed a third.
I imagine as with most creeks and rivers the first three feet or so off the bank has no water, as the ice expands and creeps up onto the bank over the winter. Lots of critters run those banks under ice protected from the elements. Maybe you could break the ice and do something similar.

RECONDO is absolutley correct on this assumption mink and otter both run these wholes along the banks after freeze up, otterman

Quick question on Muskrat's: Can you use colony traps for them in Alaska? The regs say you can't use "a net or fish trap (except a blackfish or fyke trap)". I guess now I have two questions. What is a 'fyke' trap?

-TJ

From Pete in Frbks

TJ,

A fyke trap is essentially a colony trap. Fairly common out on the YK Delta; set in those narrow, deep waterways to catch blackfish, 'rats and/or mink.

These are the type colony traps that I use and like a lot. Wire fencing for the cylinder and aluminum flashing for the funnels. I made some all chicken wire ones first, but I like these a LOT better. This is the same set in both pics. Old beaver lodge that had a lot of muskrats. Put the trap in, and by the time I had set a few more sets around the pond I had three rats. I saw two of them go in. Pretty cool. Backchecked again and pulled three more out later that day. Pulled everything the first check, but it had picked up three more. One thing about these funnel traps that I don't really care for, is that they definitely tend to catch the smaller rats. You catch a few big ones, so they will go in there, but my average size in the funnels is much smaller then my average overall. Good stuff though. I have some better pictures, but I can't find them. These are from this fall when I made a few rat sets while early season beaver trapping.

This is not the greatest picture, but it is an awesome muskrat location. Small little stream exiting the dead beaver pond in the above pictures. Leads to another active beaver pond about a quarter mile away. Had a 160 set where shown, a funnel trap set farther down where it was deep enough to submerge it, and another 220 set down below that. On the check, the 160 had that rat, the funnel had two nice rats, and the 220 had a little dinky one. Good spot.






Those sorts of places are some of the best muskrat sets I have ever found. A big plus is that they stay open for extended periods. I had a similar type location except a much bigger creek (about 3 feet wide) that I caught 13 muskrats out of one set last season. Started it out with a 220 as an "otter set", but after the fifth rat just switched it to a funnel trap. This was over the course of around 6 weeks, and as that was the only set, I wouldn't of done it just to rat trap; but I had sets for other species in the area and an easy rat or two a check actually just about covered the gas. Everything else was froze, but that set was in sort of a springy area between two ponds that didn't freeze till January.