Mike hope your having a great season .


Haven't posted on this thread yet .


No pictures from anyone yet , so here it goes , other's here can chime in on this trapper !


A few coon also .

Talk about a good run on em!

That's nothing, I could easily top that.
If I had the traps, land, population, time, cooperative weather, skill, experience, etc., etc.
Amazing numbers and work ethic!

Just wondering if that is a picture of a fur buyer or a independent mink trapper? Looks like a lot of mink and coon.

That is Gerald Schmitt with his mink catch from 7 weeks of trapping. Independent mink trapper.

LOL Sandman,you are correct--that is a lot of mink and coon,and Gerald caught each and every one of them.
Tom

I ended up ordering both of Geralds books to read this winter by the woodstove. What year was his banner catch?

WELL, I live on the Ohio side kissing Pa and never got close to 15 mink, guessing i need to get on the Ball!

Sounds like it was a great year to be trapping! When was that?

Aix,I was in my 50's,so I am thinking it was around 10 years ago.Though it may have been 2 or 3 years earlier.
Tom

Gerald took them in 1998 , in a five year period he took over 2,000 .

I have attended two or three of Gerald's demos. He is very methodical and works his plan well. He used mostly baited pocket sets and gang set his locations with typically 4 to 8 traps. When asked about incidental coons he stated that was one of the reasons for the higher number of traps so I would not doubt his coon numbers to be high and rats as well. He credited his wife with being able to keep the home front going as he was gone from dark to dark and longer during those 6-8 weeks. I can't remember what his bait choice was but to keep that large of a baited line going for a couple months there was more than a 5 gallon pail or two of bait!

Bryce

Gerald Schmitt is an outstanding trapper and a super nice guy. Tim Sawatzky (fossil2) is another great trapper from Minnesota. Mark Steck (himself a great Midwestern trapper) did an article in Trappers Post some months back on Tim and Gerald's big mink year. A good read for anyone that hasn't seen it.

Overall Minnesota is blessed with some really good mink trappers. Many of them aren't household names necessarily, but they consistently make impressive catches.

Most of the mink guys from Minnesota, Iowa, and the eastern Dakota's trap pretty similar. Pockets baited with a chunk of fish or muskrat, gang set, keep things simple, cover ground, and work super hard.