I have compared the victor,duke and bridger 1.5 coils. Dukes are a good bang for the buck but after watching Johnny Thorpes fisher video and grinding down pans to make them fall further,I started looking. The Bridger and Victor spring pins are further apart as compared to the Duke,making them more adaptable to using bigger pans if going for mink. I have been toying with getting a doz MB 450 fox springs which are a tad lighter than stock Bridger springs and rigging up some mink only 1.5's along with laminating the jaws.I have also thought of doing the same with 1.75 Bridgers but also removing the center chain,going to a side chain,MB 450 fox springs again and adding a big pan for mink specific to emulate the old victor #2 coils.
I disagree with your thought on pans, pan width, and the traps that work best for them. I have enough experience on Muskrats and Mink with larger pans to say this is completely an old wives tale. My experience and results can be seen with the pan design I have come up with. This has been reflected with guys catching Fox and Cats in the 450's, 550's, Bridger #3s and Duke #4s.
Cutting down a pan to have it fall between the levers is mainly important on the trap you mention (Bridger 1.5 and 1.75, and the larger Victors). The levers are wider at the base, but come up tighter where they contact the pan. A wider pan on these traps in almost impossible to get to work because of how the levers come up, they will wedge the pan between the levers on a regular basis.
Most of the 1.5's (Duke, Victor, Blake and Lamb, Montana, Sleepy Creek, Duke 1.75, MB 450, MB 550...) the levers do not come up as tight on the pan and you can use a wider pan with a lot of success. A tapered pan is one of the most important parts to prevent the levers from ever wedging on the pan. A larger round or square pan can still cause issues, especially when wetting the trap and the pan can fall all the way down to the edge of the levers at the base.
To the original post...Pretty much any of the 1.5 traps are sufficient to hold a fisher. Just make sure you have plenty of swivels, and try to remove anything they can tangle up with or get tangle up into the chain.
