Took the day off work yesterday to spend with my lady and we went to take the dogs down to a creek that flows through a big mudflat. Along the way out Ash noticed an ice shelf along the bank that had 3 crawdads and a small brook trout on it. Upon close inspection there was a single bite mark to the back of the head on the brook trout with tiny fang marks. And a fresh, brown turd by all of it. I told her that was a mink's stash and it was probably hunting the area and caching food there. So we didn't want to spend too much time there and spook it off so we continued down the mud flat.



We got to the end of where the mud flat ends, about 1.5 miles down and so we turned around and were looking at all the animal tracks in the mud. Coon, otter, mink, goose. No human or canine other than our own, which was nice. As we approached the mink stash I notice a large mink running straight at us on the ice shelf along the creek. It stopped in its tracks as I quietly said to Ash, who was looking down, "Mink. Look there's a mink. It was about 20 yards from us and stood there frozen in its tracks for 5 seconds. I was hoping it wouldn't dive off the shelf into the creek so we could watch it and it didn't. It turned around 180 degrees and beat feet back the way it came, before making a 90 degree turn away from the creek, scampering across the crusted over snow on the mud flat and headed into a treeline of willow and alder. We kept walking along the creek and when we got to the cache of food where the 3 crawdads and the trout were, all that was left was a few fish scales, crawdad legs and a piece of a claw. The mink had eaten them in the 30 minutes from when we first noticed the cache to when we interrupted his hunt.

Ash was thought it was really cool to see that. She loves wildlife and especially the weasel family, as she has ferrets. It was the first live mink she's seen and it made both of our days. It made for only the 3rd mink I've seen in broad daylight like that. I respect the heck out of them as hunters. Fascinating critters that never seem to stop moving. The last one was fishing with me along a river, although my fishing slowed down considerably with that mink around.

Always fun to see any wild animal at there daily task.

Very nice.Always goo to get out into our Great outdoors.

Baited Bottom Sets are an underappreciated producer of mink pelts. Bait those triggers because they don't all hug the edges underwater.

Thats really Awesome!!

Mink have always intrigued me. Every sighting gets the heart racing and back in the fur boom years, starting in the mid/late 70's for me, catching a mink was a big deal and worth a tank plus of gas.That had to be a special sight for you and your wife!

Chris

Ah for the good old days. Paid my junior and senior years at U of Michigan with red fox and mink hides (1980-81).

Very interesting animal to watch in the wild. I caught a few last year after seeing them in and out of creek working the banks. I set and they where easy catches.