I’ve tried mink boxes for a few years without success. I’ve tried fish and muskrat with mink lure. I usually use a 120 duke but wondering if I’m getting refusals because it takes a lot of pressure on them to fire them. Should I adjust the 120 to fire easier or try a 110? Or any other ideas? I know there are mink, I see them and also catch them in blind sets.

Use a foothold in your box before freeze up.

Let me start by saying I’m no pro but caught several last year in my boxes
Do you have wire in the back of your boxes so they can see through
I use smelt in my boxes with circle triggers or treadle pans and I set my traps 3-4” back in the box
But I also catch 3 times more in my pockets than I do in my boxes
But I still plan on throwing a few boxes out this Sunday while I’m setting a beaver line

Yeah it’s open in the back. I could use foot holds I suppose.

Do you suspect refusals because you see tracks in the snow?

When using baited box cubbies for mink the key to reasonable success IMO is to consider all the following when setting them:

---Whether using footholds or body grip traps, the main things to remember about the boxes are to set on LOCATION where mink travel, camouflage the box well with surrounding vegetation/snow or whatever and HIDE the BAIT with dry grass so the mink will enter the box searching for it, and keep the bait fresh.

---The best location for boxes is at beaver pond outlets, overhanging banks, small feeder stream entrances with larger water courses, at active and abandoned beaver lodges and alongside open water areas of frozen streams.

---Use a box with a wire mesh back for air/scent flow and see through effect and with an entrance cover with a 2 ½ inch hole. Mink explore holes all the time and thus it's my opinion, and experience, that the hole is an attraction to them. Another advantage of the restrictive entrance hole is that when trapping a farm area, it restricts barn cats from entering as well as other non target species


---USE A PAN TRIGGER SETUP. Although mink are accustomed to tunnelling through vegetation, it is my understanding and experience that, many will often balk at the cold, hard and stiff wires in their face at the box entrance and shy away from entering. Whereas with a pan trigger trap set CLOSE to a concealed bait at back of the box, and nothing in their face, they will proceed to enter and investigate further thus stepping on the pan and getting caught.

---Place your lure (weasel gland) on a small bush at back of the box low to the ground and close to the box.

Great info bctomcat, thank you. Trapperjohn, I have not this year yet but have in the past.

What BCTomcat said.