Can mink be caught in small rivers and ditches on ag land, or are they more of a wilderness animal?

Mink are caught anywhere there is adequate food and cover and water. Any Iowa trappers want to respond?

Mink live where there is good food and they love rocky banks but dont really have to be important they can live anywhere

If the habitat is there. There needs to be marshes, brushy areas, farmland with just ditches and streams where if is plowed to the waters edge is very poor habitat. Mink spend a lot more time hunting in the brush, dry marshes and woods then people think. You just never see them there. They are easy to spot along a shoreline and leave tracks there.

I've seen the tracks run down a stream 8 inches wide and find a thing of rabbits and kill them. If there's enough food, cover and not bigger predators they will be there.

A person can catch hundreds of mink trapping ditches in agricultural areas on the rice prairie of South Louisiana—-and people do when they’re worth more than $1-2 each.


Mink are more abundant in some areas than others. In some areas, there are so many that they’re a nuisance. My first trapping jobs were catching nuisance mink.

I kill hundreds a year in farm country. If you have tile seeps or dumps or creeks with minnows they are ideal. LLL

Mink are, as stated above, found where the food is. The more forested parts of my state hold Mink in fair numbers, but the southern farmground has more as long as the cropland has decent brushy areas for Mink to hunt and hide. Big old male Mink are a lot less water oriented than females and young. They spend a bunch of time hunting well away from water of any type. Snow and cold freezing weather will push them to the water because it lowers the number of prey species, like Chipmunks, that hibernate and are no longer out and about. Leopard frogs, famous for living in meadows well away from water, will move back towards the water to hibernate too......and Mink follow them. The areas of farmground are, generally speaking, more fertile than other areas, and fertile areas hold more potential food. That's true wether your a Mink or a person.

yep, they love grassy tunnels!
Bernie Barringers book Farmland Trapping will help ya.

We got them. Not much wilderness in Iowa. I believe if there are muskrats there are mink but not a pre requisite.
just

Triple about 5 miles out of town. Ponds on both sides of the road

Nice.

The best mink trappers I know pulling down huge catches are all operating in farm country drainage ditches and streams.

I don’t think rocky, trout stream type streams, with no trout, are overly productive here. I like crooked streams with deep pockets and mud or softer type banks.

The best mink trappers I know pulling down huge catches are all operating in farm country drainage ditches and streams.

I think Bernie pretty much laid it out there,..somewhat dependent on road systems,..not to mention a growing otter presence.

Have caught mink in hay barns a ways from water.

Neighbor called me yesterday wondering if I wanted a dead mink that was laying in their front yard. I declined.
just

my first mink was along a farmland stream

I set every ditch and waterway for mink in fields where I trap coyotes. If I'm checking coyote traps its easy to check a few 110 or 160 blinds sets in the trickles of water and grassy trails.
I love trapping mink alongside my coyote line in field locations.
Jim

Mink are not so-called wilderness animals. Numbers rack up with a good road system and determination, repetition times a 100 ,..now your rolling!