I am looking for advice from guys who use mink boxes with some success. I am currently using 15" to 18" long mink boxes with wire mess covering the bait end. My trap is sitting 3 to 4" in with wood mink pans installed on 120s. My situation is that there are very few to no creeks in my area and any that are there are typically dry come trapping season. My mink trapping is almost exclusively around sloughs. I know there are mink around as I caught 6 this year in a variety of non mink sets. Here is what I have tried with no success. I have tried putting entire skinned muskrat carcasses in my box and this year I tried chicken as I had a old timer tell me that is what he used years ago. I used either Caven's Mink Master lure or Lennon's Mink All Call on a stick placed inside the box on the bait. One or the other but not both lures. Keep in mind that I trap in west central MN for the month of November so I get plenty of Freeze/ thaw everyday. The beginning of the season is open water and the sloughs are completely froze by Thanksgiving when I pull my line.

My questions are most pertaining to what baits or lures you have had success with around sloughs. I was thinking about using chunks of carp which lead me to would a can of tuna in oil work better so it wouldn't dry out. If you use fish, i.e. carp, do you use it fresh/ right out of the freezer or do you taint it a little first. Otherwise I might try muskrats again but maybe just cut off the hind quarters so the guts don't rot and stink up the bait so bad. My last thought was a chunk of beaver meat. Do I taint that or use fresh?

Second thing is how well to you conceal you boxes? Do I completely cover it with cattails or grass so just the opening is showing or can I just sit it along the edge of the water? Some sloughs, the grass or cattails can be 10 feet from the edge of the water if the water level has gone done which typically happens in my area in the fall. My thinking is close to the waters edge is better than the edge of the grass especially when there is open water.

Last thought is about the design of the box. Has anyone ever tried, designed, or had luck with a fully closed box like weasel boxes but with a bigger hole. I would still us the 120s with pans. It would just mean that they would have to get into the box to see the bait and I might get less refusals. I rarely see tracks because the ground is froze and typically there is no snow.

I know that there is a lot there but any advice you can give me on any of the questions is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Schmattz

When using baited box cubbies, 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.

Further to my previous post is a picture of my 14 inch plus box: My preferred bait is muskrat hind quarters, beaver or fish in that order.

Up here I use whole herring in back of the box/bucket for bait. Open water or not I always set on the edge of the grass line and cover the box with grass or snow. I like keeping the opening as open and inviting as possible. The only lure I use is fish oil in a squirt bottle. A shot in the box and a line from the opening out about 4 ft.

If you caught 6 in none mink sets what attracted them to that location? Terrain/food/or lure? There is a reason the mink went there and I would be putting your mink sets there next year.

I have eliminated that swinging door with the entrance hole in it. There is a loop of monofilament fishing line between the bent triggerwires, offering the most inviting hole for a mink to dart through.
I have tried wooden pans to, and run an equal amount. Wooden pans are easier to deal with in the cold and wind than rethreading your mono after a catch.

Any thoughts on the Victor M144 Power Kill rat trap for weasel?

bctomcat - what bait are you using in your boxes?
HFT AK - I did catch 6 in a varity of non mink sets nut none in the boxes. 2 of them were caught within 10 feet of my mink box. One was in a muskrat 110 with a carrot on the trigger in open water 10 feet out from shore, actually caught two this way the same day. The second was in a 220 on a raccoon trail that ran along the shore. The direction it was heading it looked to have passed right by my mink box. I know they are there but I am not catching them.
Trapper les - You said that you eliminated the swinging door. Why?
Wild1Ric - I use Victor Rat Traps M326 for weasels in my weasel boxes with good success. See the last video posted on my YouTube channel for the proof.

Thanks for your help guys. Keep it coming. Especially about bait and lure around sloughs.

Schmattz

My preferred bait is muskrat hind quarters, beaver or fish in that order.

I set one box with a 120 in the entrance this past season. Trap had a wooden coni-pan on it. My boxes are around 14" long and a wire mesh back. The set was in the cattails right tight up against a mink run baited with a whole muskrat carcass. Caught a big buck mink the 2nd night.

Location is key to the box’s. Trapping around sloughs. If you can’t find a mink trail. Set your baited cubbies on the rabbit trails. Mink are them hunting rabbits as well.

I tried the mink boxes but catch very mink....lots of skunk, possums and coon. 155 trap set in a notched wooden box that is about 16 inches long mesh in back. Bait is road killed rabbit, skinned muskrat or fish.

I run my mink boxes after freeze-up locks the ice in. Tracking mink in snow is easy and you'll learn where they run. One of my favorite set ups this year was a box next to a culvert in the brush. I'd cover with dry grass if available. Bait was the back half of a muskrat and sometimes a hunk of steelhead. Tried walleye heads but didn't catch any with just the walleye. The walleye heads didn't have a lot of smell compared to the steelhead. Also a small smear of weasel lure on the inside top of the box. This year I saved up a bunch of smelt heads. Had good luck with them and whole smelt in previous years. I also switched to 120's in most of my boxes instead of the 110's for stability.

Trapper Les - How are you holding the fishing line to the trigger wires?

Schmattz.

From another post a while back...

Has anyone made/use a Norway style Mink box?

The only (and I mean ONLY) success I have had with a ground mink box here (snow or no snow) is when I find a 1/2 eaten rat in one of my traps and I pull a box (plastic route box or wooden) from the truck, stuff the rat back in it and guard it with a BG. When i trapped in MN for 4 years, I caught 8 mink in 220 boxes setting for coons the first year. 27 was my high with them but split between coon size and mink size boxes. Caught many short tailed weasels in them in the winter to boot! I believe all predators respond more favorably to calorie availability (prey or carrion) with every mile you head farther north in the winter. Baby its cold outside! And the need for fuel to feed the furnace is greater in Canada than in Missouri!!!!! I set mink boxes (110 size) here for close to 20 years with nothing but coon interference. Your/My rat in a trap, discovered by a mink, cannot be drug anywhere farther than the chain length so he will be back the next night to try again and your box is ready. That is the only luck I have with a ground box as a mink set here. ............ the mike

Silicon tubing that you get from your automotive store, this stuff came from the furnace guy. There are a few sizes too, just like there are a couple of guages of wire that triggers are made from.

I eliminated the swinging door because it's more inviting, and not a legal issue. but at one time, I was deluded into thinking the door with a hole in it was somehow more enticing to the mink...but these boxes are multipurpose to me, and will catch weasel, skunk, marten, regularly, and I have picked up otter and fisher as well. That is rare though.

Timing too (for mink) rat sloughs right after freeze up, or open water spots left after freeze up are good spots.

Trapper les that is very interesting because I was also going to add a door of some sort to a few of my boxes to try it out because of them liking holes to investigate. I also have caught muskrats, skunks, and raccoons in my boxes with no door.

Thanks for all the information guys.

Schmattz

I set my boxes at the mink magnets
I wax my 120s.