Mink season closed here on Wednesday, i knew thered be fresh track right after the recent snow. They moved today.

Are you sure it’s closed?

Mink and muskrat season is still open in all Wisconsin zones.

You got another month.

Mink box ...right in that track

Dang it, my brain saw February, not March. Time to get the sets back out. Thanks guys.

They are going into rut. Bucks are wandering.

It's fun to follow mink tracks-it gives you a good perspective on how they hunt, the efficiency of checking every nook and cranny. I usually don't target them much after Christmas, the fur quality seems to diminish in January and on.

So with the diminished quality do they dock from 4.00 to 3.00?

I love blind setting for mink.You have some perfect spots there.

I don’t target now either, however you are more likely to catch males now and taking them out of the population during mating is probably a good thing. They are trophies even at little value.

As a young trapper I was taught that only a very wise trapper could catch a mink .It took me a long time to understand the mink is actually an easy critter to catch . A well placed blind set is easy and fast to make .And what makes that so useful to the trapper is A good blind set is in the travel way that any mink travelling through the area will use .

I agree. I think they refer to it as springy, not worth as much prime fur.

I call them singed lol everyone has a word but it all means the same thing

Called Wooly ovah here

C'mon Kyle . . .even them ol' mountain men knew what month it was!

I've been tinkering with a set that would catch those mink that cruise the bank then jump in the drink for whatever reason. By this time of the year, in some creeks like the one in this pic, the shore ice makes it hard to set up for bottom edge. Though I think across there with the vegetation sticking up there might be a vertical bank presented that would take the bodygrip.

Anyway . . not too many years ago I was walking a stream similar to the one in this picture, following mink tracks and noting where it jumped in and came back out of the water. There was no place to set up bottom edge. So I came up with the following:



5x5 collapsible with the ends of two shopper tubes snugged down around each end. A couple of checks after setting this up back in that same spot produced this rascal.



Needless to say I was quite excited. I posted back when about this and discussion ensued. Explained this was an ideal set for that creek bottom that had no vegetation, no obstructions, and had sloping sides canceling out any chance of a bottom edge set. Was told I didn't need the shopper tubes to catch mink. I like it when the "been there, done thats" tell me I'm wasting my time . . . makes me work harder. I actually ran an experiment that winter with enclosed colonies vs naked colonies and you can guess which one came out on top.



This was the first attempt at creating a "hole" in the bottom of the creek bed. That opening in either end has become a little smaller in the tubes I use now.

All my collapsible colony traps have the "V" wire in the door for two reasons: to add weight to the door to keep it from swinging out should debris blowup against it and then come up with current. And to give that flimsy door some backbone to keep big mink from blowing the door back out. Since then no blowouts. That also goes for all my 6x6s that I use for bottom edge.

Now these have evolved to fully enclosed 5x5s by leaving more tube on each end to meet in the middle. A common small hole in the two joining plastic ends in the middle allows a long rerod to push through and anchor the whole shooting match. Muskrats and mink will find their way in there. And of course they self bait.

Anyway . . for what it's worth. Now get back out there!

Now that is a very intriguing and innovative method to use Colony traps. Reminds me of the underwater tube set for otter.

I once found a dead deer that and washed Into a derbies pile In the creek. There was a beat down trail along the bank and the mink were jumping onto a log to get to the deer. Well the beav cut a large chunk of sod and moved the log and placed the sod chunk. Caught 8 mink out of that set. At that time we didn't have any exposed bait restrictions. But a large bait could be camoed so you would be with in the law.