Oh yea I forgot animals read maps and know where the border is,lol.

Well Boco pack up all your mink boxes and come down here and start setting. You pick the locations and I'll set the traps that way you won't be Illegally trapping.
Put up or shut up LOL

No need for me to trap there,I catch enough here.
What parallell of latitude are you at,I have trapped in southern Ontario (45 lat) with boxes successfully.
I think your full of beans you just dont know how to set.Better to blame it on the border than lack of skill.LOL.

Leave it to a Marine to stir the pot. Ive had same results with boxes for mink in Wisc. Wonder what the diff is? Ive run boxes both fall and winter

Same results as in nothing caught in boxes or lots caught in boxes?

Maybe Mando can crack the code and let us know the secret to catching mink in WI in boxes.

Good luck Mando!

Boco It's not about how many you catch In Canada. It's how successful you would be In a different area. And I know you would fail at catching mink In boxes down here.

There enough good mink trappers on this forum that have already told you It dosen't work here.


And RdFx check your mail box I sent you Information on the grape juice.

During the winter of 2000-2001 the professor I was working for on the MSU Dioxin Prj told me to use the 47 boxes he’d furnished. Me and a young Research Tech snowshoed the “river of concern” for one month setting & checking those boxes. Zip-Nada, 1 peeker and that was it. The river was too dangerous at that time to use BEs, plus I hadn’t only just come onto the project so it was too late to be scouted it yet for BE set locations.

I had a little meeting with the professor and reminded him that I was hired to head-up the mink trapping part of the project and ask him where he’d got those boxes which he’d avoided telling me anything about them so I told him he could burn the frigin boxes because I wasn’t going to use them. Confession time! He admitted he had trappers on a previous mink project downstate prior and they caught 6 frigin mink in 6 years by using boxes!!!!!

The next trapping season I’d had the chance to scout the area of the river I was suppose to trap and I caught almost as many mink on the 1st check with BEs as the other project caught in 6 years with boxes!!! The professor appeared to wet his pants that day during the check.

BS you cant just drop boxes anywhere to catch mink.
Like seldom said,dropping boxes in winter wont catch mink.Mink are subnivean in winter.If you want to catch mink in winter with any type of set you have to set subnivean under the shell ice or under water in channels.And that is too much work here in winter with 4 feet of snow over the ice.
Boxes catch a ton of fur,if you know how and where to set them,and a line drawn by a man on a map has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
Mink caught in marten boxes in late winter have been pushed on top by the midwinter thaw or males traversing overland between drainages when breeding.

No one has told me what is different about mink on one side of the manmade line and the other.
The only difference you keep saying is the man made line which is BS.
Animals dont know what a manmade line on a map is.
Reminds me of the line from Jeremiah Johnson-"Elk dont know how many legs a horse has stupid"

I'm done arguing with you. We know how and where to catch mink here In WI we set on sign and I'm going to tell you mink don't work boxes In this part of the country.

You still havent said why or what is different on one side of a line and the other.
Is it the politics maybe?lol.
I guess its time to give up when you dont have an answer.

People are just sharing their experiences, which apparently, is distressing for you.

If boxes work for you, then more power to you. And, I sincerely hope Mando has success too.

Not distressing at all,just want to know why a line on a map makes such a big difference to a mink.I frankly dont buy that.
I bet it is some other reason-bait,trap location,method time of year etc.
The things that make or break box trapping mink here are-waxed 120,fresh bait early,a little fish oil, and change out bait regularly to keep it fresh before freeze up,Large chunk of beaver meat later after freeze up,bait must be covered back and front with dry grass to get mink to go in,set specific funnel spots where mink are using corners of culverts,beaver dams beaver houses(they are mink magnets)under overhanging banks,grassy crossovers,etc,good camo for boxes in certain places with screened back.

Well, I might just as well jump into the fire also And give my opinion .Although I have caught a few mink Over the years in boxes set for mink I have relegated my boxes to the scrap pile. Don't see the need to transport boxes around. Even a bank running mink will take to the water somewhere. It is my job to find it. Even in the winter there's open water some where. I have trapped west central Wisconsin farm land waterways for over 60 years.

No transporting of boxes here,they stay on site,and only the producers are used,others that dont are relocated.Same when setting boxes for marten,in new country records of catches are kept and only those that consistently produce catches are used.the rest are relocated until proven then left on site to be used year after year.
Lots of advantages to boxes here-just drop bait and set trap and go.while trapping other species.No digging or messing around in the water or mud and no worrys about freeze up or rising or dropping water.
Of course when trapping beaver I often carry a tote full of 1.5 LS traps and kick a pocket into the side of the beaver house for a quick productive mink set,I often will set crossovers blind with 120s.These other sets dont preclude the producing boxes at all.
When trapping beaver in the fall I will often drop a funnel trap in the shallow entrance to pick up muskrats.
For me its all about efficiency and multi species harvest.No use targeting each species separately,just means too much expense running over the same ground over and over again.Why run past easy fur there for the pickins when trapping,doesnt make sense.No extra expense at all to take otter rats and mink when trapping beaver same as its no extra expense when trapping marten to take fisher weasel lynx fox and the odd wolf either

I think 1 thing you do not have to put up with that Wisconsin Trappers do is the high coon population. I have gone to almost all bottom edge or blind sets with BG traps to avoid them.

Now I can see that being an issue for sure,if for some reason you wanted to exclude coon.
But wouldnt you want to catch coon too when the prices of both were good?(currently both mink and coon are virtually unsellable)

beav's experience is about par for this part of the country. mink avoid boxes 99% of the time in the states. who cares why? they just do. same with baited pockets,,,the further south you get, the less effective they are. pockets are a low percentage set in mid tennessee, and below that, totally worthless. i still think its availability of food and prey species. further south and plenty of feed. further north, and theres less, or the mink have to work harder for it, so they will take a bait thats more easily accessible. bottom line here is this,,,if you want mink in numbers, you dont use boxes.

I believe all this discussion re the unsuccessful catching of mink in baited boxes by US trappers just means Canadians are better severe winter mink trappers? In my experience the best location for mink boxes is under severe winter conditions at beaver pond outlets, overhanging banks, small stream entrances with a larger water streams and alongside open water areas of frozen streams, not set willy nilly.