What bait do you guys use in pocket sets when you want to catch coon and mink?
And what trailing scent do you guys use?

Ground fish is good..keeps the coin around longer if it's ground and not one chunk.

Catfish heads, wedge shaped about the size of a cue ball. Take your tile spade make a v in the back of the pocket and shove it in the v. No trailing scent.

I liked using frogs, after I took the back legs off for eating, split in half and microwaved some. The stink is very strong after microwaving, almost overpowering. In a good location, most of my sets would catch coons next the first night. Even just the juice, from the gallon bags I froze and heated the frogs up in, worked well.

Keith

fish, oily fish of some kind.. carp and sucker are good and fun to shoot

If you have any red fox gland lure handy that will draw them in also.

That just sounds too nasty.

fish meal from the feed mill.

I had good luck using bait shrimp. Dad taught me this one.

Salted Carp or buffalo cut into handsize chunks and pinned up out of the water in a pocket with a wad of dry grass covering it. Carp and buffalo are oily and some of that gets in the water and creates a trail on top.

Canned mackerel from the grocery store works fine too.
I caught a coon in a box trap set for skunk baited with rotten banana and oreos.
They'll ear anything.
Also like anise oil in ground fish. Anise smells like black licorice.

Any kind of fish will work. My favorites are shad, crappie heads, blue gills and bullhead catfish. I use whatever I have access to. Walleye heads work well also.

Muskrat meat is great on mink and coon also. Beaver meat and female mink carcasses also work well.

I like Jack Mackerel or any fish to catch both.

For mink & coon I use minnows, chubs, & crayfish which i either seine or catch in minnow traps.
I freeze until needed & sometimes have a minnow trap out on the lines

Especially to catch a coon, lol.

Hope he has a dedicated frog microwave.

I've used cheap cans of tuna in oil. I just buy it in bulk and put it in a separate container and spoon it out as needed.

Where do buy tuna in bulk at?

There are also a ton of good commercial baits out there. Most are fish based but have added ingredients that help draw the critters in. ADC on here makes my favorite.

Chopped up carp. Cheap and fun to catch. Freeze chunks in ice cream pails. Worked awesome for pockets for coon and mink. Later in winter when the creeks froze I reset the old pockets like they were dirthole sets baited them up with more carp chunks and caught a lot of coyotes and fox at those old pockets.
Got the idea watching the old pockets get dug out after freeze up must have still been some interesting dish and lure odors coming from the pockets. The dirt thrown out onto the ice looked like bombs went off.
Jim

I just buy multiple large cans from the local grocery store.