if i tainted ground beef and mixed in some shellfish oil, would that catch mink?

From my experience mink only like fresh meat.

TrapperE, your concoction may take some mink but there are other baits that work a lot better at sparking and holding a mink's interest ......muskrat guts are irresistible to most mink..... a chunk of muskrat, beaver, mink , or mouse meat.......fresh or salted fish, eels and small snakes, whole, chunked or ground......fresh bait is good but tainted doesn't seem to make a big difference, mink are greedy and will more often than not check it out........muskrat musk, mink musk, weasel musk, beaver castor / oil sack, mink urine, fish oils, .....civet, Tonquin, asafetida and others used very sparingly in lure formulations or added to enhance baits. Lots of options if you want to go that direction.

thanks!

If legal,the remains from cleaning grouse,ducks and geese is excellent mink bait both as a food and eye appeal.
This is before the deepfreeze.
Best bait for mink after freeze up is beaver meat.
Fresh or slight taint is best.
When we were kids we would go and net,spear or snag suckers in the spring when they were running in the creeks,then freeze them whole in burlap bags in the freezer.Then come mink season we would use one third of a frozen sucker to bait mink sets.Fish is good mink bait but spoils quicker so needs to be changed a bit more often.No problem when you got a freezer full of big fat suckers.
You can re use the tainted fish for castbait for snaring canines.

Mink are terribly susceptible to Salmonella. I like my bait fresh personally and even change the bait out of a pocket as season progresses.