Everyone who uses snares quickly finds out the 2 Achilles heels of snaring are ice storms and/or snow that crusts on top enough to hold the weight of your target animal. Snaring mink in trail sets, usually along a high bank during the late winter rut, snow and ice were constantly putting my snares out of optimum working condition. It is common knowledge that mink are attracted to hollow things like logs and culverts. We had some old culvert pipes in the farm junk heap and some thin galvanized steam generator pipes that were 20 inches in diameter. I cut these in 5 foot lengths and during one summer I placed some of them out right in some of my best high bank mink trails. The results were fantastic, I could set a snare about 12 inches inside each end of the pipe. Let it snow or ice, my snares still worked. Every mink going by went into these "tubes". Some times they were completely under the snow and mink would burrow right into them. Within the next few years all my trail snares were in a pipe. I tried all sizes of pipes but the best are 20+ inches in diameter, ones less than 12 inches were not as good and ones less than 6 inches were worthless. Also metal is far better than black plastic as black attracts heat from the sun, snow melts and goes into the pipe and puts the snare out of operation.


The next 9 pics are the same piece of pipe. It was asbestos and must have fell off a truck headed to the nearby town dump. It was heavy but I only had to move it about 20 yards into the frags. I knotched out a spot for the support wire. This pipe was 10 inches in diameter and for 3 years was my best set, 60+ mink in 3 seasons. In a flood it sunk into the muck and was gone.









Here are a few of the old steam pipe



Here are 2 pipes set against an old bridge abutment. Often this location produced 25 mink a year. With the snare fastened to a brick most mink would drag it to the brook and drown, but not all of them. Many of my pipes are still on location 40 + years after I put them there.

You are the mink man of trapperman!!!!! Glad you though of posting your photos for us to see......jk

Outstanding post

Lovin’ it!!

Just keep getting better! Thanks again!

Cameras were expensive back then….. and then development,,,,,,thanks for sharing.

Totally awesome, interesting about the size! Thank you!

great imfo, thanks for sharing

REALLY enjoying these posts Mr. Space, thanks!

20 inch pipe? Do you occasionally get coon tangled up in the snares? I can picture one pushing aside the snare with its foot......jk

Awesome post

I like the mink pipe set

Very interesting post. Well done!

Whats the snare recipe?

Never had much of a problem with coons except they would kill any mink in a snare they found. They did not hurt the pelt, they killed the mink by removing all his entrails all the way up to his heart by reaching up his "rear end". Before we had DP traps in NJ, I did foot snare coons using a mink snare over a dirthole with a whole apple or an egg for bait. The coons would reach thru the snare with both front feet and lifting the out bait would get foot snared. Then ran them down a drowning rig.

I have had several squirrels in traps killed that way. Sort of thought somehow it was a bear. None recently, 4 that I can think of right now were like a sock rolled up from the rear end like a sock. I wonder if that was coon??

Nice and interesting post.