These are constructed with two openings, one halfway under water and the other opening high and dry up on the bank. Was wondering if anyone uses theses in open water conditions and if they perform better than the traditional single hole pocket set.

Mink books are full of this setup.
Jim

Maybe I'm wrong, but just seems like a lot of unnecessary work to me.

Yep and if ya have time to make it, in right location, might as well. They cruise banks as well as waterline.

I figured they would work, but the time involved seemed better spent making more sets.

For fun'n around, it'd be a neat set.

Dobbins mink book has fun variations of it. Take your spade and dig a trench up the bank then stand a log or pole in front of the vertical trench and rest that against the trench. Space behind the lob or pole is your vertical tube that way. Make an exit hole at bottom below the water line. Can set top and bottom of that trench. An old board works too.
He even had two longer boards nailed together lengthwise so one was flat and other on edge and lean that against the bank to make a tunnel under or behind it.
Jim

Yep, Elbow Set, one of the first sets I ever made for mink, in my younger days, I would carry a set of post hole diggers, before season to make them, think I got the idea from FFG, maybe even Dobbins book on mink. They do work for those bank running mink, but gosh it was a pain in the butt to make them.

if your creek has flat rocks a trench with a flat rock on top of it works . Most of the banks on the Creek that runs through our place wont hold a pocket so I always just dug a trench and placed a flat rock on it to cover it . Iv also used firewood that had drfted up, sod ,virtually anything that can cover the trench .

I thought a mink would be reluctant to descend into a vertical shaft, but they must be able to do it!

If you track them in the snow they dont hardly go by a beaver bank den vent hole without entering . that's normaly a vertical shaft into the top of a cavity .

They do it every chance they get especially If they think a weasel or mink or prey could be in there