Mink....

[trappnman]

While I don't deal with high water on a regular basis (I think 1 year in past 20 had flooded streams in fall, otherwise it is not a problem)...but what is a "problem" is 1) beaver 2) creek changes. ( I used to like beaver on my streams....after so many years w/o many, this year have a few more and I don't like it.... )
It really is a bummer to come to a favorite location, and see that the root cluster that you take mink under year after year is now high and dry or that nice little ledge is under 4 feet of water...had several favorite locations that could not be set up this year....

but...the mink are there, so this year, perhaps more so than in other years- I improvised a lot- that is shaving banks to vertical, making blind pockets, building sheves, piling up rocks to hold traps, etc.

And I'm slaying them in these sets...

So what is my point? simply this. I believe that although mink are arrtacted to the same areas and same patterns cause those patterns are logical...that is, they go with the food and with the shelter ava8ilable...so a good prey area that provides portection is bound to be a good spot every year.

But what about genetic imprinting? Do you believe in this? That is...generations of mink travel the same paths....so that when circumstances change...mink STILL, to a large degree, travel the same routes.

so that, say a hotspot location is gone...and the new location is something you would never normally set up....yet those mink are STILL running the same patterns..as if the old structure was still there....so...a set made where they WANT to go...genetically...will connect.

Comments?

[dj88ryr]

Can't agree totally on the genetic imprinting thing at least for mink and rats, I think it is more a situation of prime habitat being the magnet. You can wipe out certain areas each season to have them loaded the next season, these new comers are all not yoy, but they are from surrounding areas, and come in to fill the void left in prime habitat.
Just my .02

BTW, LOVE them Beaver, they will INCREASE the available habitat for the critters you are after, wish we had more here. I remember up home, everything started with the beaver, they produce the habitat for all others, and not just water animals, everything flocked to beaver bogs. They were my number one spot for everything from yotesand fox to Fisher, to Mink, Rats, Coon,Beaver, and Bobcats and Otter. But the Beaver was the keystone in the whole process.

[Steve Gappa]

I like beaver in my streams...about 2 years after I trap them out!

I DO like trapping beaver...but they sure change a 2-3 foot stream....and never for the better those first couple of years. (better as a mink stream that is.)

Speaking of mink- I'm just a few days into running mink, and have had 1 location that has given me a nice buck last 4 checks...a personal consecutive check record for a location....

[Ridgerunner]

Steve, this "genetic behavior" is beyond my scope. I can say this: I too have seen many streams altered by beaver activity, and the long and short of it is that I find many previously "select spots" widened, and/or chanels where there were none ... so ... I took to doing exactly as you described, with the shaving of banks, etc.

One thing I am getting a little better at is using the bottom edge set. (That didn't come quickly) ... After a couple of seasons, I started catching a lot of 'rats with the B.E. and confidence in this set grew respectively. The reason I say this, is that I noticed that once the 'rats thinned out, I began taking mink right along. I very often shave banks to make the B.E. on a best guess basis.

Now then to be as specific as I can to your question, here is a pattern that I have noticed with regularity: Given that once past a beaver, or flood altered stretch of stream, the existing mink go right back, almost to the paw print of yesteryear.

"Ridge"

[bblwi]

Steve I will hit on this one. I was about ready to post one on late season male coon movement but this is close so here goes. I think that networks of trails, home ranges, sub ranges, and connecting trails are the norm for many species such as rabbits, mink, coon, deer, skunk etc. I do not know enough about martin, fischer etc. to even guess. After really starting to dryland trap coons and prospecting locations I am seeing main trails in areas every year, and that is with highway changes, bridges, crops etc. I bet some of these trails have been used for longer than I have been alive maybe by all the species. I don't think Steve that it is genetic imprinting but more likely soon aquired brehavior similar to a duckling and the mother duck. Maybe that is genetic imprinting, don't know. Well I think all species but lets say coon here start to measuring landmarks ASAP when they travel trails. T Poles, steams, large trees, rock piles, thickets etc. I would bet that mink do the same. Travel routes off the main drags are for denning, feeding etc. I am sure with most of these species being polygimous (i.e. males wander and breed multiple females) that the major networks are vital in the reproductive aspects of these species. It would be interesting to find out if it were genetic; then that would help explain the continued presence of that species in an area. Maybe populations cycle up and down but they stay.

Bryce

[foxtail]

I don't buy the business about genetic imprinting.
The instincts of any animals is read only. The remainder is read/write, but the hard drive for the instinct has no write heads.

It is possible that the new mink may rely on the instinct they are born with to naturally follow a trail that has been underwater since before it was born. Similar surroundings trigger an instinctive response.

It is also possible that the younger animals may be able to smell reminants of the old trail left over from years of previous use. We know little about the animal's senses really compared to our own.


But to assume that the experiences of the parent to the offspring can be transferred any other way than dirrect demonstration would be like assuming that the child of the mother who dies in childbirth can be able to absorb her memories.

[trappnman]

here is a pattern that I have noticed with regularity: Given that once past a beaver, or flood altered stretch of stream, the existing mink go right back, almost to the paw print of yesteryear.

I notice that also- and if the "landmark set" is gone. get as close as possible with a new set.


new mink may rely on the instinct they are born with to naturally follow a trail that has been underwater since before it was born.

THATS genetic imprinting...


so...as long as we are beating around this partcular bush.... how do birds know to fly south? Why not east, west, north? Why not stay and die if they cannot adapt? (much is following food, I know....but not all)

how do dogs and cats get dropped off sometimes 100s of miles from home...and a week later there they are?

[Edge]

** 1 location that has given me a nice buck last 4 checks...**

I hope you mean *4* nice bucks;you *do* have to take them out you know.

I would like to comment on this mink trapping stuff;here is all I know about mink trapping;they like holes,roots,fish and frogs.

And they smell funny.Not funny ha-ha;funny peculiar.

I am sure my post will elevate all readers to a better understanding of mink.Not.

Edge

[Steve Gappa]

come on Edge..I have people coming with me...they need to see FUR...LOL

[Edge]

**come on Edge..I have people coming with me...they need to see FUR...LOL **

LMAOROTF!!!


Edge

[fishdaddy]

i had one walk all over one of my coon sets even went in the hole and stole the bait i have about 1 1/2 lbs. of tension.im going to put one of my 5 by 5 body grippers in its place do you think it will be back?
fish.

[Ridgerunner]

Cracking up here! ... Yeppers Edge, I noticed my catch rate going up after removing an admiralbe catch and doing a remake! ... LMAO ...

Back to the thread ... Steve, I have noticed time and again, during high water levels, that mink tracks become somewhat erratic; (meaning moving up away, and back down in relation to the water's edge)

( I need to say here that on this board, and in another thread, I saw where someone posted that mink move up and down the banks with fluctuating water levels.) ... Very true ... The point is that with the above mentioned erratic movement, the print patterns seem to be out of sync with "the norm" of an edge "hugging" travel routine. In a manner of speaking, it is almost as if the mink isn't really sure of where or how it needs to proceed.

I hope the above doesn't enter to far in to the abstract, but just reporting a common occurance that I have seen many times.

"Ridge"

[jsevering]

Good post Steve

Dont particularly agree with the words genetic imprinting, but replace that with an instinctual random habits and dont think your far off base at all.

for example one trout hathery I trap the fingerling trout are kept in concrete tanks with walls approx two feet high in a fairly open area, situate in a mature sugar bush, lots of birds of prey feed here also.

there is a few three foot long by two feet high rolls of two inch by four inch concrete suport\re-enforcement wire laying three to four feet away from the tanks on the weed or rough side.

you could kill yourself pumping in good picture book sets,along the adjacent brook, but the sets on the base of the concrete walls, set on the dry side just like you would a bridge abuttment and the open ends of the re-enforcement wire rolls will take most if not all the mink hitting the tanks and running the brook in a shorter time.

them little suckers will hit the open tank looking for food, but once they get it their right back to the wall base or in one of those rolls for some over head protection while they eat.

used that senario only because a hatchery isnt a natural or normal type deal that could of really been genericaly imprinted for a travel route, but the use of the walls and wire rolls after they get done putting their butts on the line with the eagles, ospreys and redtails that are also looking for some easy fish, would tend to make me think, some travel and or periods of non movement in the making footage form is more in the way of a instinctual survival\ forage habit.

Are instinctual survival habits or foraging habits a genetic imprint?

Guess it would be how we each look at it as we break it down...jim

[BK]

I can't buy into genetic imprinting effecting mink travels.
With the exception to the urge to mate, the presents of food is key in the travels of mink. They adapt to new conditions and situations right now.

[trappnman]

BK- you take the fun out of everything...

Can't agree with you old buddy...while I agree with the "big picture" scenerio of food dictating mink behaviors, there is more to the picture than that.

What about a good habitat area- where food availability is the same over a wide area.... time after time....year after year.

There is usually ONE specific spot that is "THE" hotspot.

now...one could say..and I agree...that this spot is probably better than the others for vison, scenting, hunting success rates, whatever...

ok..say that is so...

But...and this was my original thought....take away that prime feature...that crotch of a tree or ledge or what ever makes it hot, that is now under 4 feet of water....and cobble a set WHERE THAT LOCATION USED TO BE...and it STILL produces as if that original location was stil lthere.

Perhaps you are still saying....its STILL the best location...but it is not. Take that from me as a given.

Exact setups on other creeks..do not produce even though mink are taken in other sets on the same creeks...

Why?


____________________________________________

"I don't know but I've been toooold....bottom edge men ain't got no souuul..."

[dj88ryr]

Ok, splain this then....
I am trapping a particular farm, roughly 200 yards of prime habitat. The first 3 nights I took 16 rats from there, then 1 or 2 a night for the next 3 days, then nothing, I kept my sets in because the sign tells me there is mink traveling both sides of the stream, nothing for a whole 6 nights, now all of a sudden back to 2 or 3 muskrats a night again. This is what I meant about prime area being reinhabited by overflow populations rather quickly after the locals are wiped out. I think the same happens with mink, they know prime habitat, and when they find some that is vacant, they fill it, if indeed these critters are coming from another population, how could they be imprinted to know these spots?

[BK]

I think it's changing all the time Steve,.........your beaver dams are turning your hot spots into hotter spots.
Deeper slower water more fish life, feed beds to hunt fish around, more rats and rat dens. In time perhaps rat houses to burrow holes in,.........and so on.
I feel this is a large part of your success with your new sets,............more mink to deal with.
Mink will have a lot of fun in this spot for sometime after the beaver leave,........ running in and out of the old house
and the bank holes above or under water.
And here again their travel habits will change to fit the situation.

[BK]

Come On Steve,....................at least argue with me a little bit. If not trappers here are gonna feel I'm right, and you are at a loss for words, or heaven forbid your gonna start giving BE sets a whirl.

I gotta go turn some fur ,...........Ill be back soon.

[trappnman]

LOL- your last reply slipped by...so much to catch up on..so lets see....

To begin with...keep in mind that the streams I am talking about my best producers. one such location last year gave me 8 mink, all males and the other gave me 7...some females in that.

So..the mink are there....

But....are there more mink because of te beaver? Well, maybe....but remember that I'm talking small creeks and that the beaver water only affects a small portion of it...usually until the first real rapids.

So ...I think the amount of mink is fairly stable from year to year.

A good example is my original point...did you read about the mink I saw today? Sucker was sitting on the bank next to an old root system....not a big system..say 3 feet long. It used to be at the end of a rapids and the beginning of a new one. Had a shelf under in about 3 inches of water. Year after year.

No natural set location...so I set a 110 at the edge...

so there was me...about 40 feet away was my 110, about 44 feet away was the mink....I sat quiet....hopeing to see the 110 connect, but he went under the root ball...

I just had to laugh...tomorrow, somehow, someway...a footholds is going there....

check out that other mink thread..

[BK]

I got a maybe out of you, ;D I'm good with that,
as we all know that it means.