The BE mink

[trappermike220]

How does the bottom edge set produce for you on your trapline?
What percent of your line for mink is the bottem edge set? In your part of the country do the creeks offer suitable locations for the set? What trigger postion do you find works best for this set? What is the male to female ratio on your line when it produces?

[robertw]

Please do not percieve this as being negative.

The bottom edge set can only be used in certain environments.

In my area of the midwest the streams never clear up from the large/ heavey amount of debris (leaves) carried by the current.

[DaveLyons]

I have never set many BE sets. But last year I finally caught a mink using it. So I don't have much experience using them. But one thing for sure you have to wait till almost Christmas up here to use them or they clog up bad with leaves.

As far as trigger set ups I only use BMI mag. 110 just open up trigger and set.


Dave

[Steve Gappa]

In the right setup, they are very good sets. My areas might have good setups, but I find equal sets using footholds and I prefer footholds.

I'm of the belief that a good mink trapper would catch the same mink whether using pockets, blind or 110s.

[BK]

Early in the season I can catch more early mink faster punching in pocket sets at stops,.........as long as the weather cooperates.

About the leaves on the trigger wires, the leaves are less of a problem later in the season. A rain helps hold them down from dancing around and if it freezes so much the better, and of course snow puts an end to it.
I try to avoid milling around above my sets to stir them up in the water.
I run my trigger wires tight together off to one side, this makes a huge difference in the amount of crap you get.
Even with a gob of leaves or weeds you have plenty of opening for a mink to try to squeeze through.

[Rick]

Take this for what it's worth Mike...I'm no mink trapper. But after some conversations with BK last year, and after reading the BE book on his advice....I'm still no mink trapper.

BUT...it did open my eyes. I made some use of the set and had some success. Limited success...but enough to see that the set has some real potential. I think it's a great set for a guy dealing with nasty weather conditions and short on time.

Mink trapping is just a screwin' around, little hobby thing for me, after most of my trapping is over. I'm pressed for time and probably shouldn't be doing it at all...but it's fun. So, I'm certainly no authority...but...I've seen enough to believe any SERIOUS mink trapper who isn't making at least SOME use of the BE set is shorting himself.

If I were ever to run a serious mink line...might someday too....I would want traps at the water's edge, traps on the high bank, and traps underwater.

Rick.

[dj88ryr]

If a BE set jumps out at me, I will use it, they maybe account for 5% of my total sets, but that is because I never took the time to get really good at finding and making the set.
BK is right, I use the trigger wires tight together and off to one side about 3/4, the mink triggers with it's shoulder rather than head, I set all body grippers for mink like this, I believe mink are face sensitive.
The BE really shines after freeze up, and don't forget, it is a good set for Beaver and Otter too.

[lumberjack]

I have yet see a mink with shoulders, mine here are shaped more like road cones.
I would be afraid to use that trigger system (pinched together, off to the side), especially with 2-way triggers-4-ways, yes, but Im sure some smaller ones may make it through.
I can see how it would buy you some time during flooding though but eventually sticks and increased turbidity would still set it off.
You guys catch your share though and it works for you.
To answer your questions Mike,
a) As well as any set, all things considered.
b) I can 98% of the time find a be, sometimes theres just nothing there, but I can always use the bridge or culvert.
c) Spread "v" either on top or bottom, I never took notice to see if ones better than another.
d) almost always 50/50 for me.

[thebeav2]

I have never tried a bottom edge set BUT when a mink Is swimming In the water It's body Is swaying as It swims so the triggers off to the side will still catch that mink.It my be by the hips but It will still set off the trap as It swims through. And since your trap Is under water, where the trap closes on the mink Is of no concern.

Gary

[blakcoyote]

I have never used it on mink.But I have used it on otter and beaver with good results using 220's and 330's.

[mustelameister]

On my 2-day check riverlines, and sometimes they are 3-day check sets, I have maybe a dozen BE sets out per 5-7 dozen traps total per line. All BE sets are in about the same situation.

That is, to avoid the leaves and debris which gave me fits earlier, I now locate the trap about a foot downstream of a point in the current. This way the garbage blowing downstream passes by the trap. And it does take mink and 'rats.

The number of points that offer this ideal setting are few and far between, but I'd rather have a dozen of these set locations than three dozen BE bodygrippers haphazardly set up and down the drink requiring cleaning with every check.

I've also bumped up to #160s for the bigger entry area, but remove one of the springs so it butts up against the bank better. These are #160s that I buy from tailgaters during the last couple of hours of the last day of trappers' conventions, reasonably priced. They're not junk, they're just not real strong dryland 'coon traps anymore.

I spread the triggers in a bell shape and don't worry about mink slithering through them like I do on my waxed dryland BMI #120 mags, which have the ends of the triggers flattened out, drilled through, and have a loop of galvanized wire hanging from.

My feeling is that a mink swimming upstream along the bottom of a river or stream is not going to focus too much on triggers, but rather on the bank bottom/side ahead in hopes of securing a meal. And it seems to work okay that way.

Maybe some year I'll have the tinker time to run say, 100 BE sets, and have a dozen different variables to the set just to see which combination of conditions scores the highest. Until then, I'll just keep using what works.

[BK]

Here might be a little food for thought,..........I've caught many mink with leaves pined to their bodies.
I've checked BE sets that had crap on the triggers I didn't clean off because I didn't have boots on,...... or a car was comming,..... or I was using a flash light,............
But the sets caught mink anyway.
Ken Smythe loves those 55s,..........that's like a 110 1/4th of the way plugged up.
If you use a short stick through the spring (like in the book) to push the trap to the bank it's very easy to lift the trap turn it upside down dip it in the stream and let the current clean it off.
You don't have to pull the stick just put the trap back and give the stick a nudge or twist to secure the trap tight, it only takes a few seconds

[foxtrapperwoman]

I tried the BE set a little this last season and caught nothing at all. I was setting at projections where muskrat tracks were entering water from the banks leading down and up, and saw mink tracks a few times as well. I had another spot with muskrats and set a perfect location that even had soft dirt down there, water was near waist deep, was that too deep? A nice projection was there and was a canal so the water was calm. Was set maybe a week, nothing was caught. Pulled due to unexpected heavy snow, as soon as I could get in there- long walk to this location and I couldn't get in for days. It is hard to find spots here due to stabalization issues. I think I need on the line instruction, on my rocky line, to learn this one.

[mustelameister]

On hard bottoms that won't accept a stake, I use a railroad tie plate. My #160 holders are homemade and are constructed of lath crisscrossed, glued and screwed together, then dyed and waxed. These are bolted to RR tie plates. One could also use commercial bodygrip holders. I use to use Barker's Conimounts, but found that "one-size-fits-all" just didn't work for my bodygrips, and went to the homemade version. I've seen fellas weld these conimounts onto the plates.

I drill another hole near a corner of the tie plate, and the chain of the bodygrip trap is S-linked to this tie plate.

These are super efficient on those rocky bottoms you have stabilization issues on and will keep the trap and the catch on the bottom of the creek. I cache these along those places I trap every year to save having to carry them in each year.

[thebeav2]

Would It pay to create these points where you want them?
Don leffers 110 holders would be In my opinion top of the line bottom edge stabilizers. Killer clips bolted to a tie plate would solve the one size fits all problem.
Black Coyote talk to us about BE sets for otter and beaver.

[trappnman]

where is he going to eat that meal?

[dj88ryr]

I have observed mink seemingly with no intent on hunting or anything else for that matter, hugging the bank on vertical cuts, muskrats do this too. If you can find a projection, rock, stump, clump of thick vegetation, they will most times hug that projection while swimming by.
Finding those projections where you can set is the hardest part of this, IMHO, I am a long ways from mastering it. I did have decent luck with bottom edgeing Beaver back in NH, most of that trapping was in Beaver bogs, not streams or rivers. Those bogs had a very irregular shoreline, and many BE locations could be found rather easily, not so much here in PA for mink.

[BK]

Well Beav. I'm not Black Coyote,............ but I'll confess to lugging good size field stones a short distance from the road to form a point.
Did it work? Yes. Was it worth it? I'm not sure. ;D
I would only consider it close to home to cut down on walking.
It's not a practice to try to take on the road.

I've had very good luck with BE sets made with 280s in the general area of beaver feed piles, they swim around them a lot chasing minnows.
But on most small streams they seem to stick to the center for the largest part is the way I see it.

[dj88ryr]

BK,

Make back packs for those Weiner Dogs, if you can teach them to gather your walnuts for you, I don't figure they would mind carrying some BE rocks for you.... ;D ;D

[trappnman]

But on most small streams they seem to stick to the center for the largest part is the way I see it.

Please continue......