Last 10 Days

[braveheart]

Last 10 days of season.A lot of mange and rubs but a few good ones and coon.Rain snow and freezing and thawing.Wax dirt and Coal shale saved the day.








www.kegcreekbaits-lures.com

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[bogio]

Righteous, Marty!

[foxman]

Way to go! This weather over my way has been beautiful except today was junk. Fog and icy.

[trappnman]

way to go marty-

a question, I know you don't want to answer LOL-

but what of your lures is your go to lures, or your personal favorites?

I my favorites are Decoy 1-11, Super 21 and for sure, the LDC

[ColdSteel]

I am not marty but just sent him a pm on his lure I am having my best year ever on yotes and the decoy and showtime are my go to for sure.I have also had good success with white knuckles greys seem to really like it also the coyote gland lure is top notch

[arrow1]

Awesome job Marty. I like Showtime bait and the Coon Crunch myself, great products and service.

[braveheart]

I had to use the White Knuckles and Lobo and finished with LDC and urine.

[bblwi]

Tomorrow is our last day for rat trapping. I pulled my last pushup set today with my last rat of the season. 14.5 inches of snow and gusts to 45 mph had snow 4 feet deep in the cattails!!! Sunk in two feet with snow shoes!!

Bryce

[careydrossel]

Marty You make me want to trap for more than 10 days again....some day!!! Great season for ya!!

[braveheart]

The coyote season was fun.But the coon and mink no. are way off.Thanks always good talking with ya.

[trappnman]

mink were a little down- but coon.....I've never taken as few coon as this year

I had a LOT of farms where I slay the coon year after year, and this year, were too many when we leave said we never caught a coon there this year. They were down 2 years ago, but not like this past year. Luckily, rat numbers were a bit above average

[RdFx]

We have had low coon nbrs here in central Wi for the last ten years with distemper ect in coon. Hardly see a coon pup killed on road in late spring... Caught more coon on the ND -Montana border than i did in Wi this year.... Heard that Muskrat was having same problem in his area.

[braveheart]

I had a beaver spot I set up yesterday.It had very few coon and yesterday it was lined with tracks.I think a lot of coon are out in the fields and never come to the water only to drink.With the high dollar combines leaving all the corn in the fields this year life was easy for a coon.I still can't figure out the shortage of mink though.I did my usual mink check this spring at least 1 mink a ditch.

[jim]

Marty: There didn't seem to be any mink here last nov. either. Does you mink check mean there is the normal number now? Where were they when we wanted to trap them?

Jim

[blackhammer]

Mar 10, 2013 4:52:23 GMT -6 braveheart said:

I had a beaver spot I set up yesterday.It had very few coon and yesterday it was lined with tracks.I think a lot of coon are out in the fields and never come to the water only to drink.With the high dollar combines leaving all the corn in the fields this year life was easy for a coon.I still can't figure out the shortage of mink though.I did my usual mink check this spring at least 1 mink a ditch.

I too have seen a lot of coon tracks on the water the last month or so. You wonder were they come from. I don't like trapping coon this late even in Feb for the most part. Maybe with the market like it is I should have killed a few more. A good time of the year to do a little scouting for next year no matter what the animal.

[braveheart]

Sometimes I wonder if the animals with the warmer Fall stick in more of a small area.And wonder later in the Spring.I seen piles of tracks in the last Spring beaver trapping but came Fall a hole new story.When I pulled my coon traps in Jan, I seen sign of only one mink in 30 or more stops along the water line.I know in the late winter you have to be right on them to catch them at least in Iowa.

[blackhammer]

The last week of Feb at the end of our season you start seeing tracks and occasionallly catching big buck mink as their breeding season is starting. You sure are right about Jan mid winter mink they pretty much hole up and just don't go anywhere.

[trappnman]

blackhammer, knowing you more than perhaps anybody on this forum, winter traps almost exactly the same type of creeks and about the same type of conditions (and I find your observations mirror mine almost 100% vis a vis winter mink/coon/rat trapping) I read your above post with interest concerning the mink.

I've always found that mid Jan period to be my best mink slot of the winter. This could be, reflecting on it, due to a couple of things-

#1- I don't hit the water til late November, and many of the creeks are bridge trapped long before I get there, and I'm missing those early mink, so based on my period of trapping (the period where the males really go to the creeks) it would me my best period, but pale in compared to your best period

I get 75-100 but I'm getting them a handful at a time, over a long period

#2- do they hole up? I'm typing this with the reference of your knowledge, and many things I might suggest, would be mute, and not apply.

I can tell you this- I see about zero tracks during mid winter, even on soft snow. I've seen the late spring banks covered with mink tracks, but I don't see that much in the winter-

but they have to be traveling to a degree, so my thought is they move in water far far more with snow covered banks (and yes snow tunnels but that's a limited mode), and as such- sheltered areas would have even more appeal (resting sets, undercut banks, etc)

any thoughts?

[blackhammer]

I think their home range is smaller than many think maybe more so in winter. I too rarely see tracks in Jaunuary. Of course the first good snowfalls do really move them and get them in the water but once winter sets in I don't think they go anywhere. If you have trapped them out earlier your not going to see any dispersing mink and maybe you might pick up a small weasel sized female or two but your mink catch will be about nil at least here in the marginal mink country down here.They definitely change their habits and become more of a water animal.The guys out east who starting using bottom edge sets I think figured out that bad weather,winter in general made the mink a water animal. You hit Febuary and the sun gets warmer you gradually may pick up a few traveling mink as breeding approaches. Last week on a place I hadn't seen mink sign in months I saw were a big buck had come through. Late Feb I get a few big old males with nuts the size of walnuts. Last year I caught a handful of those really late mink who really had faded to a pale color and were getting springy and was surprised to receive as much as early season mink I sold. Down here it's not really very high in mink numbers compared to the western ditch country . You wonder were the mink in snow filled coverless frozen ditches go as you drive through that desolite heavily farmed country.It's sure a different world than the one they lived in during the summer and fall.

[trappnman]

Ive wondered the same about the western type habitat- under the snow for the most part in many cases, I'm thinking
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I have some creeks, that give me mink consistently (ie 2/3 checks) all during january- and my jan catch is almost all males- females are rare since they do have such small ranges, that I take them early- then its a wait for the males. to be sure, I trap 2 bridges, everything else is drive in and/or walk, because I've trapped the same creeks for 3 decades, and I do concentrate only on the areas that have proven over time, to be all season consistent.

No baited/lured sets, although I do catch some in lured pvc pipe coon sets

do you have some creeks, that do the same for you? or do you concentrate less on mink during that period?