rat or fish mink bait debate again?

[blackhammer]

Talked to a couple very good trappers this weekend that claim muskrat meat is much better than fish for mink bait. After finally coming to the conclusion fish was without doubt the best bait these clowns got me thinking again. They didn't really use it fresh either. To me rat I could see being a better late season bait maybe?

[trappnman]

I'm not a bait guy for mink per se, but when the weather gets very cold (breaking ice weather) I find a whole or half of a rat carcass to really give new life to older locations- I usually start using carcasses in late December

[jim]

I don't know if it would make a lot of difference but if you want the coon in the same sets I think fish would work better. If you don't want the coon go with the muskrat. Just imo.

Jim

[jim]

I mean a difference to the mink. Jim

[TrapperRon]

Both fish or muskrat are good mink bait. The one problem is they do not stay fresh for very long and require constant renewal of bait. My experience has been a chunk of beaver meat works well. Mink like fresh bait. More important is good scent. For me mink gland ground up in glycerin placed directly in the cubby has never been refused by any mink passing by. Back when I trapped mink my go to set was a 120 with a pan in a box.

[blackhammer]

Most of my trapping is done when all the water is open . I think in my area with only a fair amount of mink I have them killed in the first twenty days or so using fish. This winter after December one I didn't see a mink track to speak of. Colder weather over extended periods if you can keep the trap working I'm betting a mix of rat carcuses, glycerin and a small amount of mink gland might be the ticket.I also think some mink don't work huge pockets stuffed with rotten carp. In some areas these more coon type sets are a dime a dozen. With a sick mink market I'm not sure why I care. But you know this is going to be the year I harvest 100 mink which in the three ,four county se corner were I mostly trap I'm not sure as even been done. 7Oish is about the best I've seen in the rocky trout stream, coon country I mostly trap. Might cheat a little and go farther west though, then 300 is just ok.

[trappnman]

I've taken over a hundred a time or 2 out of Goodhue, Wabasha, Olmsted counties but that's 3-4 months trapping- last 2 years, not near those numbers

[blackhammer]

Aug 6, 2014 13:31:15 GMT -6 trappnman said:

I've taken over a hundred a time or 2 out of Goodhue, Wabasha, Olmsted counties but that's 3-4 months trapping- last 2 years, not near those numbers

A hundred is a good catch if your in the trout stream county even with many spots staying open a lot of the winter. Ken Buege who ran a trappers suppliy business in the 70 and 80 s in Houston country was one of the more serious and good mink men I know of and I don't believe he broke a hundred. I do 50,60 often although I guess I'm a coon man first and for most, and last ten years really have been come a very serious rat trapper. In todays market a mink obsession in this area would just not be profitable. In a perfect world I would trap mink and red fox . Not that I don't enjoy all trapping everything.

[trappnman]

all trout stream stuff, there were a few years Paul, where I had 5-6 locations that would give me 8-10 mink over the winter. Sadly, that's down to a couple, the rest all spotty locations.

I just don't think we have the mink numbers we did 15-20 years ago. I had locations this past season, where I never took a mink, and "normally" is 3-6.

50-60 has become my average year as well.

I've met ken way back when, nice guy. But weren't most of his seasons only 2 months? can't remember when it was extended past Dec, early 80s?

[blackhammer]

They probably were Steve. Remember back in the early 80s I had an uncle who trapped not in a huge way. But one year in a trout stream in perhaps a little less than a four mile stretch he walked it. One year he caught close to forty mink in the stretch of fairly small to medium sized stream In recent year in the same area 2-6 is about all. Last year may have just got one although the thing just got wrecked by our big flood. Probably a mile and a half from were I live. It just has went from a very good stream to fairly marginal and really for most part the habitat has remained the same along with maybe even less trapping presure. Go figure. In this country there is less mink and the small rivers also seem to have less mink than they had also. Floods may play a part and I wonder if maybe distemper gets them some places. I drive west not that far, were the bigger farming starts the little slow moving ditches seem to have a better population. Not as far in that direction as the great mink country but just more to the headwaters. Less water means more fur to me these days.

[Gerald Schmitt]

Good info here, in my opinion, it is hard to beat a chunk of carp or bullhead early in the year. I've used muskrat more when it gets colder, seems like mink and coon really crave that red meat. If you guys want a really good cold weather bait try this: Throw some muskrat carcasses in a 5 gallon plastic pail in your skinning shed and fill it about 2/3s full. Just let them alone for a couple of weeks. Save the blood that is on the bottom of the pail, put it in fliptop bottles. When its cold shove a whole or half rat up in your pocket and squirt some of the blood above your pocket. This is a free cold weather bait that is hard to beat.

[trappincoyotes39]

I used to buy a lot of stuff from Ken Buge I think it was called Mississippi rivers trappers supply, great guy and good prices and shipping was cheap and so where traps back then . For mink does bait really matter what it is? I would think a pocket hunter like a mink would take what was offered in a hole? I have caught some mink just never really serious about them mine mostly blind setting and I do remember they where heck on my rat catches

The quickest I ever caught a mink was 3 hrs or so set a blind set on my way back into my bow stand as a teenager in the dark and me and my brother where walking back out and I had a fresh drowned mink in that set! my brother could not believe it A quick 28.00 bucks I got for that mink I do remember that.

[trappnman]

quickest I ever got a mink was about a minute after checking a 110 at a tear in a culvert. Checked trap, crossed creek and heard a scream from set, had kicked up a female mink and had her in that 110. I've set mink traps at dark, before and as freezing occurred, and had mink next check, and know they were caught in a very short window of mere hours after trap set.

I do agree, that I think fish is best early season- I to prefer pockets, and find that pockets baited with rat early, have no more or less success rate than unbaited pockets do. in other words, adding a rat or mink carcass or piece doesn't hurt but haven't seen any benefits BUT find that in late dec/jan that adding rats does give me a bump.

I do use some pure mink glands, can't say that they bump the catch....but do find that a skunky type of call lure, combined with very cold sub freezing even sub zero- does bump the catch

the reason why I add bait to blind sets in very cold winter is simply that I feel a mink, like most predators/scavengers travel less, have fewer random movements (or rather wasted time and energy movements) and that plain and simply they are motivated only or at least mostly by food- get back into the 20s, and you start seeing the tracks/traveling/helter skelter movements returning, and I slack off of bait and lure

[blackhammer]

Sept 11, 2014 16:24:09 GMT -6 Gerald Schmitt said:

Good info here, in my opinion, it is hard to beat a chunk of carp or bullhead early in the year. I've used muskrat more when it gets colder, seems like mink and coon really crave that red meat. If you guys want a really good cold weather bait try this: Throw some muskrat carcasses in a 5 gallon plastic pail in your skinning shed and fill it about 2/3s full. Just let them alone for a couple of weeks. Save the blood that is on the bottom of the pail, put it in fliptop bottles. When its cold shove a whole or half rat up in your pocket and squirt some of the blood above your pocket. This is a free cold weather bait that is hard to beat.

A good tip Gerald. I'll give it a try. Gerald how long would you leave pockets before you pulled when you were running hard for mink? Did you you use multiple lines on extended checks most of the time?

[bblwi]

To me it makes sense like Gerald states to get your long mink line out early and with no rats caught yet use fish. As you catch rats and it gets colder switch when the new baits are ready.

Bryce

[blackhammer]

Early rats rot real fast. Fish holds up better. I doubt if even having the choice of rats or fish to start with many minkers would go with rats.

[braveheart]

When snow and cold hit rotten rat and mink will reach out farther and take more mink.The little female's will some time back off the rotten bait.I would rather let them go and the big males will hammer the sets.

[trappnman]

it would be nice if there was the research on mink, as there is with coyotes. but as explained to be as to why the lack, I was told money-

that while mink studies would be interesting to folks like you and me, the economic factor is just not there as mink, with rare chicken coop exceptions, do little in the way of economic damage etc

so much of what we know, or think we know about mink, is based on observations.

let me throw this out there for you-

based on talking to people like Gerald and others who trap mink in different habitat, it seems that a baited pocket is the key, and not so much the location. Whereas for me, trapping small trout streams, I find the location to be more important. and I think this comes down to population densities.

In higher populations, I feel mink become more of a scavenger, where in lower population areas, they become more of a predator, to the point where they show less interest in baits. While Im not saying they won't find and eat baits, because we know that to be true, but more to the point that they aren't seeking out such and that, IMO, in low population areas I feel that the pocket is more important than the bait and where that pocket is.

I say this because I used to blind set and run baited pockets in fairly equal proportions. and what I found was that the baited sets, did not outproduce my blind sets, in fact the opposite was true- the blind sets outproduced the baited sets. That result I believe was not that bait repelled mink in warm ice/snow free weather but only in that my blind sets were made in "more minkier" locations than the pocket sets.

so my conclusion was that mink I was catching in the baited pockets, would have been caught just the same in an unbaited pocket- and over the years I proved that to myself to the point over the years, I took that unbaited pocket thought and slowly developed my resting set concept.

As another indication, I DO bait coon sets early, occasionally pockets but many times pvc- and I catch very few mink in those sets early. BUT- late winter, ice and cold and snow- I DO catch more mink in them (and in sets in the water for weeks and months) so at that time of year, I do feel bait now becomes more important, and add pieces of rat and mink (usually 1/3 frozen rat carcasses, or 1/4 of a mink based simply on size of my ledges and resting locations) and also start using a little mink lure here and there- and I DO see, on creeks where I've been for many weeks a definite bump in mink production.

I think the above explains the difference in thought about fresh bait vs old bait- some swear by fresh, some say it matters not. I think in higher density populations, freshness is a moot point, whereas in lower population areas, it does become a factor (going back to the predator vs scavenger mindset).

I'll try that blood idea late- can see how it would be a draw for sure