Fresh tracks in a two by two bounding pattern were right in front of me on the creek ice.  A mink?  It had to be.  (Photo Rright)

Yet I’d never seen mink tracks before.  Heck, I’d never even seen a mink before!  The tracks were checking out every bank hole along that creek and going under the ice anywhere it could gain access to the water.  I tried to remember what I’d read in Fur-Fish-Game magazine articles, and A.R. Harding’s Mink Trapping book.  What else could it be?  I felt certain it had to be a mink.

I’d just chopped into muskrat huts and set traps in them on a small frozen pond which drained into the creek.  I was down to my last trap, a Victor #1 long spring.  The location with the most sign was a dry bank hole hidden in tall grass along the creek.  The couple inches of snow on the ground showed multiple tracks in and out.  I pulled cat tail fuzz from a stalk and placed it at the entrance.  The trap was placed on the fuzz, with more added to cover the trap.  I tossed a bit of snow over the set, to blend it.  The trap chain was wired to a nearby tree.  Set complete.

Walking home, all I could think about was catching a mink!  I was going to read everything I could that evening on mink trapping.  At the dinner table, I told my parents I was going to catch a mink; that I’d found fresh tracks on a creek.  My dad, a city guy not educated in the ways of wild animals, laughed and said that mink live “way up north”.  Certainly, there wasn’t any in the City of White Bear Lake.  

That evening, 8 to 10 inches of snow fell.  The December morning was clear and cold.  I checked all rat huts.  Nothing.  No animal tracks were found anywhere on the pond ice.  I was discouraged as I followed my path onto the creek.  Fresh tracks, bounding two by two and heading towards my bank hole set!  Suddenly, I wasn’t cold anymore and picked up my pace.  As I neared the set, I could see the grass near the entrance was packed down and disturbed, and the trap chain was pulled tightly into the hole.  My heart was pounding!  

I carefully tugged on the trap chain.  It tugged back!  I didn’t want to lose my prize before I had it, so I pulled slowly, gently, on the trap chain.  All at once the critter came out of the hole and made a sound I could only describe as an ear-piercing scream!  It was so loud that I was sure anyone inside homes blocks away would hear it and call the local Police.  I finally calmed down enough that I was able to collect my prize, a beautiful female mink!

That experience 50 years ago taught me several lessons that I would never forget and catching my first mink ensured that I would be a trapper for the rest of my life!

For a few years, I tried to replicate my above set for catching mink.  At times successful, I found that blind setting a dry bank hole after freeze up might work, but just as easily might not, and it was time consuming to try and find similar locations.  

Mink are land based, semi-aquatic predators, averaging 2 – 4 pounds, 22 – 36 inches in length.  Male “Buck” mink will be larger than females.  Prime pelts are thick and shiny with fine underfur, covered by longer guard hairs.  Wild mink colors range from light brown to almost black.  Tail fur is darker than body fur.  In some areas, mink may have unusual pelt colors.  This can often be traced back to escapees from past mink ranches in the area.  Mink often have a white chin strap, or white coloration between legs.

Mink have 5 toes on each foot, with short, sharp claws.  I have observed mink climb right up a vertical tree, just like a squirrel, yet most of their time is spent on the ground or in the water.  Mink breed in the late winter/spring.  Members of the weasel family, they experience a delayed implantation of the embryo, but not nearly as much delay as marten and fisher.  Young mink “kits” are born blind, helpless, in a den dug by the female, or taken over from muskrats.   Four to six kits are an average litter.  Within eight weeks, kits can be hunting with the female, and by fall are adults on their own.  Male mink are aggressive animals and have been known to kill young mink and even adult females.

That scream my first mink produced is a common tactic mink use when alarmed.  Thought to startle larger predators, it may cause the release of the captured mink.  It sure startled me!

Mink are abundant in Minnesota.  They can be found in lakes and streams, ponds and rivers, swamps and bogs, from farm country to northern forests.  Almost every body of water has mink visiting it.

Mink can also be quite terrestrial, and under certain conditions, can be found well away from water.  When deep powder snow covers the ground, mink will often leave defined waterways and hunt in fields and forests for rabbits, mice, and voles.  I have found mink tracks a mile from water.  Every few years I find mink tracks on my property in winter, yet the nearest water is more than a half mile from my home.  Over the years, I’ve taken a few mink in upland weasel boxes, too.

Some of my favorite mink trapping locations are grassy stream banks, culverts, bridges, anywhere a feeder creek enters a larger stream or river, and any permanent open water areas in winter.  Think funnels.  The closer they naturally come to your set, the better!

Fox and Coyotes will take some, Bobcat and Fisher too.  Young mink will fall to large turtles in summertime, yet another furbearer in my area certainly takes more.  Otter kill mink, mainly because they are competition for the same foods.  Just as coyotes kill fox.  I’ve had mink caught in traps torn apart by otters, and found mink killed by otters on frozen marshes, without being eaten.

Yet with proper food sources and overhead cover, mink will not only survive, but can be found in abundance.  Another concern, polluted waters carrying contaminants can build up in mink over time, making them incapable of reproduction, or just outright killing them.  It’s probably a bigger concern than predation.  I’ve found metro area mink populations to be far higher now than in the 1970’s and 80’s.  Cleaner environment hopefully?

If a mink is investigating an object, it will slow down to a walk, or “lope.”  This is usually an angled line of four footprints.  Sometimes only three show up as the footprints can run together.  Mink have five toes on each foot, but sometimes only four toes can be distinguished in track patterns.  The best places to look for summertime scouting is when water levels drop, leaving a muddy shoreline along streams and lakes.  Look near hollow logs, on sand bars, under bridges and in culverts.

I once followed multiple winter mink tracks from a hole in the ice, to a nearby hollow log along a marsh.  I looked in the hollow log and saw hundreds of frogs, packed inside.  Mink, like weasels, are surplus killers.  As a trapper, that knowledge can be used to your advantage.

When targeting mink, I prefer a 1 ½ coil or similar sized trap at a baited pocket set with open water.  Once freeze-up comes, blind sets, colony traps in culverts and narrow spots, and body grips are used.

Most areas I mink trap in will have raccoon or otter present, so a responsible trapper must anchor for the largest possible target animal on their trapline.  Most of my sets get disposable earth anchors or drowning cable.  Rebar and fiberglass rods are used on private property or areas where theft is not a problem.  Mink will drown easily in shallow water, yet a coon or otter will not.  Drowning wires quickly dispatch the catch, as well as hide it, and with multiple pockets together, you can keep your catches separated, so a coon doesn’t eat your mink!  Learn to make them.  It will save you money.  

New trap brackets, clips for attaching traps to fiberglass rods, body grip stabilizers, all help the trapper with making good, fast & efficient sets.  Find what works best for you, become quick at making sets, repeat!  

-          Mink will move extensively during and after a fall/winter storm.  Get sets out before!

-          Right at freeze up, consider the “three zones” for your set.  Partially submerged, fully submerged, or above ice.  Prepare your set accordingly.

-          My best baits – carp, various sucker, bullhead, muskrat.  Fish oil, salmon oil, crayfish oil, or canned sardines applied at the bait help.  Make an oil slick from your bait!  Mink follow it to its source.

-          Mink are drawn to the sound of running water, especially after freeze-up.

-          Minnesota truly has some of the greatest mink trappers ever.  Men with incredible catches, knowledge, and experience.  Purchase some of their advertised books and videos.  It will be some of the best money you ever spend!  

-          Having had three mink as pets for several years, their instinct to investigate every hole is incredible.  Use it to your advantage.  They seldom enter a hole, “straight on.”

-          Mink like to hug banks, walls, edges when hunting/moving.  They try to avoid open areas.  Make sets accordingly.

-          Mink scenting abilities are better than most would think.  I could coax a pet mink out of a snow drift from 20 feet in below zero weather, with a tiny piece of meat.  

-          If a good location, make multiple sets, not just one!

-          My experience shows that mink aren’t afraid of a minor disturbance but become cautious around large ones.

-          My female mink could get caught again and again in a live trap, to be transferred back to a cage.  My two-male mink – a different story.  Maybe twice ever, and then they’d never approach the live traps again.  Seemed like different animal species.

I mentioned earlier that I learned several lessons from that first mink I trapped.  First, the sound of a mink screech.  Will never forget it!  Second, mink “spray” ranks right up there with skunk, and until I caught my first, I didn’t know they did that!  Third, a good storm really makes mink move.  Fourth, my dad knew absolutely nothing about trapping.  Finally, while walking home with my first mink carried over my shoulder proud as could be, a man from a home a couple blocks away charged out of his house and threatened to hit me, a nine year old, because I killed the mink.  He didn’t even know what it was, but obviously didn’t share my love of trapping.  Welcome to the anti-trapping movement!