pip
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Mink trappingI m into the mink trapping now to keep the wee buggers down ,place is alive with em,anyone else trap them and what ways do yous find best,ie location ,bait etc
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EOGHAIN
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Dont know much about trapping mink Pip i was told by an old man once that he used to catch them by placing a few feet of soil pipe vertically below ground level with a smelly fish in ,is this pub talk and was he pulling my leg 
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DitchShitter
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I'm always hearing the pipe trick, mate. Mostly in pubs, granted! 'Mind you; I only tend to meet other people in the pub, so that might have some bearing on it?
Way I hear it though - and several people have told me - is that ye drive the pipe into the bottom on a river. It's actually under the water.
Same principle applies, I expect? Mink, supposedly, gets in and can't get back out. Water would possibly drown him before he managed it? Vile way of taking out any creature, in my view.
But then, everyone I speak to here suggests chucking a cage trapped mink into the river anyway! FFS! Not f*cking likely, I wouldn't!
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EOGHAIN
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It sounds like a lot of hassle to me Ditch when there are plenty other traps about ,maybe im wrong
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DitchShitter
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Yeah. Not something I've ever thought to put to the test myself, mate. When ye actually sit and think about it; Pile driving a bloody pipe under the water? Then how to ye check it? Shove ye hand in there? F*cked if I would!
Actually, I'm quite sure I did hear of someone who got a rat! So, on that basis I suppose ye are supposed to just reach in and pull out what ever's there?
Need smallish hands, wouldn't ye? And no room for manouvre? Sod that! I'll stick with me Juby's! 
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pip
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I ve heard lads on shoots up the country use the pipe trick but they baited and left it there was no mention of getting them out,which i personally don t like the idea of im happy enough checking the trap and killing the wee buggers then you know their dead job done.Sometimes the odd one would miraculously escape on an open bit of steam which always puts a bit of time in,although last time this happened with a silver coloured one he escaped into a field of silage and we lost him .We ve always had the best luck setting the trap about 1 ft above water level pegged in,so badgers and foxes dont doze it into the stream while trying to get the stuff out and using mackeral or rabbit guts and cover it with sawds got about 15 last summer and the fellas on the shoot further up the stream got 40 they said.The thing i was wondering ,theres burrows we do on the same stream about 6 or 7 mile up from the river and im nearly sure i seen a mink while walking to them ,the stream passes through 3 bogs ,i was wondering do they live this far up?
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EOGHAIN
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I have been told that its not uncommon for mink to follow a river to its source which i believe as i have seen them myself even high up in the mountains
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sounder
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minkwell boys the pipe waste of time,it is well knowen that mink are everywhere. they will travel up stream but won't stay near rivers they go were they want,but try and trap them early before they move out i trapped 5 at one part of a river in one week useing fish heads or eels. leave cage so that it touchs the water so scent will be better. good luck
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EOGHAIN
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You have educated me there Sounder ,i though that they always lived in close proximity to water,or could it be that they can get easier meals elsewhere.
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johnsevena
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I aggree with sounder about the pipe.
Tried it a few times and was only catching rats so i decided it was not worth the effort.
Much easier to use a live trap or a fenn trap in my opinion.
Have caught mink in old dykes and ponds and even strange places like outside a busy public toilet in a town and in a friends back garden where there is not water for a mile so it seems like this creature go where they please
As for baiting the trap i use any type of fish i have in the freezer or some rabbits guts but as soon as i catch my first one i just empty the contents of its bladder inside the trap and around it and dont worry if it is baited or not and it seems irresistible to any other mink that is passing as they are a curious little devil and cant help but check out the other minks scent.
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DitchShitter
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 Reading all this again is getting me going! I've got a servicable cage sat out on my 'stock shed roof and I've been half noticing possible sign up on a stream I pass nearly every day .....
I might well drop everything else for an hour this weekend and put that cage down in sight of the track. Save me slogging across fields in this heat to look at it!
I had some salmon flesh that I'd rotted down in a plastic bag for so long (12 months?) that it had turned to an evil smelling liquid paste. Then Small Dog got to it .....  But I do still have some white fish in the freezer. Saved up for this purpose.
Should be young emerging any time now. Then they'll start to move about. Starting to look tempting! My only blocker is the thought of losing another thirty odd quids worth of trap to the f*cking badgers! But the thing is, there appears to be few enough badgers around this particular site.
Then again, down by the deep water ('The Styx', as I call it) where most mink run, there's no end of poxy badgers. They wrecked my last cage down there 
Anyway, no time to think about it just yet as I have something on this afters. But I'll see.
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JohnGalway
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First time mink trapper, just starting out...Howdy folks,
I've been thinking for a while now of trying to find some mink in my area. During the summer two local farmers had hens killed by mink. One mink actually had an audience in broad daylight doing the deed and this didn't put it off. I'm also seeing less duck than the last few years (not that I'm any danger to them), so I'm wondering if they're attacking them as well.
So I was on an Irish shooting forum looking for cheap live catch mink cages to buy, and another researcher (from the same University as the fox researcher) who is collecting mink says he'll loan me some if I give him the mink afterwards. Sounds good to me since I'm not sure how the mink population is here or was it just some passing through.
Today I ran into a man who's land I intended setting some of the cages on, I asked him if it'd be ok and if he'd seen any around. He was telling me about two weeks ago he saw one right outside of his house from his kitchen window Perfect, as one of the spots I had in mind is a stream near his place! So I went there today and decided I'd set two cages along the little stream, one above stream and one down stream from this mans place. Have about four reports of them now in the last year or so, have a couple of other landowners to chase up about setting up a cage or two in their places as well.
The researcher told me to wrap the cage in a black sack before covering it with moss, leaves and rocks and other debris. I'm wondering about this myself as there's quite a strong smell of the plastic. So, to test the theory I wrapped one in a sack and the other I covered well with the above mentioned debris, which will make it quite weatherproof in itself. The bait, as I'd as much guessed myself, was to be oily fish, John Wests finest tinned sardines in sunflower oil. There's a bait tray in the back of each cage (they're single entry), most of the tin would go in there and I'd put a small bit near the entrance. Before tipping out the contents though I'd open the tin a little and dribble out the oil in a trail along the bank of the stream as far as it would last.
I may actually have some mink gland lure somewhere that I ordered off Ebay some time back but I'll need to check on that tomorrow to be sure. I took a few pictures (camera phone) of where I set the cages and thought I'd post them just out of interests sake and for tips/comments. Not sure if I should have left the end of the cages uncovered or not to make it look a bit like an escape route? In any case I didn't as that's where the bait tray is and I figured it'd cause me problems if I did.
These first four (FOUR? Blame it on beginners enthusiasm...) are of the first cage site.
Next three are of the second cage site, no black sack on this one just "thatched" with leaves and moss and covered in stones. I think I'll need to cover up that entrance a bit more tomorrow. I'm a bit concerned that the landowners two dogs (if the badgers and foxes don't get there first) might disturb the site after the bait, they spend some time mooching around in that area but sure it's just a tin of sardince, worth the chance I figure.
I might be able to try a mink raft type affair in another spot or two, just have to suss them out a bit more and make the rafts themselves.
I'll let ye know when I've caught my first thousand or so
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JohnGalway
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Got a spot of new mink permission today. I thought I would get more spots to cage than just the one :huh: but nope. I'm going to have a better look around that spot tomorrow incase I missed anywhere. Here are a couple of pics of the site before and after. Where the top cage is is where I sited it.
So I headed off to another bit of land not a million miles away where there's another stream. Didn't do an awful lot of looking but this is where I put a cage speculatively. No people around this particular place so no need to disguise the cage too much.
I went off then to a spot I knew where there are sheep being fed. Popped off three magpies and a greycrow in the same spot, just over the eighty yard mark for the four of them
Next I checked my two traps I set yesterday. Nothing in the first one and then....
Had a bit of a moment when I saw it first wondering if it was a polecat but checking and comparing mugshots online I'm satisfied it's minky :yes:
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Sean
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brilliant post and pics mate. let shope thats the first of many of those little buggers
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Bryan
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great going
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Macnas
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Good man yourself John.
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ivanthehunter
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nice blog- good result-- tel us tis do the land owner know that you bring the rifle in to finish the wee beasties off.. do the mind...
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JohnGalway
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They don't mind why would they. It's the most humane method of dispatch available to me at the moment.
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ivanthehunter
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well i suppose that makes sense.
those cages seem a nice size, do you get them from the researcher or are the bought?
Any idea on who makes them or their name?
Have you been out anytime recently? Did you see any mink sign on the ground?
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