Irish Hunting Forum

DitchShitter · Posted: Fri Jun 08, 2007 1:19 pm Post subject:

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.

JohnGalway

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

JohnGalway · Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 6:52 pm Post subject:

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:

Sean · Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2007 11:24 am Post subject:

brilliant post and pics mate. let shope thats the first of many of those little buggers
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Bryan · New Member Joined: 19 Dec 2007 Posts: 14

great going

Macnas · Member Joined: 16 May 2007 Posts: 43

Good man yourself John.

ivanthehunter · Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 12:14 am Post subject:

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...

JohnGalway · Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 10:27 pm Post subject:

They don't mind why would they. It's the most humane method of dispatch available to me at the moment.

ivanthehunter · Posted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 6:01 pm Post subject:

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?