90' 
FOREST A N D 
STREAM 
February, 1921 
Sportsmen Look! 
COME TO 
FORT MYERS, FLORIDA 
FOR 
Finest Quail, Deer, Turkey Shooting 
Trap Shooting Daily for Ladies & 
Gentlemen. Tarpon and all other 
Florida Fish. Write 
PETER P. SCHUTT 
Bradford Hotel 
for Particulars. 
Go To 
“The Dogs”! 
HUNT— CAMP 
FISH— EAT 
DAVID M. NEWELL 
LEESBURG, FLORIDA 
The Only Book on Hunting in the South 
Plantation Game Trails 
300 Pages 
Wonderful Wild Life Pictures 
Records of Famous Plantation Hunts 
from the Author, 
ARCHIBALD RUTLEDGE, Mercersburg, Pa. 
$3.00 POSTPAID 
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duck and bird shooting, and located on 
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MEMORIES OF OLD TRAPPING DAYS 
(CONTINUED FROM PAGE 61) 
grew gradually smaller to the other end. 
I spied the mink and reached into the 
hole intending to grab him. 
“I’ve got him,” I exclaimed, at which 
my partner stationed at the other end 
hollered back: “No you haven’t, I have.” 
And he had, holding him up by the head 
for me to see. Suddenly he gave the 
mink a sharp whack against the tree 
killing it, but not before it had bitten 
through the leather glove my partner 
wore, deep into his finger causing an 
ugly wound. 
I have never considered the mink so 
difficult to catch as the fox or harder 
than the coon. Traps set along a rail 
fence often bring results. A mink will 
travel the top of a fence, hopping along 
with its back hunched, its eyes ever alert 
for a sign of danger or game, and seeing 
either he is all action. Traveling above 
the ground in this way gives him an 
advantageous position from which to 
scan the ground for game. 
One trapper used to make snares for 
the mink with a piece of wire, fastening 
a No. 7 or 8 fish-hook to one end of the 
wire, similar to a fishing leader; then 
baiting the hook and tying the snare to 
a limb of a tree up from the ground so 
the mink would have to jump to reach 
the bait. In this way he caught his 
mouth on the hook and hung himself. 
As the mink spends much of its time 
along small streams, in the water and on 
the banks, these are good places to trap. 
Cavities in the banks, holes under up- 
rooted trees and underneath boulders 
are places to make sets. Such places 
can often be made into huts and baited 
to lure the mink. A hut can be made 
of stones with an opening, placing the 
trap and bait inside the hut so that in 
entering he will be trapped. 
Be sure to make the hut strong 
enough so he cannot tear it apart and 
reach the bait. Where he crosses the 
stream on a fallen tree, cut a notch in 
the tree and place the trap in the notch, 
covering the set with leaves or wet 
grass. 
Make sets in muskrat huts by all 
means; by doing so you will often get 
a mink. 
Muskrats build their huts along banks 
of creeks or ponds, on a dry spot over 
the water, and drop into the water for 
safety at the sign of danger. The mink 
prowling through these huts is caught; 
in fact, this often happens when the set 
was made purposely for the rat. 
When a muskrat is caught use the 
carcass to bait for mink. The fur of the 
mink is very fine and silky, is highly 
prized and brings a good price in the 
market. In cold weather it is not nec- 
essary to salt the hide of either the 
mink or ermine. By stretching the hide 
on a board with the flesh side out it 
will dry in two or three days, when it 
should be turned and hung up in a cool 
place until marketed. The young trap- 
per may at first rebel against skinning 
a skunk on account of the strong scent, 
but I’d rather skin a skunk than a mink, 
for the odor of the latter is far more 
sickening. 
D ID you ever watch a skunk family 
when out foraging? I have, along 
in mid-summer. The old one witt 
its half-grown young will come to the 
meadows and make a day of it, working 
around stone piles and hummocks, clean- 
ing out ant hills and catching mice. 
The spring-pole is the only thing for 
dry sets, as it saves considerable lost 
game. When you can find a live sap- 
ling an inch or two in diameter near 
where you wish to make the set so much 
the better, otherwise you will have to 
cut one; sharpen the larger end and 
drive it solidly in the ground. Pull the 
other end of the sapling down toward 
the ground and fasten the ring of the 
trap chain securely to this end. Cut a 
short stake, driving it also intc^ the 
ground. Cut a notch in this stake at the 
top end for the end of sapling to fit 
into, just enough to hold the sapling 
when bent down, and arrange the whole 
thing so there will be no tension >on the 
trap when set. Then, when the game 1 
caught, it will naturally thrash around 
enough to dislodge the sapling from the 
notch in the stake. The sapling springs 
back, carrying trap and game held sus- 
pended in the air. 
When the set is along banks of 
streams, ponds, etc., and the trap is 
fastened to a stake, the stake should be 
driven slanting with the ring near the 
top so when the game pulls, the ring will 
slide down to the end; the game then 
will have less chance to get back from 
the water and gnaw its legs off. 
Wherever there is an apple orchard 
near a muskrat pond their runways to 
the orchard can be found. The rat’s 
legs being short they sort of drag along 
slowly over the ground wearing a path 
or runway in the soil. It is a good idea 
to find these runways and set traps in 
them, using no bait whatever. 
T HE ermine or weasel is in good de- 
mand of late years and is trapped 
the same as the mink. In fact, it 
is frequently caught in sets made for 
other animals. This animal changes its 
color from brown to white early in the 
winter except the tip of its tail which 
is black. W. E. Cram enlightens us on 
this subject: 
“Late in the autumn or early in the 
winter, the ermine changes from red- 
dish brown to white, sometimes slightly 
washed with greenish yellow or cream 
color, and again as brilliantly white as 
anything in nature or art; the end of 
the tail, however, remains intensely 
black, and at first thought it might be 
supposed that this would make the 
animal conspicuous on the white back- 
ground of snow, hut in reality it has 
just the opposite effect. 
Place an ermine on new-fallen snow 
in such a way that it casts no shadow 
and you will find that the black point 
holds your eye in spite of yourself, and 1 
that at a little distance it is quit: im- 
possible to follow the outline of the 
weasel itself. Cover the tail with snow 
and you can begin to make out the 
position of the rest of the animal, .but , 
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