Oct. 12, 1912 
FOREST AND STREAM 
475 
S\ 
The “Old Reliable” Parker Gun 
In the hands of Mr. C. B. Eaton, 
of Fayette, Mo., made a 
STRAIGHT RUN OF 332 
at Brookfield, Mo., Sept. 16-17, 1912. 
Buy a Parker Gun and put yourself in a position to make 
scores like this. 
PARKER BROS. Meriden, Conn. 
New York Salesrooms, 32 Warren Street 
< Patented. Feb. 20. 1912.) 
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THE F. W. KING OPTICAL CO. 
Cleveland, Ohio 
ANGLERS . 
SPORTSMANS 
GUIDE 
| HOW. WHEN 'and WHERE TO 
HgNT 'and FISH 
THE ANGLER'S AND SPORTSMAN'S GUIDE FOR 1912 
(FORMERLY THE ANGLER S GUIDE) 
The 1912 edition, rewritten and imp-roved from cover to cover, and handsomely bound 
in cloth, is the most complete and authoritative book of the kind published. The Fish 
and Game Laws for 1912, included in the “Guide," are alone worth the price of the 
book. But the book will also tell you When—the best season—Where—giving many 
virgin waters,—and How—telling the best methods of angling used by the most suc¬ 
cessful fishermen everywhere. 
SPECIAL ARTICLES. Dry Fly Fishinr, by E. M. Gill. Tournament Casting by R. Johnston Held. 
Surf Casting, by E. B. Rice; Jersey Coa-t Fishing, by F. B. Alexander. Pacific Coast Fishing, by Clias. 
Frederick Holder. Mounting and Skinning fish, Fishing knots, colored plates showing most effective 
flies, together with a complete record and photographs of the winners in Field and Stream’s Record 
Game Fish Contest, giving weight, size, place and tackle used in taking the record fish caught during 1911. 
In order to give new readers an opportunity to read the conditions and list of prizes in Field and 
Stream's Prize Fishing Contest for 1912 together with stories now running each month by the prize 
winners of 1911 ’s contest, we are making the following special offer: 
Regular Price 
THE ANGLER’S AND SPORTSMAN’S GUIDE FOR 1912, $1.00 
FIELD AND STREAM, for three months,. .45 
Total value, . . . $ 1.45 
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brooks. Note there where that trail runs. Here 
is the exact place: a stick lies across the trail, 
and every mink in passing leaps over it, landing 
with his fore feet at almost exactly the same 
place every time. Dig out a hollow there, so as 
to fit your trap in snug, so that the round pan 
will be where the feet touch. Simple and yet 
how deadly. You then connect your chain to 
a sunken stone so that the animal will be 
drowned when he leaps into the water. Notice 
this. Another deadly place for a trap. The 
mink is wont to cross this rivulet by leaping from 
the stone on this side, on to this chunk of mud 
in the center of the streamlet, and from there 
to the other side. Just remove that piece of mud. 
put your trap there, and put a little of the mud 
right on the pan of the trap. Very deadly. He 
will land in the trap with both fore feet and 
there is no getting away. Always take care in 
properly concealing the trap. Do not use for¬ 
eign matter, but material found right on the 
spot, and preferably that which you dig away. 
To prevent material from getting under the pan, 
put a piece of cotton there, and where possible 
use the spring pole to lift the animal after he 
is captured into the air. How is it done? Very 
simple. Just bend a bush down, trim it slightly, 
connect it in some niche cut for the purpose, and 
then connect the trap chain to the pole. The 
animal in his struggles will release the pole and 
will be lifted into the air. You will thus pre¬ 
vent suffering. 
The shrewdness that a wise mink will evince 
is quite startling. There is perhaps not a trap¬ 
per who has run a line of traps for any length 
of time, but has had some experience or another 
with some cunning animal which has constantly 
evaded these steel engines of destruction, finally 
perhaps to be caught, and as like as not so 
through carelessness. This happened to me one 
time: I had come across an old mink’s tracks 
on the creek, the same showing very plain in 
the mud along the shore. I stood for some time 
racking my brain as to what sort of an animal 
had made them, thinking at first it was an otter, 
but minute inspection showed me plainly enough 
that it was mink tracks, and of a dog mink, 
which I judged to be about thirty-eight inches 
when the hide was stretched on my three piece 
stretcher. Is there a trapper who has not 
planned all the stages of capture and the final 
results before he has spread the jaws of a trap 
to take his victim? With the truth borne home 
that it was indeed a mink, I at once set to work 
to detail my system of a capture. I sat down 
and raked my wits for the proper manner of 
procedure and finally decided upon a bait hole. 
I knew that I must use every precaution, for to 
give the creature an idea of what was about to 
take place would at once put him on the qui 
vive. So I duly smoked my traps in hemlock 
branches, to take away any taint adhering to 
the steel, and with a freshly skinned muskrat car¬ 
cass in my possession I donned the boots and 
made for the scene of my first endeavor. 
Walking along the shore in the water I 
finally came to a place where I had noticed that 
he had passed several times. The bank was 
rather steep at this place. If I dug my bait hole 
in the side of this bank I judged in passing that 
way he could not miss it. So I set to work and 
dug a hole into the bank, close enough to the 
water so that I could set my trap under the 
surface about an inch or a half inch. In the 
back of the hole I deposited my bait, and finally, 
when I had my trap set, with a stone hitched on 
the chain and its addition of bale wire, and had 
sunken this in the middle of the stream, I 
sprinkled a few drops of anise seed oil around 
the scene, carefully making my departure happy 
in the expectation of the welcome catch in the 
morning. But in the morning I found that al¬ 
though the mink had been there and had dragged 
out the muskrat, tasting of it a little, the trap 
was there and turned over, sprung, with a lot 
of leaves caught in the jaws. I instantly con¬ 
ceived of the idea that someone in human form 
had been there, removed the mink and departed 
with wealth and happiness. But this perform¬ 
ance was repeated time and time again, in places 
where I knew no other man would be, and still 
found the identical happening recorded. I then 
put two and two together, with the result that 
I came upon a new idea. I had noticed that the 
wise old cuss seemed to locate the trap first, and 
by all sources of conjecture sprung the trap, and 
then done away with the bait. Hence it was 
that I conceived the idea of setting more than 
one trap, and far enough around the one trap 
at the entrance, so that if he happened to circle 
around the trap, he would eventually get into 
the outer traps. 
This I did, setting-one lure trap at the en¬ 
trance which I knew he would look for, and 
three others at a distance, varying from a foot 
to six inches from the lure trap. The water at 
this point was very low. Imagine my surprise 
in finding that the cussed fellow had gotten into 
one of the outer traps, but had pulled out by a 
miracle, escaping the other traps and had left 
