I'm At It Again! (At Last! THE Mink Trapping Post!)

[Guest Ditch_Shitter]

Would you f*cking Believe it?!

 

I went down to the Styx (Fenn Double Entry) trap today and guess what? F*cking mouse is completely gone. Eaten clean off the wire - which was passed through his skull, remember?) and One damn door was shut! The other gate had simply failed to fire!!!

 

Now then, what can we take from this? Well, one thing is that it's taken Two Weeks, almost to the day, for that one trap to have seen any action. Was that because there'd simply been no predators (Mink or Pine Marten) passing that way in that time? Or was it, as FoxDropper pointed out to us, because mink like a more high and tangy bait? No way of knowing the exact answer, of course. But what we Do get is that waiting a fortnight for a take is perfectly permissable. Especially if ye start with a fresh bait

 

Mink or Marten? Oh, mink. Absolutely. Ye see, the Styx has been swollen like a pregnant bitch lately. The trap itself has been in at least an inch of water every time I've looked at it. Sometimes considerably more. What's more, as the water's risen that touch in height, it's expanded out onto the banks exponentially. Result being that the cage has appeared almost like some floating wreck. 'Out There' in the water. I just can't see a Pine Marten wading out there for a half rotten mouse. So that part of the plan - to avoid the bother of catching a protected species and having it clog up my trap for a few hours - seems to have worked.

 

But why the, by now quite customary and expected, failure to actually trap the damn thing? Well, the obvious answer would be that I'd set one gate rod fine and the other like a ton of bricks? Nah uh. Give me That much credit, lads. I was cold. Tired. Rushed and distracted that day. But I only had the two cages to put out and I was bloody determined to set them Right. I took my time and made a job of it.

 

No, if ye could have been with me today and seen what I saw, I reckon you too would have sussed it: The entire cage, wired loosely to the girder bridge at one end was today notably slewed to one side. The Right side. And the right side is the direction of 'flow' for that deep water ditch. Also, there's now absolutely no sign of such small bit of cover as I bent over and threaded into the bars of the cage. With me now?

 

What's happened there is that some poxy bit of flotsum has come washing down the left side, as the waters have ebbed away down stream. It's - by sheer stroke of such truly Evil fate as only I could suffer! - managed to lodge itself under the nearside half of the damn trap treadle. Thus holding the f*cking thing in place and so not allowing the necassery 'wobble' to take place and release both gates. Un f*cking believable. But all I can think of - and I was there.

 

Hey ho. We live and learn. I'll get out there tomorrow with another, pre drilled and wired, frozen mouse. Maybe I'm closing in now? Perhaps, having got a bit of a fright, but then still going on to finish a free meal of mouse, that b*stard'll be back, eh? Soon, even?

 

Next time he tries it, I'll make damn sure I'm taking his photograph!

[Ricky-N.p.p 0]

Oh he'll be back all right !

but will he manage to aviad old ditchie again? only time will tell !!

Best of luck mate

Ricky

[OldTrapCollector 377]

Get some of that kipper bait in there mate and it'll be in there in the morning waiting for you - trust me . . .

[Strong Stuff 2,171]

 

What a thread!

 

Have got no idea what DS is on about for most of it, but the bits I do understand are fascinating.

 

Mr Shitter, as no one else has offered, if you'd like me to send you a pair of kippers then it would be my pleasure, FOC of course, I'll go shoplifting in Tesco in the morning (you think I'm kidding...)

 

Genuine offer, am surprised no one else has beaten me to it.

 

PM me your address again and they'll be winging their way to you.

[Guest Ditch_Shitter]

StrongStuff; How very fitting that you, of all people, should bring me back to this Thread! Fact is, I need yet Another of your Superb Collars, mate! This one'll be for Small Dog, my JR. The 'perfectly adaquette' shop bought one I got her, from the Bay, just couldn't handle it. Now I want to kit her out in something MADE! I wouldn't waste my time dealing with anyone else but You! I'll measure her up and PM ye presently

 

 

 

Now then; Kippers? Lads: I don't think even Kippers would have helped me with that Fenn Double Gater. God help us if they had!

 

I went and checked again today, of course, and couldn't believe what I saw! Well ..... See for yeselves!

 

 

 

Death Trap!

 

 

See the tree, top centre? Below that, the brown vegetation. Then the green? Okay. Now track down a tad and right. See the dead reed sticking up, seemingly out of a small bit of bright green? Got that? Good. Now, run ye eyes to the left hand end of that bit of bright green there. Can ye just discern 'something' in the water, at the end of that green? Running down towards the left for barely half an inch in this photo? Like " / " ? Looks like a slight ripple. It Is!

 

That's a slight ripple across the Top Bars of my submerged f*cking trap!!!

 

 

Yeppers. Next lesson of this little escapade, lads: NEVER trust the f*cking water! Twenty four hours and some rain I wasn't even awake to realise had fallen? Bloody ditch has virtually burst its banks, look. That cage, being tied down to the fixed girder it rested on, could have become a horror beyond all imagining, had I managed to have re set it yesterday! I don't care how evil and malignant the Mink is: No Way would I wilfully consign Any creature to That fate!

 

So, I'm calling it a day for the Trap on the Styx. Bloody place is just Too volatile. The fence post in the left of centre midground marks the cattle wire I've customarily rolled under, to access the girder I've been working on. The " Bridge on the Styx ". Check the " Mink Snaring " Thread of earlier last year. If that bloody ditch can swamp like that over a winters night? I'll save it till summer! F*ck That for a game of Doing It Right!

 

 

Mheanwhile, having trapsed about with a dead mouse in my pocket; The other trap - same model as " Billy Bunter " caught that Piney in - is safe and sound at the junction of a much drier drainage ditch and the heavier flowing one I call " The River ". Water's never gone above an inch in the bottom of that one. I figure that water'll dissuade Pineys while the, by now, well tangy wood mouse bait could yet prove a fatal attraction to any passing mink.

 

Now you lot sit back and relax, while I make the daily trek across the poxy bloody bog just to peer balefully down at the empty frigging thing! God, I need More cages out there! I Really need to up my chances here. Kippers or no bloody kippers!

[Ricky-N.p.p 0]

It never rains but ut pours with you ditchie !

 

sorry couldnt help myself !

 

good luck !

[john b 38]

Wouldn't have this problem with a Mink raft DS

[craig 0]

Used to catch them on the fish farm with a standard rat trap and a long dead stinkin rainbow trout thrown into the back of it. There fekin evil once you get them trapped. on a good day it's gonna be dead, watch out for the scent gland on the males, goes off even on dead ones, and its well stinkin

 

treat your quarry with respect a humane kill would be better editied by rob sharpe

Edited January 20, 2007 by robsharpe

[Guest Ditch_Shitter]

John B; When I first read ye comment, earlier today, I burst out laughing as I took it as a joke!!! Then the penny dropped and I almost choked! F*ck Me, mate! Of Course!!!!!

 

Isn't it f*ckin marvellous? Sometimes I get so wrapped up in my singular bloody obsessions I can't see my own bloody hands! FFS!

 

Ok. Well that Fenn Cage is guarding - or will be! - such a fine and well established set that I'm, frankly, loath to move it now. I'll let it just sit there and become part of the scenary.

 

Mheanwhile, I simply Have no more traps available. I certainly have no Mk VI's. But, then again, I have no bloody 1 gallon bottles to hand right now either - shame they don't sell Guiness in them! I'd have shit loads!

 

But that's a cracking idea - and surely the subject for yet another recorded attempt!

 

 

By the way; I was going to say I Had some absolutely putrid salmon. I was given it when a neighbours freezer concked out. Kept it in my own for a year, wondering what to do with it. Then, I believe, I put it outside, in a sealed poly bag.

 

Guess what? If I'm not mistaken, I saw the edge of that bag just the other day, shoved in amongst some weathering Tunnels I have out there! IF it's in there, it should, by now, be stratospherically high!

 

Now, if I can just bear to handle the stuff? :sick: Gloves on. Full Face Respirator. Let's go catch us a mink!

[Guest Ditch_Shitter]

No, nooooo! I haven't f*cking caught one! Calm down

 

No. Just popped back in here to say it's now been, what? Six weeks to the day - almost - since I set that 'Big Trap' down on the stream there. Not a bloody look in!

 

Now, here's the thing, see; If any of ye happened to catch 'Billy Bunter' posting a week or so back about how he caught a mink? I asked him there if he'd set the trap in the spot - on his own, miles from here ground - which I'd spotted and said I'd Love To set for mink. He said he had. And promptly got one!

 

Point(s) I'm making see are this: I Know what I'm about. I know where and how to set a mink trap. It's just that - not to put too fine a point on it; There just Aren't that many f*cking mink Round here! No One can catch a mink where they don't exist! Billy has access to a navigable river. Mink heaven. All I have is a poxy little trickle I call " The Stream " and a wet ditch Damn few mink and far too many (Highly Protected and thus untouchable) 'Marten to try and avoid as I try to sort through those and stop a rare mink.

 

Make of that what ye will then. But the Big Trap on the Stream was patently going no where. So, on sunday, I took it over to the Bridge on the Styx.

 

I'm here to report then that I've now wired the Big Trap to a fence post, just this side of said 'Bridge'. Actually an old RSJ someone's slung across that flooded ditch. Mink and Marten certainly use it. That is unless Marten down there have taken to excreting fish scales?

 

I've taken up the Fenn Double Entry cage and brought it home. Time permitting I'll likely rebait it and take it back down to that bridge. Seems too good to leave unguarded. But I'm yet a bit concerned about that water level. I'd never forgive myself it I found a drowned captive. Especially a Marten!

 

What I simply must tell ye is that the Big Cage is now wired to a fence post which is itself within inches of a well travelled badger run! Yes. Crazy, I know. But then, those b*stards have a latrine two feet away and could every bit as easily reach anything I placed on the Bridge. Hobsons choice then. Badgers are there and I can't do anything about them. Just have to work around them and hope they don't trash my trap for my hoped for captive. Funny old situation if a protected badger made a meal of an equelly protected Marten! Dare say I'd be the one getting it in the neck though

 

Anyway, so there we are. Just to keep ye all abreast of the goings on down here at Ditch Shitters.

 

Oh, and why haven't I made rafts and baited them with collossaly putrid salmon? Easy enough: Rafts need polly batting and that costs money. I'm simply So f*cking skint just now I can't afford even a few bits of jabalite and a sheet of thin ply. The salmon? That's my stand by dinner for the last few days of this indigent month!

[Guest Ditch_Shitter]

What a differance a day makes! The Plot Has Considerably Thickened, People!

 

Today, as I approached the Big Trap, I soon saw that it had fired - on empty. Ok. I set fine. Maybe a gust of wind had buffeted it? Maybe something had clamboured on and around it, trying to get at the mouse without entering the trap? Maybe the f*cking great Golden Retriever X that sprang out of the ditch side, some twenty five yards down had had some part in it?!

 

This Dog didn't appear to be wearing a collar and, despite my automatic, calm and friendly, " Hullo, mate. " He wasn't staying around to wag his tail at me. He acted half feral and bounded away with frequent stops to look back and judge me. Then he altered course and, for all I could tell, vanished into the Styx.

 

Ok, well the cattle are in right now and it's not my place to pursue Dogs. I'll mention him to Pat, when I see him next. Probably just a neighbours one taking a sneak about. God knows, even mine have been known to. But if he is a habitual visitor to the are? I could have frustrating times ahead!

 

 

 

Saw something else down there though which was a far more welcome sight. Right on this side of the 'Bridge':

 

 

 

But; Mink or Marten?

 

 

 

Well, rest assured that Whatever it was, This Ditch Shitter is now out to capture That Ditch Shitter! To that end, I well and truly wired my Fenn Double Entry to the Bridge today. Freshly rebaited with a new deep frozen mouse. I took the uttmost care to set it as well as I could. Tonight it's blowing out there, without any apparrent rain. And it's dark. I'm guestimating this'll be a good night for movement and the water levels are safe. I was full of renewed hope ..... Untill I read what Tallyho just left for me, that is!

 

Tallyho's just pointed out how he never catches mink on wire floors. That brought an immidiate flash back to 'Billy Bunter's place. Billy makes his own mink cages. Guess what struck me right away? He uses wooden floors! Billy too catches mink in an off hand way. F*ck it!

 

Well, in my own pittiful defense, I can say this: My Fenn cage doesn't fit between the ridges of that RSJ bridge. It's too wide. That meant I found the far end was raised almost an inch above the 'ground'. That's why I went and broke a bit of rotten tree off and formed a step up into the cage. I did my best, under the circumstances.

 

Now, thanks to Tally's in put, I'm taking a bucket of sand with me tomorrow. I intend to pour in over the trap and thus fill up the space beneath it's bottom bars. I'll give who ever shit in my ditch a sand bar to step onto. Then we'll see who's the shit round here!

[stoaty 171]

ditch couldn't you cut a bit of felt to the size of your cage matey ooops i see now its a fenn cage i was thniking mink trap sorry ditch let us know how you get on

stoaty

[martin 332]

You couldn't make it up DS could you......I'm in negotiation with the 'Carry On' team to see if they want to make it into a film.....'Carry On up the Styx'

[moley 115]

i have trapped plenty of mink in cages over the years, can,t say i have had a problem with wire floors , if i set on rock or gravel , i just place the trap on top ,so long as it cant move about a mink will go in

[OldTrapCollector 377]

i have trapped plenty of mink in cages over the years, can,t say i have had a problem with wire floors , if i set on rock or gravel , i just place the trap on top ,so long as it cant move about a mink will go in

 

Me too Ditch - a mink will go into anything, he's not afraid of where he puts his feet (unlike cats and rats).

 

I can see me getting a small tuppaware tub and sending you some kippers soon to use as bait . . .

 

OTC