Mink? Seriously??

I've never actually seen one on the property I hunt, but I've heard the landowners once had a problem with muskrat digging holes in the dam across their lake, and beavers in the creek that borders the property... but it's been years since any muskrat or beaver damage has been seen.

Monday morning I went hunting, and on the walk back over the dam to get back to my Jeep, I paused at the top of the hill and noticed a little wake across the lake coming toward the bank. Thinking it was a couple of resident wood ducks, I stayed perfectly still hoping to watch them.

Instead, a dark black, wet looking animal about the size of a cat bounded up onto the bank. I was probably 50 yards away, so I didn't get an excellent look at first. Notice I said 'at first.' Well this thing bounces around a few times, almost like a squirrel, then starts waddling up the trail like a skunk. I honestly believe it saw me, assumed I was a tree (I was in my leaf-suit) and it made a casual, but deliberate beeline for me. When it was literally two feet away from me and still coming, I thought 'this thing might be rabbid approaching me like that' so I moved my foot a couple inches, at which point, it jumped about two feet to my right, hissed at me, and broke into a run around behind me, and off into the woods, circling back toward the lake. I never saw it again, but I got a really good look at it.

Dark black, wet, slender, long pointy tail. I looked up pics of muskrat, otter, beaver, weasels, and mink, and I'm 99% sure it was a mink! I've never seen mink around here before! I have my trapper's license, but I haven't really made use of it. I know the season opens Dec 1st... should I try to trap it? I'd love a real mink fur that I trapped myself.... But I'm worried, since this is only the first I've seen, maybe I should let it populate the area a little better first? I'm also worried that if mink are around, maybe muskrats are too, and if so, I worry about damage to the dam.

Whatcha think?

personally, I'd trap it. i think if you saw one in the daylight theres more than it around. they're pretty secretive about their movements. you might get better advice on the varmit / trapping forum.

Mink are in the same family as Ferret right?
I thought they were pervasive in the south. We have a lot here in the coastal marshes. We see them when we marsh hen hunt and the tide is so high it pushes them both to the top of the grass.
What we have are about 2/3 the size of a tennis ball can and that's really large. There are very reclusive.
I see them on the edges of mud flats low tide.

If you trap it don't dare try to hold it w/ gloves. The dogs trapped one in a hollow log once. It was cut for fire wood and just wide enough to allow the animal to escape the dog at either end. I got a really fluffy beach towel and folded it several times and allowed the critter to back into it as the dogs pressed from one side. When I grabbed it, it bit down through the 4 layers of towel on the area below my thumb and I swore I was bit clean through. I started shaking it so it could not get another bite and ran down the dock and lobbed it into the marsh.
I was very bruised for days. They are small but they have very powerful jaws.

cw

We have lots of them around here, but you don't see them very often. Sometimes, they can be really fearless acting, though- I've had them more than once try to steal fish from me in broad daylight and didn't really care if I saw them or not. They're a fascinating critter. I used to trap them, and found them to be generally smarter and harder to catch than most other animals.

Consider it a treat to see one. They are one of the most secretive critters out there. Once in a blue moon, I`ll see one over this way. I think there are more than we realize.

I saw one in Taliaferro County about 3 years ago. I was sitting in the stand, and he was slinking through the woods towards the neighboring property's lake. I thought it was a ferret, then somebody told me it was probably a mink. Pretty cool to watch them move along...

I grew up on this property, and I've hunted it for the last three years, and I've never in my life seen one. I just couldn't believe it came right up to me like it was so curious! I had no idea they were so reclusive! I feel really special now!

There is a thread in the fishing forum with a pic of one caught in a landing net! Ive seen a few on the banks of the Hooch.

pretty good population of them around here.


T

if you want your muskrat population to stay down , leave the mink alone . the mink is one of the muskrats worst enemies .

shakey gizzard said:

There is a thread in the fishing forum with a pic of one caught in a landing net! Ive seen a few on the banks of the Hooch.

Click to expand...

I believe that was a weasel, not a mink, if I recall correctly.

a 14 y/o kid at our deer-dog club swears he saw a mink last weekend while on his stand. everyone kind of messed with him about it and gave him the new nickname of weasel. after looking at it on the map, our club is only about 3 miles from the marsh and the dry branch he was standing at feeds the south newport river. guess i'll have to go back to him and say he was right!

don't rag the kid too hard, they are here, more in some places though. Here local to me it seems recently we are covered in them, relatively speaking

i know of one guy that caught FIVE in a very short period of time in his chicken pen. another guy down the road had another one in his pen about a year later.

T

Saw one first thing in the morning on opening day of firearms season, October 16th, first one I have ever seen in Georgia! Have seen them before in Pennsylvania and Canada.

simpleman30 said:

a 14 y/o kid at our deer-dog club swears he saw a mink last weekend while on his stand. everyone kind of messed with him about it and gave him the new nickname of weasel. after looking at it on the map, our club is only about 3 miles from the marsh and the dry branch he was standing at feeds the south newport river. guess i'll have to go back to him and say he was right!

Click to expand...

I've got a picture of a trashy deer dog swimming after one in a barrow pit. At first he was running it by the barrow pit and then proceeded to swim/chase it across the barrow pit once it jumped in the water. I had never seen that before and snapped a quick picture of it. It looks like a dog after a large rat although it's definitely a mink. The dog owner wasn't too happy but it was quite funny to the rest of us