Ditch Run Mink

Though not a common feature in every region of the country, many Eastern and Midwestern traplines are comprised of varying degrees of farm fields, dissected by fencerows and drainage ditches

-  Tony A. Dutmers

The idea of pulling mink from drainage ditches isn't new for some, but an unexplored possibility for others. Many trappers refrain from ditches because they don't look like classic mink habitat.

It's hard to see where a generic, brushy, farmland ditch with little or no water could be appealing to mink. 

Yet it's important to look at the network of rural drainage ditches as its own sustainable ecosystem - one that often holds and conceals generations of mink. Many of the mink that circulate in these eddies, do so their entire life cycle, maybe never visiting a marsh, lake or river.

Instead, they stay in the ditches, taking advantage of the resources there. That's why drainage ditches can offer trappers a perfect opportunity to run a small trapline for mink with a son, daughter or friend and gain experience and memories.

To do this, however, it's important to research the ditches you intend to target well in advance of trapping season. In my area of central Michigan, mink season opens November 10. That's when I put my ditch research to good use, having spent the preceding months loosely monitoring the conditions and water levels.

I prefer to set in ditches that maintain a reasonable flow of runoff all year long. Yet I also set a few ditches that hold water for the first half of the year but are bone dry when trapping season opens.

While water is the singular element mink truly covet, they still flirt with dry land enough to prove to me, time and again, that they use some drainage ditches long after the water is gone. Mink are creatures of habit, after all.

Many of the ditches on my trapline either cross under a road or run for some distance beside it. I use the same approach at both: I find any bottom edges above and below the culvert. I choose the most defined around the tube and set traps there. Same for ditches running parallel to a roadway.