I Hunt With Mink!

[pipa 299]

No locator...............tut tut!!

why tut tut? Don't you think putting a collar on a mink that's diving in a beck or stream with branches, roots and reeds to tangle up in that it could get it stuck under water and die? Daftest thing I've heard, haven't you watched he video ?

[onthehunt 40]

I'm writing a book on Mink and need help coming up with a good name for the book. The book is going to be both a how to, and a story book. It will start out with the story of minkenry and how I've gotten to where I am with the sport. Then it will break into the how to chapters of the sport.

 

Here are the ideas I have come up with so far. Please let me know what you like, don't like, and any unique ideas you can come up with yourselves. Here's what I've got....

 

Bloody fingers: How to tame, train, and hunt with one of natures most intense predators.

 

Minkenry: The new found art of hunting with a trained mink.

 

Minkenry: Harnessing the hunting ability of one of natures most intense predators.

 

Minkenry: How to tame, train, and hunt with one of natures most intense predators.

 

Minkenry: Taming the untameable, then taking them hunting.

 

The new sport of Minkenry: How to tame, train, and hunt with one of natures most intense predators.

 

Minkenry: Hunting and fishing with a tame mink.

 

Taming the untameable: Minkenry, how to tame train, and hunt with one of natures most intense predators.

 

Tell me what you guys like and don't like and give me some of your own ideas, and then I'll narrow my possible titles down to a top three. Thanks for your help!

I love the first title ...and how about a complete manual entailing everything you have learnt and a section on breeding too

[Tiercel 6,986]

Here's a really quick little video of my newly trained 18 week old mink caching a rat in front of a big crowd at the annual Utah Trappers Association convention. I brought a freshly trapped rat, and released it in the tunnel that runs under the road, so everyone could see how my mink retrieves rats. I was a little worried she might not do it with so many people around, but she pleasantly surprised me by working like a charm.

 

 

You would be prosecuted in this country for that demonstration. You would not be able to train a mink in the same way over here, as it would be classed as what is called a baggy. Where you release a trapped animal to hunt it.

 

TC

[Minkenry 1,044]

 

Here's a really quick little video of my newly trained 18 week old mink caching a rat in front of a big crowd at the annual Utah Trappers Association convention. I brought a freshly trapped rat, and released it in the tunnel that runs under the road, so everyone could see how my mink retrieves rats. I was a little worried she might not do it with so many people around, but she pleasantly surprised me by working like a charm.

 

 

You would be prosecuted in this country for that demonstration. You would not be able to train a mink in the same way over here, as it would be classed as what is called a baggy. Where you release a trapped animal to hunt it.

 

TC

 

I know! I am so incredibly grateful that I don't live in your country! Ours is bad enough with all the antis trying to make everything illegal. So far we still have some freedom, but I fear that we will one day be slaves to our country as you are yours.

[perthshire keeper 1,237]

 

 

Here's a really quick little video of my newly trained 18 week old mink caching a rat in front of a big crowd at the annual Utah Trappers Association convention. I brought a freshly trapped rat, and released it in the tunnel that runs under the road, so everyone could see how my mink retrieves rats. I was a little worried she might not do it with so many people around, but she pleasantly surprised me by working like a charm.

 

 

You would be prosecuted in this country for that demonstration. You would not be able to train a mink in the same way over here, as it would be classed as what is called a baggy. Where you release a trapped animal to hunt it.

 

TC

 

I know! I am so incredibly grateful that I don't live in your country! Ours is bad enough with all the antis trying to make everything illegal. So far we still have some freedom, but I fear that we will one day be slaves to our country as you are yours.

 

i used to think England was a pretty free country but recent events have said otherwise! keep at it with them mink but i once won a 50quid bet that i could get a mink out of a cage trap alive and done it just!

[Tiercel 6,986]

What really intrigues me is what gave you the idea that they could be trained in basically the same way as hawks in the first place?

 

I watched a video that comes up often after one of your videos, on mink farming. I was surprised how docile the mink were, I thought they would have been a lot more fiesty. Did you start with a farmed mink?

 

TC

[Minkenry 1,044]

What really intrigues me is what gave you the idea that they could be trained in basically the same way as hawks in the first place?

 

I watched a video that comes up often after one of your videos, on mink farming. I was surprised how docile the mink were, I thought they would have been a lot more fiesty. Did you start with a farmed mink?

 

TC

 

I've found farmed mink to be the meanest actually. Wild mink have little to no experience with people, where as ranch mink have been grabbed by their tails and had negative things done to them like being given shots, or held in squeeze shoots so they can have their fur graded. The wild mink have had no experience with people, positive or negative, so you have a clean slate to work with.

 

I didn't start out training them like hawks, I just did a trial and error until I figured out what worked. It turns out that many falconry methods work great with mink, and others work HORRIBLY. For example you want to do everything you can to avoid holding a mink in one spot like you would a bating hawk, and holding a mink down like you would cast a hawk is a really good way to make a mink hate you.

 

Here's the story about how I got started...

 

I moved to Lehi Utah where there were several fur farms that raised mink. I was told by everyone I asked that mink were the meanest creature alive. I was told horror story after horror story about mink leaping onto people's faces and latching onto their cheek or nose. They said that the mink farmers had to where these big thick leather gloves, and that the mink latched onto the gloves refusing to let go. The farmers had to leave the glove in the cage with the mink and come back later for it when the mink finally got bored of attacking the glove and let go. I was told about mink killing everything from cats to small dogs to goats to young pigs. Every mink farmer I talked to had some gruesome scar to show me (and some that they couldn't show me) from being bitten by a savage mink. I was told that mink were totally untameable, and that it didn't matter what you did, or what age you got one, they would always be mean because that's just how mink are.

 

To most people this would make them totally loose any interest they once had in the animal. For me it perked my interest. In fact, had people told me that mink were a sweet cuddly animal much like a ferret, I would have probably lost any interest I once had instantly. I was deeply intrigued with the idea of taming this “untameable creature”.

 

One day while walking through a hay field, I found my first escaped ranch mink who I later name Murray. She was an older adult female ranch mink of the Blue Iris color variety. I captured her, took her home and successfully tamed her to the point where I no longer needed gloves. Eventually I got the crazy idea to try hunting with my mink and things just kept evolving from there.

Edited September 13, 2013 by Minkenry

[onthehunt 40]

 

What really intrigues me is what gave you the idea that they could be trained in basically the same way as hawks in the first place?

 

I watched a video that comes up often after one of your videos, on mink farming. I was surprised how docile the mink were, I thought they would have been a lot more fiesty. Did you start with a farmed mink?

 

TC

 

I've found farmed mink to be the meanest actually. Wild mink have little to no experience with people, where as ranch mink have been grabbed by their tails and had negative things done to them like being given shots, or held in squeeze shoots so they can have their fur graded. The wild mink have had no experience with people, positive or negative, so you have a clean slate to work with.

 

I didn't start out training them like hawks, I just did a trial and error until I figured out what worked. It turns out that many falconry methods work great with mink, and others work HORRIBLY. For example you want to do everything you can to avoid holding a mink in one spot like you would a bating hawk, and holding a mink down like you would cast a hawk is a really good way to make a mink hate you.

 

Here's the story about how I got started...

 

I moved to Lehi Utah where there were several fur farms that raised mink. I was told by everyone I asked that mink were the meanest creature alive. I was told horror story after horror story about mink leaping onto people's faces and latching onto their cheek or nose. They said that the mink farmers had to where these big thick leather gloves, and that the mink latched onto the gloves refusing to let go. The farmers had to leave the glove in the cage with the mink and come back later for it when the mink finally got bored of attacking the glove and let go. I was told about mink killing everything from cats to small dogs to goats to young pigs. Every mink farmer I talked to had some gruesome scar to show me (and some that they couldn't show me) from being bitten by a savage mink. I was told that mink were totally untameable, and that it didn't matter what you did, or what age you got one, they would always be mean because that's just how mink are.

 

To most people this would make them totally loose any interest they once had in the animal. For me it perked my interest. In fact, had people told me that mink were a sweet cuddly animal much like a ferret, I would have probably lost any interest I once had instantly. I was deeply intrigued with the idea of taming this “untameable creature”.

 

One day while walking through a hay field, I found my first escaped ranch mink who I later name Murray. She was an older adult female ranch mink of the Blue Iris color variety. I captured her, took her home and successfully tamed her to the point where I no longer needed gloves. Eventually I got the crazy idea to try hunting with my mink and things just kept evolving from there.

 

Lol I heard horror stories about ferrets before I owned my first one! Similar to what you were told about mink. from most its all hear-say who haven't owned the animal

[bribri988 141]

Top quality mate am out looking for my own as we speak lol nice post mate am sure this will be very interesting to all atb mate keep the post pics and vids coming

[rabbitcatcher 1 287]

Love the vids pal you are a master with your mink!

Atb for the future mate keep it up

Rc1

[Paid 935]

Great watch, thanks for sharing, some where between ferreting and lurcher work

[transit poacher 0]

 

No locator...............tut tut!!

why tut tut? Don't you think putting a collar on a mink that's diving in a beck or stream with branches, roots and reeds to tangle up in that it could get it stuck under water and die? Daftest thing I've heard, haven't you watched he video ?

 

wow am amazwd must av took sum time

[lady hunter 162]

minkredible :yes:

[Bossie 90]

Very impressed. Escpecially the wet part is impressive!

 

A ferreter who lives nearby has a eu/wild polecat ferret cross, first cross actually. It's a massive hob, probably around 1.5KG and on a diet, could be bigger. Wonder what an animal like that could be trained to do. Still, something as big as that will not be of much use when ferreting, might be better of with a tea cup yorkie

 

Don't the mink you hunt with get stuck, considering the size?

[Minkenry 1,044]

Very impressed. Escpecially the wet part is impressive!

 

A ferreter who lives nearby has a eu/wild polecat ferret cross, first cross actually. It's a massive hob, probably around 1.5KG and on a diet, could be bigger. Wonder what an animal like that could be trained to do. Still, something as big as that will not be of much use when ferreting, might be better of with a tea cup yorkie

 

Don't the mink you hunt with get stuck, considering the size?

Then Males do, but the females can go through most holes. My females are usually right around 800 grams