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#2088 - 11/27/05 12:25 AM Re: marten trapping
beavbgone Offline
Junior Member

Registered: 02/19/05
Posts: 21
Loc: minnesota
I like to make little wooden cubbies out of scrap wood I make a notch for the spring on one end and use 1/8" screen on the other end. Put your bait in and set your trap, can't get any easier. I prefer 120's but if all you have is 110's use them for now, hope this helps good luck.

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#2089 - 11/27/05 02:52 AM Re: marten trapping
RiverOtter Offline
Member

Registered: 02/27/05
Posts: 646
Loc: Monashee Mtns, British Columbi...
The 120 mag, is the best marten trap on the market for quick kills. If you set them so they hang free and clear of the tree/ground once fired, you can't beat em'. 110's will work if they're legal and thats all you have, but they're far from the most effecient marten trap. Foot holds are a last resort, and only in very cold climates where hypothermia will set in fast, IMO.

RO smile

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#2090 - 11/28/05 02:35 AM Re: marten trapping
foss4936 Offline
Member

Registered: 10/19/05
Posts: 109
Loc: weston,maine
ok thanks for the info smile
But why should you only use foot hold traps in very cold weather, and what is your definition of cold. confused right now at night time it gets down around 10 farienheit where i am.

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#2091 - 11/28/05 04:55 PM Re: marten trapping
Dusty Offline
Member+

Registered: 12/15/00
Posts: 420
Loc: North Pole, Alaska, USA
Canadians just like to legislate things. Lots of people in SE AK - a temperate rainforest - get along fine trapping marten with foot traps. They certainly work where I am (Interior AK), and I don't have to haul the trap back to town to get my marten out.

I've yet to lose a marten from a 110 - you can't get much more efficient than 100%.

#1 LS/jump and #110's are my traps of choice. I definately set more 110s, but that's partially because I only have a couple hundred 1s and can't afford more!

I use a bucket over my foot traps and catch about the same number of jays in foot traps as conibears - a couple a year.

You can order flower buckets for cubbies - they're cheap and fast.

How often are you checking? On a 24h check, you can get away with about anything.

Cold, where I trap, starts at about -40. I don't start my airplane below -50 unless I absolutely have to.

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#2092 - 11/28/05 10:26 PM Re: marten trapping
musher Online   content
Moderator

Registered: 07/22/03
Posts: 2376
Loc: Qc.
Dusty: Your post is on the money in several aspects. The first sentence is right on!

The thawing out of a marten in a body grip is a real pain. It pays to haul an extra trap or two. I thawed a frozen in fisher (160) by using the truck exhaust yesterday.

Jays? Sometimes I catch 2 at a time.

The real point is that it's nice for a trapper to have as many choices of traps to use as possible. Unfortunately we don't have that option.

Some of the new 120 mags are scary with regard to strength. If I'm not mistaken, they are made to induce irreseversable coma within 75 seconds.

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#2093 - 11/28/05 11:30 PM Re: marten trapping
foss4936 Offline
Member

Registered: 10/19/05
Posts: 109
Loc: weston,maine
dusty, yes i do check my traps every 24hrs, not only footholds but conibears also, sometimes if i dont other animals will beat me to my catch, and besides in maine its agan the law to not check foothold traps daily smile
-40 degrees?, thats cold! eek Is that -40 degrees counting the wind chill, id make sure i had my wool socks on.
by the way where do i order these flower buckets?

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#2094 - 11/29/05 12:18 AM Re: marten trapping
Dusty Offline
Member+

Registered: 12/15/00
Posts: 420
Loc: North Pole, Alaska, USA
try putting a bucket just a couple inches over your trap, bait in the bucket, to avoid jays. Maybe I've just killed all the stoopid ones already....

With conibears, I cut slots in the bucket (one for the clip, one for the spring) and pull the bucket down over the trap. The set is vertical on a tree.

Those big black buckets are, I think, the best marten lure in the world (and, I can see them well enough to check without landing).

Yes, the trap switch thing is a huge pain. I pretty much have to own 200 conibears to set 100. They go up VERY fast and are cheap, so it's worth it to me. I can also quickly put another clip in when I get deep snow (some of my late-year clips are 10' above my early-year clips). In the perfect world (perfect being more than 4 hours of daylight when I'm setting!) I'd have hundreds of pole sets already in and could just bait and set in November.

I set as many traps as I have to in close proximity to avoid cannabalism. Sometimes that means a half-dozen traps within 50' of each other.

The wind doesn't usually blow when it's colder than about -30.

Your local greenhouse will probably sell you a few buckets to play with. You have to buy 1000 or so to get them cheap. They look something like this:

[img]http://us.st11.yimg.com/store1.yimg.com/I/btgrowersupply_1871_1593476[/img]

http://store.yahoo.com/btgrowersupply/ful1galcon.html

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#2095 - 11/29/05 12:37 AM Re: marten trapping
foss4936 Offline
Member

Registered: 10/19/05
Posts: 109
Loc: weston,maine
thanks dusty smile
ill definatly have try this approach with the buckets
you said you usally set 6 traps within 50 feet of one another, so do martin tend run in groups?

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#2096 - 11/29/05 02:08 AM Re: marten trapping
Dusty Offline
Member+

Registered: 12/15/00
Posts: 420
Loc: North Pole, Alaska, USA
Not necessarily. I just trap very good marten habitat with very bad weather. I airplane trap, so I often don't get to check for a month or more due to extreme cold (60 year old airplanes do NOT like -50F), overflow, big drifts, etc. Canabalism is a major concern, so I set enough traps to kill every marten that is likely to come along until I can get back. Sometimes that's two traps at a site, sometimes it's 10. Marten are worth a lot of money and extra traps are cheap insurance.

BTW, with foot traps you can often find your marten if you come back to a foot. Other marten seem to love to pack them off and stash them, but they usually don't eat them.

With a 24h check, I'd not do a lot of this. I could catch just as many marten with a lot less traps if I had reliable daily access.

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#2097 - 11/29/05 03:59 AM Re: marten trapping
RiverOtter Offline
Member

Registered: 02/27/05
Posts: 646
Loc: Monashee Mtns, British Columbi...
Dusty, what I meant by "Efficient" was how fast the marten dies; I should have used the word "Humane" instead. A marten may not "get out" of a 110(or a foot hold), but it sure as heck won't die nearly as quick as a 120 mag, especially in temps above 0`F. When I used to run a lot of 110's, it was not unusuall to have live martens hanging when the weather was a little warmer. With the new 120's, I get a lot of marten still in the box because they didn't move after the trap fired. As for having 200 traps to keep 100 set, I don't buy it. The only time I have to take trap+critter home as a package is after a thaw/freeze, otherwise they come out no problem. I don't know if the U.S. signed into A.I.H.T.S. or not, but if they did, starting Jan. 2007 a lot of the older coni's and footholds won't be legal anymore(On land anyway).

Canadian government legislates to many things. I agree, but I don't consider making trapping equipment meet a certain performance threshold a bad thing. My goal(regardless of law) is to render the quickest, least painfull death possible to the animals I trap(when using traps designed to kill). For my restraint traps, I want ones that hold good while doing the least amount of damage/discomfort to the animal being held. The best part is I can do all of the above without affecting catch numbers. For me thats smart trapping.

RO smile

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