Not just MN. They have some in Wisconsin .

Good population in lots of the Northern States near the Canadian Border. Even Colorado has a population !

Not going to find the Marten in the prarie though. They thrive in heavy cover with mixed conifers.

Here is Maddog47 with a nice MN Marten !

Woops !! Wrong picture ! Here you go.

And Scott W with a catch.

I'm pretty sure they are mostly in the NE coniferous forest parat of Mn. I've heard they are pretty common in the duluth area. There are some other guys who know much more about them on here maybe they will chime in.

Here is some of the country we trap.

My daughter with a her days catch,
back in Winter of 95.

I have caught them as far south as Aitkin county in north central MN.

there was a post not long ago on minnesota furbearer harvest statistics. it showed marten, fisher, & bobcat harvest. marten were harvested in 14 different counties in minnesota, with the 4 upper NE counties taking 95% of the catch.

I have seen Marten as far south as the St Croix State Forest.

I have heard reports of a experienced deer hunter seeing a Marten in Southern Aitkin County. He was hunting a big swamp with heavy spruce and pine cover.

according to the DNR harvest report, 13 marten were harvested last year in Aitkin County, and 2 in Kanabec County, just south of Aitkin.

Heres a few pics of the counrty that I trap marten and fisher in.


Pic of me makeing a cubby

Pic of a cubby after a snowfall and a catch

A nice female fisher from the pic above

Another loc pic

I try to put all my sets in where something chaneges....pines to popler....Pines to swamp....pencle popler to mature popler...you get the Idea.

What I don't understand is why you guys make your sets on the ground?

Marten master ^

Are season is only 9 days long and we dont get ten feet of snow like you do:)

That is a short season for sure. My dislike for ground sets is that the critters can get dirty, especially in low snow conditions and the voles and shrews can easily get to them if they are expired. Do you encounter that problem?

Havent yet(crossing my fingers). Our season just got changed this year from 2 weeks down to nine days.Dont realy like it but I'll have to live with it.Just wish we had the seasons like you do up there and could catch that many in a season.We get 5 marten or 5 fisher or 5 combined for our limit.

well you do get some chewing on occasion, but i usually check every other day so its not an issue really. the fisher are more eager to enter the ground sets in my opinion and id rather catch them anyway and since our limit is 5 combined mostly ground sets are how im setting.

Well I guess you can't run too many traps then in fear of going over the limit or combination limit. Too bad about the season length but lets hope it's for the good of the resource and someday you'll have a longer season because of this.

hmmmmm......too bad the shortened season wasnt due to some sort of scientific data or even a little common sense......we are covered up with the lil buggers.

In my experience a Marten and or Fisher is more likely to work a set on the ground. I have seen one Marten suffer damage out of the past 75 taken by our party. Not a big concern !

Here some Mn marten pics and locations. [img][/img] [img][/img] [img][/img]

Hopefully some of the limited trapping I will get to do this year during medical school will be for marten in the Two Harbors area. Can I expect to find some animals there? Who has that MN harvest data? I asked someone to e-mail it to me but never got it. I would still like it, PM me if you can shoot me an e-mail with it.

Do most of you guys use 120s. I have 13 wooden box cubbies for 120s and another dozen for 160s. Will the 160s be good on marten if I use coni-pans (wood)? How many traps do you think is reasonable to run with the limit but short season? Would a dozen or so be too many, not enough? I will probably have between 200-400 acres to trap hopefully.

Nothing wrong with the 120 or 160 for a Marten trap. The 160 with a pan would be a better choice if you tangle with a Fisher. I use both traps every year.

One dozen is not to many in fact I would run as many as you have time for. Lots of Federal and State land in that area. You should try to run more ground then 400 acres. Lots of Weasels in that country also do not pass up that opportunity.

i use the northwoods 155, but if i was buying traps all over again, i would go with the Belisle 160. does a better job on the fisher. last year i ran some sets on the ground, and some in leaning poles. my results were: i caught all my marten on the leaning poles, 2 fisher - one on leaning pole one on ground, and i caught one weasel in my marten box and it was on the ground.

I use all pole sets for the reasons I stated above. I also believe that a guy can reduce the number of females caught by not using ground sets.

I agree with you white17. From the pole sets I have used in the past my male over female ratio has been a big bonus to the set.

the other reason i like the pole set, i drive my line with an ATV. most of my sets are easy to spot just off the trail, and i dont need to stop if i see the trap is still set. if on the ground, i would have to walk in to investigate leaving tracks for others to see.

We don't get much snow anymore even here in Maine like we used to.You catch more marten and fisher setting on the ground.

Caught 11 marten on the ground last year without a problem.

Our marten and fisher season just got cut in half this year.Went from 2 months to 1 month.

brucet, do you use any scent at your marten sets? what do you believe is the reason you catch more on the ground as opposed to pole sets?

Marten Man

Would you be more apt to eat at a Mc Donalds if you had to climb a tree to get there ?

deffinetely not. but lets talk trapping instead. my leaning poles are only off the ground three feet, and nailed to a standing tree. in my mind, if your marten box is off the ground, that should help to distribute scent. also, keeps a heavy snow fall from covering the box. prevents mice from entering box to steal bait. easier to view set from a distance. when animal sets off trap, if still alive, it will be hanging from the leaning pole rather than having leverage to pull away from set.
and lets not forget, this is an animal that is pretty acustom to climbing trees, and will often take prey back to its den or tree to eat, rather than stay on the ground.

None of my buissness, but just to help keep you out of trouble I believe there is language in the MN DNR laws that says something to the effect that you can not place a trap anywhere that will suspend the animal off the ground. I think it is a stupid law, but a law none the less. You may want to check into it. Like I said, I am not trying to bust your chops, just save you from a hastle down the road.

2Poor,
You say there's lots of public land up north.

Does anyone have an opinion on how much competition for public trapping territory, and or trap theft/tampering I might encounter? I know this may be hard to anticipate, but in reasonable time can I get sufficiently far from well traveled areas with decent access? How many guys marten trap up along the north shore that you may know of? Do any of them want to adopt me? Be my friend?Teach me? Rub my neck after a long day? Just kidding. Anyway.

How do you guys secure a box to a leaning pole? A guy I work with went wolf hunting in Canada with a trapper with a concession in Ontario I think and he traps mostly marten. He just attaches his box to the side of a tree open end toward the ground, screen end up so they enter the box just like a squirrel coming up a vertical tree. Has anyone tried this? Comments? Obviously you have to secure the trap so it doesn't fall out of the box as well as the bait.

After trapping them for more then a couple years, I believe they spend the majority of there time hunting on the ground. I also believe that they are an efficent enough hunter to survive with out my meager offering of food. They may not even be hungry when they investigate my set ! Curious is much more likely !

The easier I make it for the animal to work the set the more likely he is to do it. I have seen many refusals by both the Marten and the Fisher when I started to pursue them. Most were when I forced the animal to work, to get to the box.

In other words climb a tree in order to eat at Mc Donalds !

I do not think scent is a problem when Marten trapping. I have caught many in a exposed leg hold trap fresh out of the speed dip.
I use flagging at the majority of my Marten & Fisher sets. The flagging is usually smeared with Magnum Marten, Gusto or GHII so any more scent distribution by the use of a elevated box is really not needed
If a couple of mice or voles are cleaning out my bait in 3 days I needed more bait to begin with !
I can not ever recall a set becoming put out of commision by heavy snow, hard to find YES . In fact I have found Fisher go to a lot of work trying to locate where that wonderful smell of Gusto is coming from, under all that fresh snow.

johnsd16

I have seen boxes like you describe ! I believe they belong to a Native trapper. He prefers to have trap on top and screen on the bottom. Most of his are only 24"-30" up the base of a big tree. I believe they are just nailed to the tree.

Lots of room in the big woods, do not be intimidated if you see another trapper. Give him some room , and if you find a set back away and look for another location.

Never had a problem with trap tampering in the big woods though I know one guy that did !

160user, do you know what page that is on in the 2007 Minnesota Trapping Regulations book? are you sure that is not just snares?

johnsd16, i secure my newspaper boxes horizontally. i attach with tie wire to a leaning pole that runs at about a 20 degree angle to a tree. marten are not a tough animal to trap. although i am enjoying my debate with 2poor, i really feel location and scent are more important in marten trapping. whether your set is on the ground, nailed to a tree, or on a leaning pole, i have found marten and fisher to be inquisitive enough to investigate once they have detected your set. unlike 2poor, i have not seen many refusals, especially by fisher.

Location is the key ingredient. Scent helps greatly when critters are traveling, whether on the ground or on a pole. Motion is even better than scent to get them to commit to the set. Maybe I could take more marten on the ground than on poles ( but very few more) but I would pay for it in the following years by having fewer marten. It's very important to take as few females as possible. The marten is a fragile critter where population numbers are concerned.

Marten man I just looked in the regulations about what we talked about. I am sure that it used to talk specifically about traps, but I see no mention of it now. It only mentions snares. It was brought to my attention that one of the resons for the regulation was due to public perception. Suppose that Joe Blow muzzleloader hunter is out in the woods and comes across a marten suspended off the ground. Prior to this encounter he/she probably did not have strong feelings one way or another, but seeing this may change that. We can be running a handful of traps in the middle of nowhere and people will run across them. We need to think about that and although something may be legal, what will people think?

White

We only trap 5%-10% of all the available Marten habitat in MN. No public roads or motorized vehicles in lots of it. Very few are willing to go into the Boundary Waters region via dog sled for any length of time to come out with only 5 Marten. It is just not feasible !!

I find the Male Fisher is the most reluctant to climb !

160user, i understand your feelings and i agree with them. public perception is very important to me, and i will always do my best represent trapping in a positive way. with that being said, i dont believe a marten hanging from a conibear looks any worse than one struggling on the ground. thankfully, to date, a conibear has always been a killer trap for me.

white17, have you tried marten nest boxes? do you know of anyone that has tried them in your area?

2poor, what kind of flagging do you use at your marten sets? how high above your boxes do you hang your flagging?

If you can only catch 5 isn't it boring to catch them all the first night? Play around trying different sets and stretch out your season a little. That is what we are going to do.

good idea. i trap with me dad, so that gives us 10 combination. our goal this year is to trap 5 marten and then move the rest of the traps to locations where we can focus on fisher. it should help keep us in the woods a bit longer to chase weasel and bobcat.

that thing has got to be homemade!

Wrong again Grasshopper !

More time in the woods, less time reading about hanging Lunch pails on the trees for Fisher.

you are going to have to save this post. i plan on making you eat your words on the "Lunch pails."

I understand. Thats similar to here although I suspect we trap waaaaaaaaaay less than 10% of the habitat available. But, just because there is habitat does not mean there are marten in it. Also it is important not to trap too close to another trapper. Kinda hard to get a handle on it when we have no real idea of the population structure in the first place. How many trappers do you think are trapping marten in the same area??


Nest boxes. I have the plans and the info on where to locate them. I just need to find the time to do it.

White

You are going to have a hard time convincing me a Marten prefers to live within 200 yds of a road ! We have vitually 100's of square miles of super Marten habitat that will never see a trap or trapper. As Marten are harvested in country the we can access thousand more continue to live and multiply in country no one will ever penetrate.

Last year the MN trapper harvested 2563 males and 1225 females. There were 1171 trappers that caught at least one Marten with an average of 1.8 Marten per trapper. 2917 of those Marten were taken in the 3 counties we refer to as the Arrowhead region near the Boundary Waters Canoe area. This is Country where we are only able to scratch the surface of available habitat as the roads are few and far between. Most of these forest roads are not even available for travel after the first couple of snowfalls. This leaves a bunch of trappers trapping off the same County roads ! The majority of MN Marten trappers are exploiting this same country so it is likely you will see another trapper.

I don't think I said anything about them prefering to live near a road. Although, I don't think they would give a hoot about a road in the area. They aren't real sophisticated animals. They readily live around people if food is available. They will even take food from your hand.

As far as "having 100s of miles that will never see a trap" thats good. The same is true here on a much larger scale. There are folks here with traplines as long as Minnesota is wide. But that's not my point. As you indicate, it's not unusual to see another trapper in the woods. My point is that marten can easily be hurt if too much pressure is put on a given population. YOU may only take five, but how many OTHER guys are also taking five out of the same area ?

I just think we all need to be careful with wildlife populations that are easily trapped.........except for possums. Thats one of the reasons I prefer pole sets (which is what my original question addressed). Because I believe that you can reduce the incidence of female takings by using a pole set. Females aren't as aggressive as a male and may not be willing to climb the pole to investigate your set. That's a good thing IMO.

is the marten population here in minnesota:
growing?
expanding area?
or are there just more trappers in the woods?

at the MTA convention, the DNR furbearer specialists reasoning behind the shortened season was that the marten population could not sustain a harvest of 3788 marten per year.

2poor, it sounds to me like you think the arrowhead area could support continued trapping. do you believe the DNR, by reducing the season length, is primarily trying to protect other counties in minnesota where the marten are trying to expand and grow ?

White

How long is your season ?

What is your limit ?

How often are you checking traps ?

I suspect we do things quite different here !


Any time Marten are taken out of terrific habitat more Marten will eventually move in. My point is Marten from the country that is never touched are free to disperse into this now available habitat.
Your statement was just because there was habitat that did not mean there were Marten living there. Just where do the Marten live if not in good Marten habitat ?

Keep in mind we also must combine our limit with Fisher. Two Marten and three Fisher for instance. Marten are no friend of the Fisher I assure you. A fisher being much more aggresive and not real tolerable of Marten, or fussy about what he eats, a Marten would be a sufficent meal ! Kill a big Fisher and I believe I saved at least one litter of Marten !
Sure we exploit the area we can get to !! Put a lot of pressure on that small area we can access. Kill a couple of Marten and make room for a couple more to move in to take advantage of the recently vacated hunting grounds.

In 1995 we harvested 1500 Marten. Jump ahead to 06-07 season and we harvested 3788. Either we our getting dang good at it or the State has done a terrific job managing this fragile species !!

I have spent the last several years trapping Marten with the MN DNR Furbearer Specialist. He talks about charts and graphs and population models. The state does a very good job of protecting our resource. I believe the Marten are in good hands.

Yep I'm sure things are done differently in different places. Our season runs from Nov.1 through Feb 28 There is no limit in the area I trap. I check traps daily in November and less than that once it gets cool and animals slow their movements.

Well I would answer your question with another. How do you know it's "good" habitat ? Just because it looks good to us, doesn't mean it is. I know areas that produce no marten at all for many miles. Others produce hundreds per year. The areas look exactly the same to a human but obviously not to a marten. As far as in-migration, how far do you think marten will move in a given time period?

Yes I can see where removing a fisher would save a marten litter. That's good considering how small those litters are. I would think the state would encourage the taking of more fisher if they want to increase the marten. We have the same problem with foxes, wolves and wolverines eating marten kits.

I think there is another obvious answer to why the marten harvest in your area has more than doubled. More trappers in the country.

I'm sure your DNR folks are monitoring the situation. It just seems better to me to do everything possible to reduce female catches. Especially when you are using conibear type traps. It's nice to be able to release females. Of course that probably wouldn't make a difference in your area unless all trappers agreed to release them.

Yep I use scent.Love to use visual attractors but those were outlawed this year.Some marten don't care to climb trees.Alot of fisher also don't care to climb.Easier to catch them on the ground.Its good to see some people actually know about fisher being easer to trap on the ground and some refuse to go up the trees.

I got thrown off one website and just quit another for saying those same very words.Was told I was stupid,making up stories,didn't know what I was talking about.I really do like this website.

Not gonna catch Fisher like this with a 160 and a leaning pole !

holy crap 2poor that is huge how much did it way

I don't know for sure? Fetched $100 though !

thats not a fisher, thats a bear cub. your not sapose to trap those!

Im with martenman on that! That thing is huge!

That is a big one for sure. I don't know about the 160 but I'll bet you could catch him on a pole. How did you catch him?

i hear his wife caught that fisher with a 155 Northwoods conibear on a leaning pole set. she likes to get her traps up off the ground a bit.

Nice fisher.Congradulations.

He refused to climb a pole. Ran around the pole 2 different times during our short season before resuming his hunt. Big pole !!

He could not pass up the box when it was at eye level though. Wife brought him home the last day of the season .

Well I can see the reason right away. Those aren't poles you have in that picture. Thats just thick grass growing around there :-))


Yeah I've had wolverine do the same thing. I catch more on poles because I set more poles for marten/wolverine just to keep the wolverine frome taking live marten from the trap. A snare on a pole is easier to keep working in snowy weather.

Can hardly wait for season to get here.

white17, the picture of that XXXL FISHER was taken in north central minnesota. as you can see, it is good looking woods, but not marten country. therefore, i believe 2poors target catch was fisher and bobcat. referring back to the very top of this topic, those pictures show our minnesota north woods, and our pristine marten habitat. and thats were the pole set became the hot topic.
i have been thinking about your male to female kill ratio for pole sets compared to ground sets. if we could get enough people interested, we could do a survey to determine if set style truely makes a difference in male/female harvest.

i for one will sign up for that, keep track of sex and even weight and whats caught in what size trap and how its set. i never keep records but i should.

i would sign up for the survey

Hate to have Grasshopper upset !

Back to Marten pictures. Well maybe not. How about more Fisher in the Marten woods !

Some more of the country.




I will even stoop so low as to catch them in Culverts !

I was just teasing ! Look at our extensive use of poles .

the grasshopper never gets upset! going to the northwoods for a few days. i will bring back some picks of what trapping is like when you get off the road 20 feet.

There are wolves in them woods !!

I will stay near my truck ! Thank You

I think that would be good. I have done it over the years on my line in a rough manner. There's no doubt in my mind that it makes a difference. The one huge problem is trying to control for all the variables. The biggest one of course is location. If all locations were created equal then this would be easy. Unfortunately they're not.

Here is what I believe works in my area. If I put a pole set in heavy timber and a ground set ten feet away, the marten in the ground set will usually be a female and will shun the pole. This supports 2Poor's position that it's easier to catch them in cubbies.

Now if I am setting in more open country with black spruce and large open areas and if I make the same 2 sets I will most likely catch a male. It might be in either set but it's likely to be a male because of the location. It's a more dangerous environment for marten because there is much less overhead cover. Consequently, there are more males in those areas than females simply because they are more aggressive and risk takers compared to the girls.

These situations and the problems with voles and shrews are the reasons that I am convinced that using all pole sets will reduce the take of females.

In the first example in heavy timber, if there had only been a pole set, that marten may not have been caught. That's ok with me. I understand it's different with different seasons and limits.

One bit of data that you might find interesting is that slightly over 70% of my marten are caught by the left foot. It doesn't matter the trap type or how the trap is set on the pole. SO:

1. Are they left handed ?
2. Are they standing on their weak foot and reaching for the bait with their dominant foot?
3. Are they ambidextrous and its just random chance?

I think they are clearly "handed" but I don't know which......yet.

Cool discussions guys, try to make it a little less interesting so I can acutually study. Within good marten habitat which I'm assuming I'll find throughout St. Louis county, please tell me if I'm wrong. What do I need to look for as far as location? I have 120 and 160 box cubbies I am planning on using on leaning poles, vertical trunks and on the ground. I am more inclined to use them on the ground because I can pile brush up on them to make my box stand out. Should I do this like on would for fisher? Is anyone familiar with the areas near Duluth and two-harbors? I would prefer to drive around a half hour to the start of my trapping area. Any good areas to check out? I'm not trying to steal on anyones territory just looking for ideas. The biggest thing is how to pick THE SPOT to place the set. Is it breaks, transitions, or right in the middle of the thick stuff?

i think you got the right idea about looking for transitions, i think edges are important whatever your doing, hunting, fishing and trapping.
i dont think being right on "the spot" is real critical either, watch a fisher or marten in the woods, there checking everything out.