Agreed Brian...all except your obvious bias to GM trucks! Would have agreed with you a month ago too! My 06 Ford was the biggest piece of Junk I ever owned, went to GM after that and had good luck with an 08 model. Traded it in on another Ford because I had heard how great the Ecoboost was. After I bought it, I found out how much trouble Ford is having with that engine. They got themselves into a class action lawsuit over it....Still mine has been good so far, but Im worried about it.....So my son goes to buy a truck and I recommended GM! Picked it up in Edmonton drove it home and the lifters and camshaft failed!! Toyotas for me from here on out!

All the traps kill the marten all right,but that is not the only consideration,like you have alluded to concerning fur damage.
One of the main reasons a lot of guys here prefer the ldl is that no moving part,neither the trigger nor the dog touch the pelt and crush/bend guard hair.

Best truck I ever owned was a Toyota, worse truck I ever owned was Toyota
Gave up on Fords 27 years ago, my best friend still drives a Ford, I guess it all what works for you!
My thread is about making things better,
in my opinion a rotating jaw trap should never be sold without a swivel
if someone can perfect a trigger system that targets marten & fisher and excludes fly squirrels and weasels "AMEN"
I have seen enough data and video to know what works and what doesn't work.
"What you think you know and what you actually know are not the same thing".
If you or I can consistently obtain a near perfect strike with no non-targets and no bad catches that to me should be the goal.
I see picture after picture of marten caught on my facebook page from trappers who consistently show bad catches in sets that leave the marten up against the tree and the next thing I see is questions on how to get tree sap off their catch or the trap damaged my catch.
It's remains me of the movie Forrest Gump, life's a box of chocolates.

Question for you experts,
How do you get fur damage in this catch??

Jim, as Im sure you know, things can go awry out there. Especially when your running lots of traps. There is simply no way to control everything, however I agree that there are some things we can control most of the time and that should be our goal.

As for the pictures above and how you could get fur damage with that catch.....On my trapline that marten would be ruined in a 5-day check, maybe sooner. Out in the open like that birds would find it quickly. I don't have much of a problem with whiskey jacks getting into my traps, but smaller birds are terrible. They peck at the body for some reason, Im assuming they like the fur, or use it for something?? I just know they would ruin it in a short time. I try to pick trees with more overhanging branches for cover. If thats not possible, I let the marten hang against the tree where it will blend in a bit better. I would rather deal with some pitch than have a marten ruined; and pitch has never been a big problem for me. Another thing that could cause damage to that marten is the trap itself....especially the 2001-5. I've seen catches just like that break the skin behind the head. My theory is that those traps are so powerful that if they strike the head near the back of the skull the jaws can rip the fur as it slides onto the base of the neck. I've also seen those traps drive bones through the hide when the skull is fractured. My son got a pile of the 2001-5s when he bought his line. He just sold them and bought Belisle because of the damage he was seeing. I used to use nothing but the 2001-5, and loved the trigger, but am slowly replacing them with Belisle.

Since were talking about making things better, I will share a bit about something I have a real problem with. As you know the AIHTS is being phased in over a period of time. I think the Yukon pushed this up a bit, but we are now required to use only certified restraining traps for wolves. Two of the traps they have certified are the worst inventions ever given to trappers. I know how hard wolves are to catch, and I am very doubtful that those traps saw real world tests. I have pictures that show extreme foot damage those traps can cause. The two best wolf traps made, AK#9 and the Canadian Koro #9 are not even on the list!! Like a lot of guys on here I've caught enough wolves with those two traps to know they are good traps...far better than anything on their list. But because of the new law I now have about $4500 worth of the best traps on the market that I can't use!! Legally anyway. How is that helping anyone or the animals?? So I've written a letter and provided them with some pictures. I know it won't do any good but I had to try. I've looked into it a bit, and even talked with a couple of manufacturers and have found out that the majority of the trap testing is done via computer modelling and simulation....much like global warming.

Dave, you are learning.
Most trap manufacturers are small time operations that have no research and development budget and no staff to really field test what they develop.
Somebody builds something, which appears to be a great idea or concept but fails miserable on the trapline.
Having been down this road a couple of times now I can tell you honestly that without the AIHTS agreement and the FIC'S TRDC committee a lot of good traps would never make the market.
The present KORO wolf trap is very close, the original trap was a disaster that failed miserable. The problem is as always money, if we had unlimited budgets we could do a lot more faster.
The first Belisle footsnares passed but you would have been hard pressed to actually catch anything in it under real trapline conditions, the present model made has a number of improvements that make it a much improved device.

For example;
With rotating jaw traps, there are 5 lethal killing strikes, we have a large range of certified marten traps some kill in all strike locations some only kill in one strike combination some kill in all strike combination/location.
It is up to the individual trapper to decide on what meets his needs.
The end goal is to get as many traps on the list, this means working with trap manufactures to suggest improvements to their devices, while you may have a bias towards one trap it does not mean that other devices on the list should be knocked, again it is up to each trapper to decide what device will work best for them for the area they trap in and the conditions they work under.

And by the way I sometimes run 8 day checks with no fur damage by birds. Not my preference but sometimes have to juggle work, meeting and family life.
Jim