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Re: Someone willing to talk marten and footholds [Re: 358wsm] #6165693
02/21/18 08:52 PM
02/21/18 08:52 PM
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Posts: 45,271
james bay frontierOnt.
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Boco Offline
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james bay frontierOnt.
We have registered lines here with quotas.There are no mandatory minimums on any fur except beaver.So a trapper is the front line manager of his resource.A lot of trappers work closely with the fur techs to adjust quotas on a scientific basis.Beaver quotas are adjusted by providing the fur tech with an aerial survey of live houses on the line.Marten and fisher quotas can be raised,even doubled some years if the juvenile harvest is high enough to warrant it.Just have to provide skulls or jaws tagged to the fur tech.Lynx quotas can be raised similarly thru harvest data from your line.
It is in the trappers intrest to manage his resource to the best of his ability,however he chooses to do so.Greed will only hurt himself in future seasons if he overharvests the resource on his trapline.If a trapper wants to catch more fur he can get on several different registered lines,as quotas are trapline specific.Some trappers operate on 4 or 5 traplines and can produce quite a bit of fur without harming the resource on any one line.
There are traplines in Ontario that have been producing basically the same amounts of fur over several generations of trapping familys working the line.


Forget that fear of gravity-get a little savagery in your life.
Re: Someone willing to talk marten and footholds [Re: 358wsm] #6165715
02/21/18 09:12 PM
02/21/18 09:12 PM
Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 11,135
Armpit, ak
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Dirt Offline
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Armpit, ak
I'm having a hard time understanding how a population can be at maximum with only adults. Since a healthy population should be around 50% YOY in November in theory. Take away that 50% and that means your marten population is lower. When I have mostly adults, my population is low. confused


Who is John Galt?
Re: Someone willing to talk marten and footholds [Re: 358wsm] #6165737
02/21/18 09:31 PM
02/21/18 09:31 PM
Joined: Apr 2009
Posts: 270
alaska
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trapped4ever Offline
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alaska
The fickle marten you mention Boco, is this late in the year? Or do you see this even in November/ December? Mine seem to start this behavior mid January, this is both sexes, prior to that, they tend to be pretty cooperative.

On a totally different note... Jack or W17, are you aware of any actual ADF&G or university studies (not just theories), done in various regions of the state, regarding fur quality, throughout the fall/ winter/ spring months??? I would really like to acquire more info on this particular subject for multiple species....

Re: Someone willing to talk marten and footholds [Re: 358wsm] #6165765
02/21/18 09:58 PM
02/21/18 09:58 PM
Joined: Apr 2009
Posts: 270
alaska
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trapped4ever Offline
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alaska
Dirt,
It's not that there are necessarily always more marten, just more movement, looking for food. However, in my experience often more marten overall. That is the constant flux I'm speaking of. This is speaking strictly for my area, as I haven't really discussed this much with other trappers before....

Say for example, you take a hillside, and fence it off, so nothing comes and goes. What's going to happen to the marten populations, as the feed source populations change. The marten populations will generally follow. I think different areas are affected in varying degrees, as many areas, marten have seasonal diet changes. Anyways, that given hillsides production will fluctuate, depending upon various components of the food chain. What if the voles food sources die, due to wet or dry weather? No voles, no marten. The carrying capacity and production change, due to many variables. When you are seeing the high % of YOY, that is a good sign, as that indicates successful breeding production, healthy stocks. Now the next year you see the same 50% ratio of YOY to adults. Does that mean you have the same overall numbers of marten on said hillside. Nope, numbers could have gone up, could have gone down, but your ratio could stay approximately the same. Now, when they are building in numbers, the food is there. What happens when it crashes??? Depends on the location, as seasonal diets may provide different nutritional opportunities, for example in Alaska, salmon carcasses, berries, grouse, ptarmigan, squirrels, hares, etc. When the population peaks, sometimes the survival of the previous years juveniles and adults, now combined into now grown adults, will exceed the previous years total production, in the same area, but with no food, starvation and lack of reproduction will eventually prevail. This scenario of food shortage induced relocation, is possibly a contributing factor to what causes those waves of marten that sometimes occur.

Last edited by trapped4ever; 02/21/18 10:04 PM.
Re: Someone willing to talk marten and footholds [Re: 358wsm] #6165787
02/21/18 10:21 PM
02/21/18 10:21 PM
Joined: Apr 2009
Posts: 270
alaska
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trapped4ever Offline
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Boco,
Your example of 4 or 5 lines would be essentially the same example as my rotating onto new ground. With no registered lines though, here you just look around until you find an area full of marten, and set it, you aren't confined to a certain region or area as with a registered line. However, like you mentioned, if other trappers are potentially around, you don't have the ability to manage your area the way you do with a registered line, or if you get greedy, you are just shooting yourself in the foot! Always a good idea to manage for sustainability!

I could trap the exact same number of marten every year on my lines. That is sustainable. I could also adjust my catch numbers to adjust for maximum sustainable yield, depending upon the constant state of flux for marten populations, and catch MORE, in the long run. The big question here, how to recognize how much is your maximum sustainable yield, without exceeding it, and hurting future seasons...... Or you can just play it safe, and harvest minimal numbers.

Re: Someone willing to talk marten and footholds [Re: trapped4ever] #6165809
02/21/18 10:41 PM
02/21/18 10:41 PM
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 3,489
Moved to Fbks, Ak.
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martentrapper Offline
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Originally Posted By: trapped4ever

..... Or you can just play it safe, and harvest minimal numbers.


It would certainly be possible for a trapper to have a sustained yield over many years if his annual take is low enough for the area he traps. Problem would be what number would be low enough. He would also have to not have fires, floods, or other weather related catastrophes effect his area.
mt
T4E, sent you a PM.

Last edited by martentrapper; 02/21/18 10:42 PM.
Re: Someone willing to talk marten and footholds [Re: 358wsm] #6165847
02/21/18 11:24 PM
02/21/18 11:24 PM
Joined: Aug 2011
Posts: 45,271
james bay frontierOnt.
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Boco Offline
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james bay frontierOnt.
If you have been on your zone long enough you will be able to figure out a baseline quota for your area.There are open quotas for marten in NW Ontario but the trappers know their baseline numbers for sure.Logging, fires,and change as the bush matures over the years will change the animals and numbers on the trapline. This takes many years of managing a trapping zone to become familiar with these changes.You can identify the safe size estimate of home ranges of adult marten in different habitat types in your area if you keep records.Once you have a handle on that you can figure out a baseline quota to start working from,up and down in years of fluctuation in recruitment by keeping an eye on the adult female ratio in your harvest which will dictate when to stop trapping.Some years trappers don't trap marten,other years trappers will raise quotas to maximize the sustainable yield.
Most important for me is to watch the ratio of adult females in the harvest,and how abundant the marten are overall in the first few weeks of trapping, to help make these decisions.If I run 20 boxes for two weeks in good habitat in both core areas and dispersal corridors and only catch 3 or 4 marten,I am not going to waste time running a line.It is not hard to manage marten on a registered trapline as long as it is big enough with the correct habitat to hold a lot of marten in normal years.I don't worry about what other trappers take or don't take in their zones as they are operating far enough away not to really affect me.
But during a lifetime on traplines there are some years that things are very different from the norm.Each year is different to some extent but there are certain years that stand out.
The marten can refuse a set anytime of year here.Have seen many times they check out and refuse a couple sets then are hanging in a trap a 1/4 mile down the trail.

Last edited by Boco; 02/21/18 11:45 PM.

Forget that fear of gravity-get a little savagery in your life.
Re: Someone willing to talk marten and footholds [Re: Gulo] #6165940
02/22/18 02:29 AM
02/22/18 02:29 AM
Joined: Jul 2011
Posts: 175
Unit 14 Alaska
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358wsm Offline OP
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Unit 14 Alaska
Originally Posted By: Gulo
Thanks for chiming in on this White.

Do you suppose the bigger males being willing to 'risk' the more open habitats has anything to do with owl or goshawk predation on the smaller females?

Boco, are you seeing the same as White17?

358wsm, are we getting a bit far afield from your original question?


Jack


Jack,
This is an invaluable discussion here. I am learning, listening, and absorbing as much as I possibly can. Thank you for sharing this, it is why I had hoped it would not go private. I need to hear it.


Scott
Re: Someone willing to talk marten and footholds [Re: white17] #6165941
02/22/18 02:42 AM
02/22/18 02:42 AM
Joined: Jul 2011
Posts: 175
Unit 14 Alaska
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358wsm Offline OP
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Originally Posted By: white17
IMO, the more you stay out of the heavier white spruce, riparian habitat, the fewer females you will catch. Stick to that nasty black spruce and swamp "edge" areas and your male/female ratio will be better than if you are trapping along the river corridor. That might not be possible in some of the areas of SE AK.

But I am convinced that males will more readily inhabit the riskier, more challenging environment than females.


Noted.!


Scott
Re: Someone willing to talk marten and footholds [Re: 358wsm] #6166128
02/22/18 10:38 AM
02/22/18 10:38 AM
Joined: Jan 2009
Posts: 2,666
Idaho, Lemhi County
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Gulo Offline
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358wsm...

Thanks for letting us ramble far too afield from your initial question, but it's been fun and a real learning experience for me. You undoubtedly are the kind of guy that will do well in Alaska, and your Cheechako period will be abbreviated on your way to Sourdough-dom.

trapped4ever...

I must be a bit too old, or maybe a few too many rough miles behind me. Perhaps it's because of a few too many toddies over the years. Anyway, I'm having a tough time keeping up with all this. You, White17, Boco, and a boatload of others out there have obviously caught more marten than I will ever see in my lifetime, and I truly appreciate your various perspectives. I've been trying to understand this marten population dynamics thing for several decades, and obviously, I don't really have a clue. I read all the 'science' I can get my hands on (I've even penciled a bit myself). I've studied various marten populations in western interior Alaska, Central Alaska, and SE Alaska, as well as a bit of sleuthing in Idaho and Far Eastern Russia. Once I think that I have it all figured out, I'm thrown a curveball and no way am I connecting. It's been a hoot.

One thing you mentioned earlier (in a previous post) was that "...marten run in 7-9 year cycles...". Fill me in, man. I've studied and graphed and modeled marten populations from about everywhere, and I can't seem to find any real evidence of cycles (the definition of "cyclic" infers that the ups and downs are predictable). Unlike Eurasia where the small mammal populations are indeed cyclic, there is no evidence of such predictability in North America (go figure...). With no cycles in the North American marten food, what would those marten populations cycle on? Unlike the classic snowshoe hare/lynx cycles, I can't find any predictability to the marten ups-and-downs. From hundreds of thousands of small mammal trapnights that I've done in hundreds of areas over many years, I don't see the predictability in the mouse, vole, or shrew, wide population swings. Educate me, man.

Jack


Re: Someone willing to talk marten and footholds [Re: Gulo] #6166203
02/22/18 12:04 PM
02/22/18 12:04 PM
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Posts: 35,129
McGrath, AK
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white17 Offline

"General (Mr.Sunshine) Washington"
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Originally Posted By: Gulo
Thanks for chiming in on this White.

Do you suppose the bigger males being willing to 'risk' the more open habitats has anything to do with owl or goshawk predation on the smaller females?

Boco, are you seeing the same as White17?

358wsm, are we getting a bit far afield from your original question?


Jack



Absolutely ! It i think male density is higher in those areas because the females won't or don't want to take the risk. Distances without overhead cover are greater and possibly fox populations are higher in the more open areas. neither of which would be beneficial to survival. So just maybe..nature has programmed mama marten to stay out of those areas as much as possible


Mean As Nails
Re: Someone willing to talk marten and footholds [Re: 358wsm] #6166243
02/22/18 12:40 PM
02/22/18 12:40 PM
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james bay frontierOnt.
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Boco Offline
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james bay frontierOnt.
Smaller female marten are a different animal behavior wise than a large male marten.Savvy trappers can use this knowledge to skew the harvest to avoid some females.


Forget that fear of gravity-get a little savagery in your life.
Re: Someone willing to talk marten and footholds [Re: 358wsm] #6166299
02/22/18 01:38 PM
02/22/18 01:38 PM

O
Oh Snap
Unregistered
Oh Snap
Unregistered
O



Great thread.
Lots of great information floating around. I want to share my observations from almost 50 years of trapping marten in the Interior before I leave this planet!
When I started trapping in the early 70's there were just over 300,000 people in he State, snow machines were just coming into their own and there was lots of country to prospect. There wasn't much information around about trapping marten so you were left to your own imagination. Once in a while you would meet the right trapper who would open up and give you some advice from his last 20 years and that would start you off. The one thing that seemed to be a common belief back then and is partially true to this day is the marten will come through so have your gear out or you will miss them. Foot hold traps and pole sets were the method most favorable keeping the catch off the ground, although my final line I was given in the early 80's had cubbies that the previous trapper favored. The local fur buyer at the time had flown over that area and he told me that if I could get to a particular area within the line he saw marten trails, not tracks. It took me several years of cutting trails into new areas of the line and running 100 mile weekends I found the area.
Now that I found the area how do I manage it, do I farm it or do i hit it hard and take a chance on screwing it up. The approach I took was to farm my total line and had decent catches on the target years. My method would be to ride the line and open the areas where tracks were abundant leaving the other areas closed. I usually would trap 2 seasons than let it rest for 1 season. Marten numbers were not my goal but being able to return year after year and be successful.
Being a self taught marten trapper and the era I came from I can tell you that marten are a mystery. Here today gone tomorrow. Other observations, occasionally they appear in bunches only to be there for a week or two than gone. The line I trapped traveled up a couple creek valleys and there It seemed the ones I caught were travelers so the high country is where I focused on, moderately open black spruce ridge tops. The last few years I trapped it I went to very small stinky baits after years of lure, and attractors.
Well I wish there had been the information available back then that there is now so I could offer my scientific observations. But thats the way I started and its hard to teach an old dog new tricks.
Snap

Re: Someone willing to talk marten and footholds [Re: 358wsm] #6166305
02/22/18 01:44 PM
02/22/18 01:44 PM
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Armpit, ak
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Dirt Offline
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Armpit, ak
So Mr. 358wsm I'll try to give you some practical useful field information. If you are going to try to manage on the 4 YOY to 1 adult female strategery don't panic if you start out of the gate 1 YOY to 2 adult females. Maybe some places, you always catch males and YOY marten first and then start picking up only adult females later after these guys, but not here. This ratio can bounce around a lot during the season. You just don't want to finish 2 to 1. If the vole population is abundant, I definitely would keep trapping expecting your ratio to improve.


Who is John Galt?
Re: Someone willing to talk marten and footholds [Re: 358wsm] #6166371
02/22/18 02:47 PM
02/22/18 02:47 PM
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sometimes PA sometimes ME
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ebsurveyor Offline
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sometimes PA sometimes ME
Go to AK.

Last edited by ebsurveyor; 02/23/18 07:14 PM.
Re: Someone willing to talk marten and footholds [Re: 358wsm] #6166403
02/22/18 03:11 PM
02/22/18 03:11 PM
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Posts: 270
alaska
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trapped4ever Offline
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Jack, long rambling PM sent. Ha ha! Hope you aren't busy!

Oh snap, I like your post too. It brings up another few subjects, such as elevational densities.

Dirt, spot on!

This could possibly be an example of elevational density. Some simple example here.... The seasonal make up of a martens diet changes drastically in my area. I have some data on these percentages for my area, from studies I was involved with in the 80's &90's. Now as a common food source changes, marten (especially males) may follow it, up or down a hillside/ mountain. Example here: blue berries dying off at lower elevations during early fall, while ones at higher elevations are now ripening, marten moves up the hillside, following the food. Or salmon spawn is occurring, marten moves down near streamside, to feed on carcasses for a couple months. Throughout your trapping season, your maximum elevational density (of male marten especially) will potentially change on your line, a possible cause to Dirt's scenario. Or MAYBE, the females just wandered into the trap first!! HA!

My point was, any given section of my lines marten population density, in my region, will generally change drastically, several times a season. What causes this?? Snow/ weather/ food/ wanderlust/?? Being able to predict these increased density areas would be nice. Sometimes I'm correct on these, sometimes not so much. Having traps ready for these increased density occurrences is what it's all about!!

Sheesh!!! I think I need to start a thread called- Random Thoughts from a Crazed Trapper!

Last edited by trapped4ever; 02/22/18 03:18 PM.
Re: Someone willing to talk marten and footholds [Re: 358wsm] #6166429
02/22/18 03:39 PM
02/22/18 03:39 PM
Joined: Dec 2007
Posts: 5,514
juneau, alaska
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alaska viking Offline
"Made it two years not being censored"
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You are doing fine, buddy! cool


Made it almost 3 years without censor!

Re: Someone willing to talk marten and footholds [Re: 358wsm] #6166439
02/22/18 03:50 PM
02/22/18 03:50 PM
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Idaho, Lemhi County
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Gulo Offline
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Thanks to all who've chimed in on this thread, and particular thanks to 358wsm for originally posing the question and allowing us to ramble in 360 different directions. Its been another learning experience for me.

Take home message from my perspective: 1) marten population dynamics are complicated and probably highly variable from place to place. 2) we've still got a lot to learn, and 3) in your harvesting, go at it conservatively at first, and once you have the wisdom of your particular place, manage it wisely.

After a lifetime of trapping marten, I had it all figured out. Then I ended up here in east-central Idaho. My trapping partner and I (my wife) catch only a couple handfuls of marten every year, but we do so in sagebrush. Really! Most sets are in riparian corridors coming off the Continental Divide where, literally, not a conifer tree in sight. That's marten habitat?

Jack


Re: Someone willing to talk marten and footholds [Re: 358wsm] #6166609
02/22/18 06:43 PM
02/22/18 06:43 PM
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Alaska and Washington State
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waggler Offline
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Alaska and Washington State
Gulo,
Just curious, but what elevation are you catching those marten in sage brush country?


"My life is better than your vacation"
Re: Someone willing to talk marten and footholds [Re: 358wsm] #6166623
02/22/18 06:52 PM
02/22/18 06:52 PM
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 2,686
Alaska
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drasselt Offline
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Alaska
Any observations on ratios of ermine to marten after a crash? I have been told that an increase in ermine can indicate a pending marten recovery.


you can vote your way into socialism, but you will have to shoot your way out.
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