.

At a good jackpot,you will have wolves,foxes,lynx,fisher,marten,mink,weasels,squirrels,skunks,rabbits,and various types of birds and voles all feeding off the bait.I have no doubt that in the pecking order,certain animals feed first.I don't agree that one animal will keep away from where a larger animal has been.I know that all smaller animals want to know what other larger animals are up to as it can mean an opportunity to scavenge some food.
A fox will follow wolves,it is common to see fox tracks and wolf tracks together,no doubt the fox is following the wolves,not the other way around.
Many times fox and wolf are snared together at the same jackpots,and boxes set close by produce marten weasels and the odd fisher.
To answer your question then,I don't believe it is a "comfort" response.It is a chance to check out a potential free meal where other predators/scavengers have been.

I monitor a bunch of cameras on bear baits in Sep & Oct. Most of the bait is donuts. It is very common to see fisher & marten on the same bait but never at the same time. When the bears go in I sometimes bait with beaver. Weasels, martin & fisher will all be on the same bait (at different times) some nights. I only put one beaver out last year at a location where a bobcat was seen. It took 26 days for the fisher & weasel to show up and they showed up on the same date. The fisher never came back or worked the bait. I caught the weasel the first night I set a trap there.

Great pictures, EB. That weasel sure looks determined. I guess that beaver wasn't worth skinning?

Fisher Marten

I mostly bait with donuts and no weasels come to donuts.

I had a beaver here & did trap a fisher and a marten after the snow came.

Mixing glands to create a "comfort factor", Hmm, I don't know about that. For marten and fisher I doubt it really hurts anything though.

Reminds me of an experience I had when I was a kid.
I had a pet mink "Donald", in addition to trapping I worked at a local mink farm a bit, my friend's dad owned it.
One evening after skinning a weasel I had trapped, I put my hand into Donald's nest box in order to pick him up. I barely got my hand into his box when he hit my hand like a machine gun, puncturing it like a pin cushion. Note to self: never do that again.

Something moved the camera. The fisher cleaned out this beaver FAST.

Of course I need to put some of these up:

love the lynx pic

That lynx made short work of the beaver & I got about 200 photos of it. I hung the camera after he started on the bait.

Reminds me of this pic eb.

Your lynx appears to be sleeping. In Maine we can only "camera trap" them.

Yep.

Mixed glands, in my opinion, create more of a curiosity lure, than an aggressive territorial response lure, like the example you mentioned of weasel glands added to mink glands. A lot of my lures use glands from multiple mustelids, along with muskrat, beaver, etc. When blended/ formulated right, some lures will attract every passing fur bearer, no matter the species or family. I can catch all my species, using the same lure, if I want. During colder weather, I will sometimes use an additional call lure.

PM'ed you Joe....

Full stomach.....

And coyote kill fox and cats but they all go to the others smells.

I agree with the above. I have not beat around the bush that long, only fifty years or so. Never once after spending literally hundreds and hundreds of hours on snow shoes in winter, or when out scouting have I have witnessed where a mink hunted a weasel down, or a fisher hunted a weasel down, or anything of the like. In my not so humble opinion, a lot of old myths become almost a fact if they are talked about long enough. Not only have I not witnessed such behavior I have never talked to someone that is really active in the outdoors that has either.

"Mac it only took you 50 years to figure out that mink and fisher don't hunt down weasel? Hey, that's pretty good. I wrote, "Fisher kill marten/weasel. Marten kill weasel." Which has quite a different meaning vs "Fisher hunt down marten/weasel. Marten hunt down weasel." "

thank for the props, as like those at a boys. Admittedly I am not the sharpest tack in the box. The reference to spending over 50 years trapping was to hopefully lay some credence to my observation. I am sorry that I commented at all. With so many freaking experts making statements today I am not amazed that many good trappers stop posting.

"Carnivores, regardless of species or the continents they inhabit, target herbivores (occasionally omnivores) as their staples. If/when a lion pokes its head into a hole and finds a hyena staring back at him, well, ya know. Herbivores don't fight back as much, they're easier to kill, and plus they taste better. Or would you rather swap your venison for a bobcat steak?"

My we have gone from fishers to lions tigers and bears. OH MY

"In my area fisher and long-tailed weasel ranges overlap. Given that Boco harvested 100+ short-tailed weasels as incidentals on his marten line, I would say that the marten and short-taileds ranges overlap too. I get it."

No crap. Fisher and weasel have always inhabited the same type of habitat.

"My contention was, and still is, that, "... weasel are comforted by the scent of marten/fisher, or that marten are comforted by the scent of fisher," as is written above."

Great theory. Based on what?
On Conjecture?
On empirical and anecdotal evidence?

I am done. Good luck and buy all those en-rager lures you can find

I don't get that he is saying that mixing the gland causes a comfort factor but that glands do.He just happened to be mixing the glands.He isn't a very experienced lure maker,that's for sure.Tonquin,even the synthetic tincture that he no doubt is using,is very overpowering and only a hint should be added,AFTER everything is aged.He dumped more tonquin in there than would be recommended for a gallon.What he did is to completely overpower the glands.It will get worse with aging.He hints that he may have added too much.

He created a curiousity lure that no doubt will work,assuming he doesn't use too much at a set,but he killed it as a gland lure.One drop to a pint could be plenty,depending(talking about tincture).

He also mentioned sodium benzoate as a way to preserve the fisher/marten/weasel glands.That's a no-no for "weasel" glands.I don't think he's very experienced but you don't have to be to make a YouTube video.

Just because a animal steps forward doesn't mean its comfortable. It means its curious. If I smell burnt wires I'm stepping forward to find the source because I'm curious and not comfortable at all. I have lost count of the fox I've caught with coyote urine over the years and can only imagine it was out of curiosity. It would be pretty hard to lure anything if they weren't curious.

Mac. Don't you quit posting on this forum. You have too many hard earned miles and knowledge shared to quit. And I hate to see a rank amature you tube video be the reason.

Just stumbled across this thread, thought I would add my thoughts. I’m definitely a rank amateur lure maker Andy I may even add that to my signature for kicks. And I did put myself out there for criticism by making a Youtube video – trying to help others learn as I learn, but also making a fool of myself sometimes, I guess.

With no lure making mentor and so few people ‘in the know’ willing to share details, there is definitely a steep learning curve. I’ve watched most all of the lure making DVD’s and read all of the books currently available, but even then I seem to have barely scratched the surface on certain topics. Taximan – your comment on sodium benzoate and weasel glands is something I didn’t know when making the video, so I appreciate you bringing it up.

Most detailed questions about lure making get a similar response: “I’m not going to give away secrets it took me many years to learn on my own. It’s something you will have to figure out”. I understand and respect that completely, especially since a lot of you guys rely on selling lures for a part of your income. So that’s what I’ve been doing for the past couple of years – trying to figure things out on my own. I’m sure it won’t be the first time I do something foolish like adding a half ounce of tonquin to a few ounces of glands!

So back to the reason for the gland lure – mixed glands from marten, fisher and weasel. (For what it’s worth, if I had 4 oz of marten glands, that’s all I would have used, but I didn’t, so I used what I had.)

We’re required to use lynx exclusion devices to trap marten and fisher in Maine. There are two different models. The 120-sized device provides an unobstructed view to the bait and back of the box, while the 160/220 style does not allow line-of-sight, and requires a 90 degree turn and an 18” span to the trap and the bait. Last year I ran a line with 30 of each style device. 80 percent of my marten and fisher catches were in the 120 sized device, despite the smaller opening.

So why were marten and fisher consistently refusing to go into the larger box? I could only think of two reasons – they had to make a sharp turn, and they couldn’t see the bait or the back of the box. That got me thinking about ‘comfort’. Perhaps the wrong word, and maybe I’m completely off base, but it seems that they weren’t comfortable going into a foreign object that they couldn’t fully see and didn’t know what was inside of, even though they could smell the bait.

My thought was that if there was evidence that another mustelid had been in the box, any mustelid, it would give a marten or fisher some level of comfort that it was fair game to get in after that bait (ie there wasn’t some strange, dangerous thing in there they didn’t understand). And maybe the gland scent would trigger an added level of competitive instinct (I’d better get the rest of that bait before one of my competitors comes back).
So it was an experiment. Over the course of a few months the tonquin actually mellowed out, and the gland odor is more prevalent (still have wayyy too much tonquin scent though).

We’re now a few weeks into the trapping season. I used a small amount of the mustelid gland lure in most of my larger boxes to try and test out the ‘comfort’ theory, or whatever you might call it. So far the catches in each style device are running 50/50. Could be a number of different variables, could be the lure. It’ll take a lot more testing and tweaking to figure that out, but as with lure making, I’m learning. Thanks for the insight, and hope you guys don’t mind cutting me a little slack along the way

I am definitely an amature as far as making lure. But as far as observing animal sigh, lots of years of experience, so hopefully have learned something.
Animals are interested in animal smells.
I know that sounds like a "duh" statement, but a lot of times you hear people repeat stuff as fact that just doesn't play out in real life observation, such as: " Foxes are scared of coyote smells." or "Mink are scared by a strong smell of mink musk."
I'll believe statements like that when I actually see animal behavior suggesting it, and not before.
By and large, I think you will find that animal glands and musks are interesting and attractive to other animals, even if they are potentially that animals prey. We give animals too much credit when we assume they think about this stuff rationally.
I will add one exception, a very strong smell of skunk seems to make some foxes cautious, but I'm not sure if that's because of a fear factor, or just because they don't have to get close to it to satisfy their curiosity.

For what its worth... I don’t have the years under my belt that folks like Mac do, but I’ve been fairly successful at trapping mustelids. I use a marten gland lure inside my marten box most years trapping marten. With no one making it anymore, I’ve gone to making my own this year.

Last week I pulled my marten line and had a friend ride along with me. He has made some great lures in the past, my marten lure supplier previously, but has gotten away from making trapping lures the last couple of years. We were discussing lures while checking traps and weasel glands came up. He had a good theory on weasel glands in marten lure that I agree with. Leave weasel glands out of marten lures. The reason being that if you add weasel glands into a marten lure it may be attractive to weasels. The problem with that is weasels will be plugging up the marten sets!

You are going to catch incidental weasels anyways, so anything you can do to avoid them and keep your sets working for marten/fisher thats not a bad thing. This year I caught 45 weasels incidentally in marten traps. I love catching weasels, but they are a nuisance when I’m trying to get marten/fisher. I’d hate to possibly increase the weasel catch by adding an lure even more attractive to weasels.

On a side note and something that struck my curiousity.... of 45 weasels this year, only one was a female. I’ve noted almost the same thing in years past. Many times I’d get 40 weasels and no females. Interesting...

I also catch a lot of weasels in my marten traps.I don't find that it impacts my marten catch at all.I always make several sets at a stop.I only use bait and no lure.Catching 90% or more male Northern shorttail ermine in marten traps is not unusual.The reason is the big difference in the size of each.Females being much smaller don't fire the traps going in and out.The ones that do get caught trigger the trap pulling a piece of bait.

155’s with pan triggers.

Smaller size makes sense I guess. Lots of weasels never fire the traps, guess they could be females... we’ll never know.

Hey Brian,

Just curious, how many trap nights to catch 45 weasels? You can message me the answer if you want to share the info & not make it public? It took me about 900 trap night to get about 10 weasels this year. Until I read your post I was going to make some weasel gland lure. Reason being, one day I caught two fisher and a marten in boxes that had caught a weasel the previous check.

About 80 locations for about 4 weeks in all I guess. I guided three weeks of trips this year and moved traps around each week for those trips.

Thanks

Nice to see you posting Brian. If any of you do not know, Brian made an excellent DVD a few years ago. It is certainly worth watching for the woods trapper, for both water and the fisher and marten trapper.
Very knowledgeable young man.

Mac

I found Brian to be a hard worker out on the line.

Thanks Mac and Emerson. I have a hard time just setting a few traps, I either work hard and run a big line or I don’t bother and skip the year for deer hunting instead.

If I remember that was probably a check from 2012 Emerson? I think it was about twenty below zero when you met me that morning to ride along.

Thanks Mac and Emerson. I have a hard time just setting a few traps, I either work hard and run a big line or I don’t bother and skip the year for deer hunting instead.

If I remember that was probably a check from 2012 Emerson? I think it was about twenty below zero when you met me that morning to ride along.
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They were the good old day (2012) we saw 20 below and a few animals.

A Maine Trapline - Brian/Mark Donaghy

https://www.minntrapprod.com/A-Maine-Trapline-Brian_Mark-Donaghy-DVD/productinfo/V-BD-01/

Thought maybe someone would say, what ate the fox? Lynx?

Hey Lee, if you are talking about the photo I posted, that is a marten chewed on by a fisher. It was on Brian's line and the next set had a second eaten marten. If I remember correctly Brian caught the fisher on the next check. I have had marten eaten by coyotes & fisher up there in the BIG woods..

eb I had a trapper from Vermont show me pictures of a fisher caught in a 220 that had been eaten by a bobcat. How did he know it was a bobcat you ask? He caught in a #2 coilspring 2 days later, it weighed 38 pounds and yes he showed me pictures of it at the catch site. It was a cool story made better by the pictures,

Dang, that is a marten! Just saw the middle gone and how red it was and thought fox! I haven't seen many marten that red or orange. Neat Pic, thanks for wising me up!

Hey Lee, someone told me that this color is on in 10,000:

Nice canary marten.Therese Demers told me that they get about 25 to 30 each year at NAFA.So pretty rare.