Always alot of talk and interest about trapping them I thought id start a thread. Fun critters to catch! Snapped the first of the year today after placing a box yesterday to see how far along they are.

would like to buy 10 or 15 ermine this year for a craft project just need to be skun and put up.

We will set out some boxes this week so we don’t get skunked chasing marten and cats.

Very cool!

I put 3 boxes out yesterday, today 2 of them had sprung traps and weasel poop in them..... maybe tomorrow

Nov. 4

Nov. 14

Love catching those little critters.

Nice pics Joe.

Here is a couple from today showing the difference in size between the male northern shorttail and the female.
The females go in and out of the box set with a 120 much more often without firing the trap.My catch has always been 10 to 1 males to females in the marten/mink boxes.

A Pa/ weasel from a few years ago. Conibear by leghold ........jk

A few from today!

trapping the little guys are kind of fun. When the trapping is slow you can still catch a few of them.

The snow last night had a few moving. Had a shrew or somthing eat on one for the firt time ever,bummer.

Our last two winters have been hard on the small mammals. I have out 20 weasel boxes beside some marten sets and have yet to catch one in 600 trap nights of effort.
Only have seen one track in my travels this fall

How do you guys deal with/prevent mice/shrews getting in your boxes? I had 9 boxes out for 3 nights when I went up to northern MN to do some fisher trapping, and every single box had a mouse or a shrew in it.

That is a good sign when you see the shrews and voles and birds too,scrambling around and in the bait box.That will attract marten to your box big time.Only thing is,you need a big chunk of bait and add each week,the little buggers can make the bait disappear fast unless you suspend it in a box with the opening down.Then it will last a lot longer if you are short of bait.I like to change my bait every couple weeks regardless.

Sorry, I should have been more specific. Was talking about weasel boxes that I had set in culverts in between tall sections of swamp grass.

leave the mice in there for bait, and toss out the shrews.

also,,,most mice and shrews wont fire a small foothold in the boxes, but theyre heavy enough to fire the rat traps.

Geez those are some nice weasels. I have never caught a long tail before.