I'm planning to make some bait for a wilderness trapping trip my son and I will be going on in November. We will be targeting Marten, with Fisher being a bonus, since I cannot trap them in my home area wildlife management area. Main ingredient will be beaver castor that I'll be trapping between now and April. Planning to melt some vaseline and mixing in castor, jam, Anise and maybe a little skunk.

Would I be better off just freezing the castors before drying and then mixing the lure right before we go, or making it now then freezing it? Don't really need it to be long-term storage capable, since it'll just be the one week we use it.

Thanks for any advise.

Sounds like you shouldn't have anything to go bad in it if you put a sealing lid on the jar anyways, so I don't think freezing would be necessary.

Thanks. Figured I'd make it early April then throw it in the fridge before I start back to work.

I would mix 2 separate lures anise/jam for a sweet lure and the castor/skunk for the 2nd. I would mix the skunk w/peanut oil and the castor w/mineral oil or comparable. Not a fan of Vaseline.

Mr Fireplug, Mr. Mike Mason is giving you sound advise. Take and grind your castor with some glycerin to the consistency of what you want then mix in a little beaver sac oil. (1 oz sac oil to 4 oz castor)..... Here's a real good marten / fisher getter that you can make fairly cheap. Go to the grocery store and get a jar of Butterscotch & Carmel ice cream topping. To 8 ounces of the ice cream topping add 2 oz honey, 2 oz karo syrup, 2 oz Anise, 2 oz glycerin. Mix well and you will have a pint of sweet potion that is as good as any for marten/fisher and most other critters except bobcat and otter.......Contrary to what most people believe a blast of skunk essence is not needed to attract fisher and I seldom use it as a long distance call unless it turns bitter cold. . A little bit of skunk essence blended in a lure is more than enough.....For a long distance call I use rotted down fish juice placed in a short piece of 3/4" pvc pipe loosely stuffed with cotton balls hung by wire in a bush or tree nearby the set, but most often I rely on a marten or fishers natural habit of zig- zagging through the area when hunting to come across the lure odor and come into the set. Marten and fisher have a very good sense of smell and they will find your set if you set traps in areas they hunt or travel ways between hunting areas.

I've used Vaseline and had good luck with it for marten lure. It really holds up to water well. It obviously doesn't provide any attraction to the lure, but as a base it can handle an amazing amount of moisture and still provide a strong scent. And it doesn't freeze like lanolin, and it has to be very cold for it to crust hard.

Good recipe papabear...it sounds like a raccoon killer. I have good luck with chocolate syrup in my dp traps. But if a guy is in gray fox areas your recipe might mean doom for the cat like critters.

Thanks guys. Haven't been online in awhile to check. I'll be trying some real new stuff this fall for sure!