I had a short line in the western interior. I experimented endlessly with this line. IIRC, I had 24 conibear boxes with leaning poles. First box had no bait, second was Sable oil, third had Gusto, fourth had just a piece of grouse. Caught only 12 marten all winter, so not a real good test. There was no difference in catch rate between the 4 types of lure/bait. I've always used beaver meat (fresh) and had good luck in interior Alaska, S.E. Alaska, and in Idaho.

Jack

This is an excellent tip and observation!
I will probably put a leaner against every tree I set now, even if I’m setting a box on the main tree.
Thanks Gulo

I've noticed that marten will visit existing marten poles even when not in use. I think that over the years the smell from the marten relieving themselves after being caught attracts them to the spot. When breaking out trails in the beginning of the season I will see marten tracks going right under the pole where the maten hang.

My first choice is not beaver. It is tainted duck carcasses without the breast meat. I breast out the ducks cut the head off at the bottom of the neck. The neck is one piece.

Then wire the neckless body in the top and the bottom of the carcass. Then freeze it. When I want some bait, I take them out, chop them in half and put back in the bag. You should have two pieces wired now. This is when I taint them, after the wire is already in place and frozen in. That is two more pieces of bait. The frozen guts are still there wired through before you freeze them.

I take off the wings, pin them wide open as far as they will stretch on a board in the shed to dry. The skin will dry around the wing bone and lock it all together, feathers and all. One wire loop through the shoulder area and a long wire to hang off the tree that is looped through the small wire on the shoulder making a crappy swivel per say. It will move with the slightest breeze and rotate a little. In a heavy wind it gives the wing a hurky jerky movement that is really eye catching to see. Mallard white on one side, iridescent colors on the other. Brown winged ducks show up better in the snow.

The neck is wired to a 2 inch thick running pole with a trap on the end.
The duck carcasses are used in wood boxes with 120's and footholds nearby, 5-6 inch thick pole.
There is a wing waving at each set.
I put the lure on the wing, so I can pull them at seasons end due to bears. I drop them back in the freezer for next year. They already have one season of lure on it, just add a little more next year.
I get 3 pieces of bait and two wings from each duck. The wing can be used instead of bait. If you run out, just put another wing inside the box like you would for bait. I don't use metal screen to protect the bait. Marten seem to like it when there are a couple of shrews or voles eating the rotten duck. I have caught Marten with a shrew in it's mouth while it was inside my box. So I know it happens. The voles/shrews find a rotten duck at -30 below zero in a few days at most. 6 foot off the ground too. Amazing they can smell it out and they start under the snow and find it anyway. Ducks rule. My trapping partner says the best bait I make is when I throw up at least 5 times while checking the tainted duck bag. Perfect he says and we freeze it like that. Just how we do it in Alaska. Hope it helps you.

LOL! Thats good advice and good for a laugh. Here in Wyoming we are not allowed to use any part of a game animal so ducks/ waterfowl are out but I bet pigeons may do the trick. So to all of you that gave advice on this subject I thank all of you very much! I took a short trip to the Bridger forest and set traps for marten. I ended up using what I had here at home. I also used several different lures along with the bait. I had a great adventurous time and saw alot of nice elk and moose. I also found out that you have to have marten to catch marten. I did not have any to catch there. I should have done a bit more home work to see if they were there. The local deer hunters there said they had never seen any and some even asked what they were? My next article in the Fur Taker will be the whole story. Thankyou again every one!!! I do plan on another trip elsewhere.

I used to collect roadkill feral pigeons whenever I'd visit my hometown and take them up north for sable bait, multiple times, and it was probably the most ignored bait of everything I've tried. Their meat and skin is extremely lean and their feathers are powdery rather than greasy, and they don't have much smell, so they're next to useless in cold weather. I think I caught one squirrel on a pigeon chopped in half, but it was probably attracted to the grain in its crop. Eventually I just gave up the idea. I took a few feral pigeons to a small bait pile near a couple of marten boxes here in Southern Siberia last winter, and only mice were interested. I think later in March, when it got warmer, a marten chewed on one of them, but didn't really eat it. Parchment paper with brownie crumbs stuck to it definitely attracted MUCH more attention from the marten

I, too, have tried pigeons for bait just over the hill in Idaho. For a couple weeks in November in cubby boxes. I think I got a pack rat and a magpie. Not too impressed. I think dirty socks would be better.

Jack

Marten seem to love robbing the apples out of deer bait piles in the UP. I switched from beaver meat over to Mcintosh apples. Mcintosh are soft fleshed and I rub/mash half the apple on the tree bark for scent and throw the other half in the back of the box. (I still use a loud call lure to get them in close). It has worked well and a bag of apples is much easier/quicker to handle than a bucket of frozen beaver meat.

for me the bait is secondary to the lure....marten seem to eat any kind of meat they find

I think a lot of that (what works for bait) is due to where you are. My experience in SE is that deer scraps are about useless, beaver works okay, but the best by far is waterfowl and grouse scraps; slightly ripe even better.
I imagine that food sources in SE during the winter are much more readily available than in the interior.

Marten aren't hard to trap if they're around, I usually use beaver or muskrat, but I've caught them using fish heads, chicken eggs, bacon grease, the bone from a t-bone, fish oil, a piece of a red handkerchief, and of course the old empty box when I forgot bait, and they got curious about the box anyways lol

Anything but raccoon.

White 17 caught one using a chocolate chip cookie.

There's so many around here that they're almost a nuisance. They've chewed a hole into the bottom corner of my cabin door, and if I set a 120 behind that hole, it'll catch 1 or 2 every day