If you are trapping for marten and dont have any beaver meat for bait, what do you use for youre next choice? Thanks!

grouse > rabbit > duck > ... > squirrel > .... > salted fish > burnt moose hide > ... > dirty bait-soaked glove

What Tatiana listed plus table scraps and fish scraps from processing.

Blueberry jam, or any jam works. anis oil, paddle fish oil, old seal oil, sardines, fish sauce, and the list goes on. Just about anything will work. Sometimes something new, that the marten has never smelled before will attract them. good luck

Thanks everyone!

Fish has always worked great for me especially if it's a little green. Grouse and duck carcasses work good too with a dab of lure. I saw a guy using those little cans of cat food with a hole drilled through it to run the wire, not sure how successful he was with it.

Any good sized chunk of meat that creates lots of activity around the set will work.

My first fisher was caught with a piece of squirrel hide that I tanned with the cheap orange bottle stuff. I just dabbed some marten lure in the fur. Just about anything should do. When my coworker had a line up north, all he used was fish guts in his marten sets.

Have used suet successfully when out of beaver meat.

Great info everyone thanks much!

I've used ground squirrels, whole or halved, bobcat meat, cougar meat, deer and elk meat scraps and beef scraps from a butcher shop, and skinned marten carcasses. Never had any luck with raspberry or strawberry jam, but back when I tried that I had no other bait and I had never caught a marten, while I set on marten tracks I did not choose good areas (out of a lack of knowledge) and never seen tracks come back through those spots while I had traps set there.

I use fish. last season I found out marten cant pass up bear meat

Ryan, have you used bear meat for wolverines much?

yes. for wolves too. I found that after a fall bear hunt the wolves or wolverine would stick around until the carcass was gone so i started taking meat for bait.

Good to know. Thanks. Black and brown bears? Or one or the other.. I have some bear fat/scraps/bones for this year.

As for marten attractants I've just used ptarmigan wings/carcasses and some anise/berry/skunky lure.

But admittedly catch them in my 330s more often than not.

Caught a marten on a chocolate chip cookie once.

My friend, the late Ben Hopson Jr, of Anaktuvuk Pass, in his never-ending (and sometimes futile...!) quest to try to drum into my brain some traditional ways to catch wolves in open country, introduced me to tainted grizzly fat as a premium wolf attractant.

Always experimenting, I tried it as well for marten and had some luck. I assume that black bear fat would also work.

Pete

A piece of tainted bear fat the size of your thumb best marten bait I ever used.

Chocolate chip cookies never made it to be bait with me, What a waste

Seal oil and jam helped back when I was seriously trapping. A visual is a good addition.

Get on a set of marten tracks and follow them. They'll go to and investigate any and all leaning poles. It's a way (underneath the leaning pole) for them to get access beneath the snow. Just the leaning pole, with no bait, is an attractant.

Jack

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, 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