I have 6 marten sets out with 110s in homemade plastic boxes. I had three of them investigated and one of them pee'd in the snow at the entrance. I'm not sure whether to be offended or excited .

I don't have any lure on the set, I just have a piece of carp and a piece of muskrat in each set.

Should I just give em some time or do I need to change things up a bit.

This is my first attempt for martin so any advice would be great. Thanks advanced

I am fairly certain they are martin tracks. It is hard to tell on the log for sure because it was fluffy snow, but the tracks leading to the log were like 50 cent pieces laid next to each other and off set.

Whatever it was went to both ends of the box (mesh on one end) and pee'd in the snow on the trap side and left. I have trail camera pics of a marten hitting my bear bait in the fall less than 50 yards from this trap site. I will take some pictures of the sets next time I check which will be either wed or thurs night.

Here is a picture of a marten on my bear bait.



P.S. the marten is digging up a log I was dumping raspberry jam and glaze on for the bear to lick.

i would say he wanted the bait but felt unsafe (with good reson) to go through the trap,could be a lot of reasons,trigger placement ect. I would try a foot hold instead of a 110 and see how that works i not try a little bigger box with a 160 if you use a lurei would use gusto!

hope this helps

Ok I finally connected, actually twice.

I had three traps that had been tipped down but didn't fire. So I spread the triggers a little wider to give them more room and preset the trigger a little to let the triggers move a little before they fired.

The first marten I caught hung too close to the ground and was stolen by another marten and according to the tracks it was stashed under a log. I tried to dig it up but couldn't find it.

The second one was a female in good shape and hadn't been hanging long.

In your opinions are 110s big enough or would 160s be better.

I personally use 160's and number 1 longsprings.I have caught several marten in 110's but 160 work a whole lot better. I usually pre bait the area Im trapping so when the season starts the martens know where to come and I don't have to wait long.
Good luck

160s holy cow. why? I have caught at least 50 marten in 110s and never had 1 escape. I think that is over kill.

I agree. I have caught many marten in 110's and had no problem its just i like 160's better just in case something bigger comes.But yes 110's will work just fine

I was just thinking about 160s because a bigger box might make em more likely to enter. I guess you could build a bigger box and set a 110 to the top with some blocking below.

DT7, where at in wyoming are you? I was born and raised there trapping, I dont think anyone is in my old areas, so I might be able to help you out I trapped alot of marten in wyoming and the only larger animal I ever caught in a marten set was a bobcat, and 160's aint gonna work on that, when I moved to montana I went to 120's because of fisher and I am glad I did. If your wanting to catch the ocasional bobcat use some #2's on a pole set. Just my 2 cents.

I have always used 120's for marten and have seldom ever had a refusal because of box size. A 120 box opening is quite large for a marten IMO. Now days I use Belisle 120 mag as they are legal for fisher as well as marten here in Canada. They are great on fisher and I have never noticed any significant refusals by fisher entering the 120 size box either.I also used a pan trap with trap set very close to the bait in a relatively deep box (12-14" with the slots to within 6" of the back of the box).

marten are the most un trap shy animals I know of. I mean if they will step on a pan of a long spring on a running pole why would they shy from anything unless they are missing a toe or something. I caught 1 last week that had a fresh toe missing and he didn't have any problem running the pole and sticking his head into a flower pot. I think you are over estimating them.

K I S S. I should have told my self this a lot when I started trapping marten.

Thanks for the help guys,

I will be checking again tonight if I can make it up there, we are getting dumped on.

well he will be back almost every time i get fisher or marten seems like they come to the box and then the next day they are in it.I use 120's this country got new dumb human laws that are just damaging the pelts.To be legal on fisher i am using 5 in savagueas and every one just about pinched in half hate this, if stuff has been killed for 20 yrs and every trap past for marten then whats the trouble.Killing is killing does it really matter if it took 25 seconds to quit twitching or 15?
Only in Canada

The marten digging at the log where you had raspbeery jam (missed this in my first viewing) indicates to me that you should use it for bait. I actually use a lure for marten which has raspbeery in it. What was your bait? I use beaver mostly and on occassion deer or moose scraps and get very few, if any, refusals.

I have heard of guys using strawberry jam as a marten bait.

Beaver meat is very good also!

I'm using muskrat and carp for bait with no lure. I might have to add some jam also.

I tried to check traps last night and I wasn't able to make it to the upper traps. I only have a four wheeler and the snow was just too deep even with chains on. I will have to borrow a snowmachine to check or snowshoe three miles .

Well I just snowshoe'd in to pull my upper traps and had another refusal at the same set that got pee'd on.

There was enough snow on the box that the opening was covered. According to the tracks a bigger male marten exposed both ends but didn't commit.

If I can round up a snowmachine I want to reset that spot again with some different bait and some lure.

Thanks for the help guys, I will get it figured out eventually.

I will have refusals at boxes if the martin are well fed. They will check it out but not commit.

What I do is make a set that will produce by curiousity. I use a #1 or 1 1/2ls and place it on a limb cut off around 8 inches from the trunk of the tree around 3-4 feet off the ground. I then hang a piece of bait so it is about 4" in front of and 6-8" above.

when they check it out they have to step on the pan.

If you use a duck head and place the trap around 2 feet off the ground it will also pick up lynx but you need to use extension chain to secure the trap.