MARTEN.
To begin with, when trapping for marten, says an Oregon trapper, use only the best traps — No. 1 or 1 1/2 is plenty large enough — in fact, larger traps cannot be used conveniently, for the reason that when the ground is covered with deep snow and your traps are all fastened high up on trees you must set them with your hands. With nothing to rest your trap on except your knee and with fingers like icicles it will require all the strength in your left hand to mash together the spring of a good No. 1 1/2, while with the right you adjust the pan and latch.
Do not fool away your time with a few traps, but of course just how many you can use depends on how thick game is. View out your prospective line during summer time. Some important essentials are: pick out a line in very heavy timber, preferably along some high ridge; work gradually up or down hill and avoid very steep places; a line free from underbrush is desirable unless snow gets deep enough to cover it all up; run your line as near straight as possible; avoid making sharp turns for your blazes will at times be very hard to see owing to snow on the bark of the trees and once off the line it may be hard to find.
MARTEN CAUGHT IN SHELF SET.
Do not make camps too far apart, eight miles is far enough when the snow is soft and deep. Get your traps all strung out before snow comes and have everything ready so as to lighten your work when the time comes, for, even then, it will be hard enough.
Now, in setting traps, you cannot pick out likely places — hollow trees, etc. — do not leave the line even for a few feet to set one in that hollow tree else the trap is apt to be forgotten and lost. Give every tree where a trap is left some mark to indicate its presence.
Use wire staples to fasten traps to the trees and they should be fastened three or four feet above the ground. Set the trap or bend the spring around to fit the curve of the tree. Now drive a 12 penny nail in the tree an inch or so, place the trap so that the cross piece rests flat on the nail and drive two smaller ones between the spring and your trap rests same as if set on the ground. Nail small piece of bait (squirrel, rabbit, or bird is best) eight or ten inches above the trap.
If you desire to shelter the trap, drive a couple of wooden pegs above the bait and lay on a piece of bark or some boughs — this is not necessary if traps are to be looked after regularly, for you can keep the snow brushed off. A large piece of bait is not necessary, but in rebaiting do not remove the old bait, just nail up another. Sometimes I have a half dozen baits by each trap. It is well to try each trap occasionally to see if it will spring with just the right pressure. If the bait is scarce, set the traps any way and you will soon have enough birds and squirrels.
SHELF SET AND FASTENING.
In visiting the line, always make your pack as light as possible, four or five pounds of bait, a hatchet, a few nails and staples and a small Stevens 22 cal. pistol is all you will be apt to need for one hundred traps. If you are a trapper by nature, you will know where to put the traps, close together and where there is a probability of making a catch. Some places I put a trap every fifty yards and some places one-half mile apart. Keep your traps freshly baited and do something with each trap every three or four days, if nothing more than to rub a piece of bacon rind or rabbit entrails from the top of the snow to the bait. A drag is good at times and in some places. Scent is good if bait is frozen.