Blue Mountain Marten

[gramps]

Short story is we caught two.
It all happened because of the willingness of a friend and trapper to share his very considerable knowledge.  Some of you know him from the rendezvous...he worked and trapped in Alaska.
So...he and I went for a ride on the snow in the Blues last March.  As we are going along he stopped to point out some tracks as Marten that I thought were made by a tree squirrel.  I have been messing around in the Blues since the early '70's and never knew there were any Marten there.  In several miles we saw 4 or 5 tracks.
Last fall after Elk season we decided to try for some Bobcat, Marten or Fox in this area and ended up catching a nice male and female Marten in the 4300' to 5700' elevation area and also some of the ever present Opossum.  Not much for the time spent, but a good two + weeks none the less.
I don't know how to post a picture from my phone of the trap with Marten, but will if I figure it out.
These both graded as a 1 and the male was 2XL and the female was a large.
Both were amoung the 70% of the Marten at the recent NAFA sale that were bought back, so don't know the value.

[Trapper John]

Nice catch, keep us informed on what they bring.
JC 

[boneaddict]

Nice Gramps!

[Humptulips]

They look very dark.   I think I would have been tempted to keep them for the wall.

[gramps]

I was tempted since I had not seen any up there.  Now that they didn't sell, sure wish I would have kept them.

[Machias]

Nice job on the Martin!!

[wags]

Are you talking about the Blue Mountains in the SE corner of the State? If so that's pretty significant, I read somewhere in the last few years (can't remember if it was a WDFW or USFS report) that marten were extirpated from the Blues. Having worked with both entities in the past it doesn't surprise me that they couldn't find any marten when they did their "research". 

[Woodchuck]

Yes those are the Blues he is talking about. 

[Jonathan_S]

Are you talking about the Blue Mountains in the SE corner of the State? If so that's pretty significant, I read somewhere in the last few years (can't remember if it was a WDFW or USFS report) that marten were extirpated from the Blues. Having worked with both entities in the past it doesn't surprise me that they couldn't find any marten when they did their "research". 

While I hear what you're saying, it's not significant that WDFW and USFS couldn't find marten in the mountains.  They couldn't find a skunk in a perfume shop   

Seriously though, how can they say that Marten are extirpated from a large mountain range?  It would take so much study to verify that, they would never put forth that much effort or money.

[kodiak 907]

Nice Fur!  My grandfather would to tie a live squirrel to a tree branch for marten bait (Alaska 60's-80's).  It worked almost every time!  I dont think that would go over very well down here in WA State They are very smart little critters nice work on catching a couple.