Out of all of the animals that I pursue on the trapline, fishers may be the most fascinating. It’s widely understood that fishers prefer thick coniferous or hardwood forests, but they’ve slowly made their way into habitats once considered unappealing to them. They are now common in farmland in Minnesota, Wisconsin and even my adopted home state of North Dakota.
Each state has their own rules and regulations regarding fisher trapping techniques. Here in North Dakota, we can use snares, body grips or footholds. The season is short at only seven days, opening around the end of November. There is a small but devoted clan of fisher trappers, and each uses slightly different techniques to hang their tag on the elusive long-tailed critters.
LOCATION
No matter how terrific of a set a trapper uses, it doesn’t trump location. Even without conifers, clear-cuts or dense forests, there are specific habitat preferences that fishers use in our neck of
