curiousity got me after reading the other post. Yrs ago I use to go to helfrich place before they vanished. Hadnt been for more than 20 yrs. Went today to try to get pics to show you all but couldnt find the right road and asked people my age and nobody remembered the place. Its been almost 40 yrs. Anybody have an old catalog with mailing address on it? Thanks wrr. If you could pass it on ill go again and try to get pics.

I have a couple of his books it may be in one of them I will check and let you know

Helfrich's
Route.1 C.R. 15
Fredricktown, OH 43019

On page 59 of his book Profitable Fox Trapping his address is listed as Rt 1 Fredericktown OH 43019

Thx I asked ppl that bot nobody refers to Rd now. Thx

That should work,thx......hope its still standing...could be farmground now

Welcome, Building might be gone, but one thing you can do is go to the county courthouse, pull up his name in the grantee or grantor deed records, and run the property address up to present day.

Just follow the money....(property tax money) Lol.

Seems like Helfrich got in trouble when he got a lot of irons in the fire.... Started making traps in addition to his lures and books, then opened up his western office in Texas to distribute to the western states...Maybe tried to get to big, to fast? ...Who knows.


He was a hero to many a up and coming trapper in the late 70's and early 80's...Tom Miranda seemed to for a lack of better words, take on Helfrich's role as idol to the young trapper crowd back in '83 to
'87 or so, then Mark June came on just a little later...I really like them all, a trio of good trappers to model your trapping after ...Your mileage may vary on the history of those years, just my observations of that time.

Thought I could drive right to it,I guess after this many yrs my memory has faded.

I was digging through a box of junk a few weeks ago and ran across his old catalogs id saved, my what memory's those brought back. Met in Tn. in '84, yep I thought he walked on water. Know the background story and can't say id vouch for the guy, sure he has his reason's BUT skipping town and ripping everyone off isn't a way to do things! Not if you care about keeping your good name!

nope its not...i know the story too.....seems to run in the family

I thought I met Helfrich in Union City, Tn at the 1982 FTA?....Maybe it was in 84? Cookeville?

He showed up at a district rondy here in the 80s a fella named Tex made his “sod set” demo look pretty foolish. Lmao

I was taken to his place by a man that new him well that lived in the same area of Ohio back in the mid to late 80's.
I remember there was a long gravel lane that went back to his house with a good sized pond off to the left of the lane.The house was an older 2 story farm house.The house was vacant and then off to the right of the lane was his lure n bait shop slash work shop and it was for the most part all empty and vacant too.At the end of the drive out by the road sat a full size Ford 4 wheel drive reg cab truck truck if I remember right.The man that took me told me Jim had went bankrupt and just left the truck to be repossesed.He told me about the same thing that maybe Jim tried to get too big to fast and maybe made some bad decisions.Then I heard later that he moved to Montana ?
I was still pretty much a kid.I had read his articles in FFG and really liked them.I remember it came across like pretty sad to me even though I was not even fully sure what bankrupt meant at that younger age.

house was at the back,,trap supply was back the lane on right,then the new trap shop -mft building was up by the main road.....

I sure liked him , Traps were ahead of his time and lures were good as any back then ,Boda , Helfritch ,Bishop ,Carrol ,Milligan just a few trappin fools.

Thats right I do remeber at least one other building too like you said.
I wish I could have visited while he was still there and while the times were booming.I bet that would have been something.Did you live right in the area while Jim was still there ?
I beleive one of the rivers that he and Carroll both trapped was called the mohican I beleive.I know Carroll had it split up into a cpl sections with the total of the two being over 20 miles.Some cold long days ! No warm pick up truck to jump into.And no thinsulate insulated neoprene waders back then
Only the all rubber kind of waders with not hardly much insulation at all.They just had to make sure they had several layers of clothes and socks I would think.

I second that.I remember back in the early '80's when we had a lot of fox around some of the guys around here really liked his "Spotted Death"'cat lure for fox.At that time lure bottles often came with eye droppers,that bottle was so full of glands the dropper was a joke.Alot of fox went on stretchers around here due to that lure.And I definitely think he didn't get the credit he deserved on trap mechanics.Maybe some of these ideas were floating around before he came along,but he brought them out to the general trapping public along with his own insights in the numerous articles he wrote on the subject.I remember an article in FFG that he wrote about using 11/2 coils for coyotes,that had to be a first!Talk about blasphemy!He used the exact opposite approach to trap sizes than what was and is preached today.Instead of the largest trap,he set the smallest trap modified to catch the big critters.

I still have several bottles of assorted unused bottles of his lures from the 1980's .I guess by now it can be called aged

I live 60 miles from there,I was there during the boom many times because I trapped down that way and I would buy lure there or if I needed something. I used fox lures and masked death. A chubby kid worked in the concrete bldg.....I never ran into other guys there. Then the steel bldg was added .......i had stopped going there.(at that time Coon were bringing 40 on carcass for triples,ab,color,reds 70 or so if memory serves me right.

Jim Helfrich was a big part of my trapping success, his articles and books were written to help you. He is one of the only big-time trappers I ever sent a letter to, and I was in heaven when he replied back with a hand drawn diagram also. His methods really helped me catch raccoons. "Nothing like a greased up pocket set to catch their attention" or something like that he told me. I'm sure there are a lot of guys on this forum who have been through several marriages, bad business decisions or had a house foreclosed on. No point in beating those dead horses as you move on and start over.
If Jim is somewhere here in Montana he would be more than welcome to come to our house for a T-bone dinner.