A lot harder today to be a Bobby Smith, sadly. I have a ton of nieces and nephews, no interest at all from them. I came into being the only trapper in my family and it looks like I'll go out that way. Kudos to Bobby!
it is great if it is trapping , and there were probably 99% of kids even back then when the OP was 7 that wouldn't have had the same reaction he did.
for me it was guns an some help from my scout master.
my dad had 1 gun when I was young his deer gun , he hunted 1 week a year really one weekend gun deer opener , he had wanted to go hunting when he was a kid and his mom talked with her brother and when he was 14 he got to go to family deer camp to hunt with uncle Bill.
My grandpa was a city kid only time he used a gun was in the Navy and eventually he came to deer camp a few times borrowing a gun.
My scout master John saw my interest in shooting and encouraged it , Rifle merit badge was one of my first.
by that time dad had his deer gun when I was 11 he bought a 10/22 for me to learn on , and a 20ga for me to deer and bird hunt with he would borrow my other grandpas 12ga for bird hunting for that first year or two.
John had a number of guns all flavors
I ended up working for his construction business
John had about 100 acres that backed up to a huge swamp with a good range and nothing behind it for a few miles.
we could go out and shoot there as we lived in a village.
I got to try all sorts of things shoot all sorts of things rifles , pistols a variety of things
once I could drive I could shoot almost any time I wanted , I could bring guns to work and shoot when I was done for the day.
used the shop at work to build the first kit gun.
I got the old issues of shotgun news when John was done reading them.
dad ended up getting a few more guns and bought me a revolver to fix , I got a numrich catalog sent for from the ad in the shotgun new the mail ordered the parts to fix that revolver.
spend so many hours taking that apart and fitting the springs and testing it.
so it may not be trapping , but maybe you can find something you can pass on , when you see a kid interested.