Trappers,

Below you will see a spaghetti sauce jar, a jam jar and a yeast jar. Most of my young adult life I was extremely wasteful in terms of repurposing things like the jars. I always wondered why we made so much trash and it was because we were living wrong. We have kept our jars for years now and they have come in great use. The 2nd picture shows wool that I took from our wall insulation just to show how you could use them. You could put lure, bait, pencils, trap rings, j hooks, swivels, fish hooks, whatever you want in there for all your trapping needs. It has saved us a ton of money over the years and helps your dollar go further for you and your family. If anybody else other tips or tricks like this, I would love to hear them as Im sure other trappers would too.

You can put all your sticks to jam under your pan in them.

Turd furgeson

I eat a lot of sardines to keep my cholesterol in check
I save all the oil from the sardines i eat every day and keep it in the freezer.
By trapping season I have 5 or 6 coffee jars full of prime smelling fish oil for use as is or for a base for other lure formulae.

I also do the same with the oil from canned salmon,and keep a separate container in the freezer for oil that I fry fish in.
I like it to have that strong fishy smell,I dont like it to go rancid over the summer-that is the reason I keep it in the freezer.

Dollar general is a great place to look for cheap DP bait. (Cat food, molasses, sardines, jello). Save old containers to mix and store your bait. I make all my own DP bait and don’t have more than $10 in to make about 2 gallons,



I buy a roll of waxed paper there also, cut it into seactions appropriate size for trap covers. Put a bunch of precut sections into a single ziplock bag.
Get other fur stuff there too like cheap dish soap for washing coyotes, back in laundry section they have cheap wooden clothes pins. I use those a lot on my wire stretchers to keep the edges and ends nest and tidy while drying.
Grab a box of twenty mule team borax while you are there too. Keep coyote and cat bellies nice and white.
I save and rinse out all of my empty plastic milk jugs. Store a gallon of sifted waxed dirt in each and east to carry.
Save bacon grease. Boco mentioned saving sardine oil. Save tuna oil too.
Garage sales are good places to find old carbon steel knives. Much easier to sharpen for skinning than stainless knives. Look for sharpeners and eve meat grinders too. Don’t forget hair combs that can work as fur combs to get burrs out. Get em for a bargain.
Pick up every free washer I find on road. Lots of those turned into beaver snare locks over the years for my line.
Jim

Hoping this thread keeps going.

Garage sales can be a gold mind. Knives, garden tools, kneeling pads, life jackets and warm winter clothing can be had for pennies on the dollar. With a little imagination you can convert one tool to make others.

I use peanut butter jars for dry bait and ketchup or any other squirt bottle for fish and shellfish oil.

If you start making your own baits and lures, or wine lol, you become a jar hoarding junkie lol. Ive got jars, wine bottles, milk jugs, basically anything that will hold liquid squirreled away all over the place. Only thing I dont save is skinny mouth lure bottles. Just hate fooling with them trying to put lure in.

Hey MattLA, you ever tried pressure canned possum meat in a leftover Smuckers jar?? Poor mans filet mignon

Pick up coyote or bobcat scat and put in a container with glycerin. Mix it up to a paste. When you have about a pint of this paste add 4 oz of your favorite gland lure or call lure.

Makes your lure go further. You now have 1.25 pints of a very good lure with an odor that can't be bought.

I like it, thanks.

Have found that the 16 oz PB jars are pretty good for holding the smaller 2 & 4 oz jars for both using on the line and when sending out via USPS run the tape around your lure andcthe PB jar double sealed no odor escapes

I clean out mayo and m whip containers for homemade bait, and/or anything else. I trap using a backpack, I thought about putting some cover dirt in some and other things that I use in small quantities to get just a few sets done on a walk.

A square plastic 2# salted peanut jar holds the perfect amount of waxed dirt for a K9 set...under and over the trap. I keep 4 of them filled up, and refill them out of a 5gal bucket with a lid. Wide mouth, and easy to use.

Yukonal I used some of those peanut containers for dry waxed dirt this season. Couple in this picture on left. Rest are an assortment of milk and unsweetened tea containers, plus a couple ice cream buckets too. All washed and filled with waxed dirt and ready to go.

There are also old bleached cow bones in here for visuals at coyote sets. Picked those up from a friend, who picked them up from a pasture. Good stuff and can be reused if not too badly chewed up after catches.

Another tip for skimper and savers. I was tired of stuff sliding all over in bed of my truck so I made this divider setup from old 2x6 deck boards we had in pile out back. Cut the cross members to fit the grooves in bed of the truck, and a couple runners down middle set just wide enough to hold buckets from sliding around. Boards were old and used, and only eight screw holding this together so I can take it apart and remove it after season.

Old carpenter aprons bolted to a bucket make a rice way to keep bait and lure on outside, traps and tools clean on inside.

A clean ice cream or similar low square pail will hold urine and oil containers well. Note the small plastic peanut butter jar of homemade bait in there too.

Off to right that year I made a wood box from scrap lumber to hold rebar stakes and snare wire supports.

I make earth anchors out of 1/2" pipe with a curly q welded to it made of #9 wire.

Sorry guys, low cost trapping stuff is a passion of mine. Whoever got this thread started, got me all fired up to share.

Carp. Fun to catch in summer. I can’t tell you how many coon, mink, fox, cats, badger, and coyotes I’ve caught off of chopped up frozen carp. Very low cost bait.

Can salt it to preserve it or freeze it fresh.
Old ice cream pails hold a nice amount for thawing and setting as you go.