Old hoes at garage sales for a dollar or two can be cut down and shaped for your new trappers trowel or hook. Handles on any old broken shovel for fifty cents can be your new "nose tapper" ot walking stick

This pic shows three very important trapping items that I don’t have more than $10 in combined.
From left to right…crockpot, smart cooker crockpot, and a large canner.




The small crockpot I got cheap at a garage sale and I make small batches of waxed dirt in that. Can process several gallons in garage while I am doing other stuff in there during off season.

The smart cooker crockpot also a garage sale find. It is my trap waxer. No flame, melts wax well at a safe temp, and holds a couple #3 bridgers or 3-4 DPs at a time. Does an awesome job of waxing traps.

The old canner is for boiling and dying over an open wood fire. Walnut hulls are natural, free for the picking, and make a great trap dye. This was a garage sale find too.

Other inexpensive items to consider…
When I blew my shoulder out skinning coyotes the hard way, my wife said no more and we went to harbor freight and got an inexpensive electric hoist. A little engineering and I was able to bolt it to the ceiling near my garage door opener so I could plug it into the ceiling outlet.
Add a chain gambrel and viola, push button easing coyotes and coons up, easy peasy.
But what about the bottom end, how to make it a hide puller? How to anchor the other end of animal/hide down? Didn’t want to drill my floor and add a connection, but you could do that.
I made a “movable” weight instead from an old moving dolly, cheap sand bags. And to connect hides I added two threaded hooks and some trap chain with inexpensive locking pliers on end to clamp onto legs of hides. Those pliers were only about $10 in cheap tool bins at tractor supply store. Viola! Nice lower anchor that’s adjustable for skinning.

I don’t own a welder. Made all of my own rebar stakes with rebar on sale or scrap lengths. An appropriately sized nut slipped over one end and beat it to flatten it to hold securely to the rebar. These are my trap stakes. Cross stake for coyotes.
I made about a hundred of these but didn’t crank them out or buy materials all at once. A little here, a little there, and some patience and persistence you can accumulate quite a few over time to save $.




Cross stake for coyotes. The nuts have never failed and I have about a hundred of these made up.

I use plastic PB jars to freeze mice I catch in the house/barn to use on the trap line and for catfishing.

You can scrounge pieces of rebar for stakes etc from construction sites and road work.

An old paint roller frame can be modified into a trapping hook that screws onto an extension handle.

Those super thin plastic bags from the produce dept are excellent for trap covers to keep crud out from under the pans.

Save ALL bladder urine when skinning. Most bobcats have a full bladder. Many foxes do too.

I use wide mouth Mayo jugs from local Diner or Hogie Shop to carry peat moss, dry dirt, haylage & mulched leaves, for trap covering. Very durable.




25 cent yard sale Garden Hoe made into a Hook for pickup bed to reach things, hook for dying traps, a hook for trapping.

jabJE. Neat idea. How much total weight in bags.?
Thanks

Great thread. Those of you close to the Great Lakes or Ocean - stop by the marina when the fish are hammering and go to the cleaning station. You can easily get a hundred pounds of salmon heads (or ocean fish) and skeletons in a couple of hours. One day would usually be enough bait to get me through an entire season.

Those are #75 each sand bags for traction I think for back of a truck. Put on as many as you need to the sled. When I’m done skinning I just kick it over out of the way and raise the hoist gambrel up high out of way and back my truck in for the night.

Thanks

This is good stuff. Thought I would contribute as a cash-poor trapper::

Pretty sure most of us have made a few sifters. I used to make them out of wood but I like using these cans more nowadays.. The higher edges are less apt to spill unsifted materials over the sides and this is more compact. I do my traplines on foot so space and weight is critical.





Just split a green chunk of mountain mahogany and used a drill and some wire to attach everything.

Very cool sifter! I think trappers have got to be some of the most creative people I have ever met.
Jim

GOT BAIT?

Go to local Deer/Elk processor and ask for Deer Dust. This is stuff they throw away from band saw. $Free$
As saw dust is to a wood saw, deer dust is to bandsaw.

Ready to use or ready to add your special ingredient(s).

Fry that up for lunch.

Brake rotors make good drowner weights. Almost any auto shop will give them to you.

Between the crock pots and the sandbag dolly base, those are some good posts!

Make patties and deep fry em in your sardine oil, and you have something special. Sardust patties.

As far as cheap DP bait goes, a guy can get a barrel of bear bait for around 70.00-80.00$.

I've found the more financially stable I am through life, the more my trapline benefits.

I call mine the fat guy stick. Way easier than climbing into the truck bed.