Cool to see how many people got their first kit from their family. How many of you have gotten to pass the buck to your own children?


So you also started thanks to your parents?

I still have the 1.5 longspring and will pass it along to one of my daughters.

ol' dad

Nothing,trapped on foot as a kid with some traps I found in the basement,and some wire that I made snares out of.

Same at around 8... Added a few just scrounging around.. At 18 I got a $700 fur check with the like 18 traps I had by then and spent that entire fur check on traps...

Local general store had some #1 longsprings hanging on the wall, bought 2 if I recall , don't remember the price, walked to the pond and actually caught a muskrat, lol
This was pre body-grip days...

not much
wife was homeschooling the 3 kids and I was the only income , had to start very small

I think I started with 6 DP and 3 1.75 and some lure a shovel and home made 3/8 rebar stakes
doubled it the next year
added a little at time after that

I was 10 and a neighbor gave me 4 1 long springs to trapp pocket gophers. That fall we ordered a dozen from Sears and Robuck and with postage it may have been $10. This was 1957. That was my birthday and Christmas presents. I mowed hay and got enough money to buy a $5 single speed used bike and I was a long liner. Tails were .25 each and many of the farmers gave me an extra nickle or even a dime. Most profitable (on a percentage basis) line I ever ran. Did it for 4 years and then moved from home to be on my own working on a dairy farm.

Bryce

Bought 3 bridger 1.5s and I was gifted 1 used dp and I set and ran a line of traps for my uncle but they were his traps. Started to realize I really liked trapping so I spent about 200 my first year and that gave me an amazing start and it kept me busy.

FishingHoleFinder my great grand daughter just turned two. Couple years I will take her. Had 6 grandkids tagging along for a few days this year. Sending fur off to be tanned so they each can have one.

Heres a picture of my great grand daughters dad a few years ago




Here he is a few years later



Here is my great grand daughter this summer

Bought a 110 coni. Can’t remember what I paid for it

Caught a small female fisher. Sold it for 250$

Had to split it with my buddy cuz his dad skinned it for me

Spent the 125$ on traps and was off to races,,

12 yrs old

I was given 5-6? #1 longsprings from one of my uncles in the summer of 1955, I was 8 years old by season start and I walked 1 mile to 2 miles depending where I was trapping to get to the ditches or creek where I knew there were rats. Season opened on Thanksgiving Day and back then, things were already froze-up so I learned to catch rats under ice with foothold traps on my own! Nobody said put the trap here or there, I learned alone! I wore the old 5-buckles and had my Boy Scout hatchet for cutting holes in the ice because all trapping was under ice. If the weather was real bad, Ma would stop fixing supper and come pick me up in the old 1950 Oldsmobile for a ride home. I shipped rats about every Saturday down at the Sears & Roebuck Store downtown to Taylors.

Zero investment when I started 70 years ago!

I think I spent about $50. Got some traps, sifter, bait and lure. End of season I bought some fur handling stuff and probably spent a couple hundred.

The second year was a lot more because I bought about 4 dozen MB 450’s.

I since have stopped keeping record, because I don’t know or care to know. Because I’m not getting any ROI. So it doesn’t matter.

Got a couple of Victor #0 LS for my birthday and was expected to trap pocket gophers on our farm. My cousin showed me how to set them and gradually caught enough gophers to buy a few more traps. By the end of the summer I had saved up enough to buy a new bicycle so I could expand my operation. One of my neighbors was trapping muskrat and showed me how easy they could be to catch. Things spiraled down from there.

$3.00 for a license. Neighbor gave me six #1 victor long springs, 3 stretchers. That was it.

I was 12 when I got started. An old timer gave me some snares and I got my grandfather's #1 longsprings. My first season I snared a fox and I caught a mink. That's is when fur was good money. That money i bought 2 dozen coil springs and a dozen snares and still had money left. Those were good years.

I went with my old man from as far back as I can remember and then some. When I was able to set traps myself along side him he gave me some. When I sold my first furs couple coon and muskrats I bought 1.5 dukes and some of sunderlands lures local fur buyer back then. Still have a bunch of the old man’s traps that just hang up for memory’s and a couple 330s I still use to this day.

I spent 50 bucks to get a few traps. After that I did everything on my own. Even now I have only spent $200 on traps and the gas to get to the trapline. You do t need to spend a lot to have fun.

As with others I found a crate of traps stuffed under the house that belonged to my Dad. He hadn't trapped in years, but I got him restarted.
First catch was coyote. Set the trails around a deer, a cougar had killed. Caught the coyote and a bobcat. To this day that is the biggest coyote I ever caught. 58 years ago.

My best buddy Archie showed up at the house one day with two #1 victor long springs. We set them at a local pond and after two days caught a muskrat and had one wrung out. Didn't have any idea how to skin it so his mom took us to a fur buyer that bought the muskrat. We bought a new 1 1/2 vic coil with that money and a can of sardines. Set that trap and caught a coon. Sold that coon and bought more traps. About the third time we brought our animals in the round to the buyer he said "why don't you kids go out back and my boys will show you how to skin critters".
So my buddies mom spent an hour with us out in this old shack were two guys spent their nights skinning for the local buyer. It all snow balled after that and turned into one of my passions in life. I believe that was around 1975
So I spent zero money to start but my whole lifetime learning.

I can't remember the cost of a cage trap in the early 80's but probably about $25. Discovered that the local hardware store sold foot traps and bought a half dozen for my second season. Those six probably cost about the same as the cage trap.