What to use to dye a trap?

[RUGER]

What is the best thing to use when you dye your trap?

What is your best recipie for actually doing it?
How long, how much etc?

 

[TN Song Dog]

I used the logwood powder this past year. It seemed to work well, 1 bag in 4 gallons of water.

I honestly may skip dye for this Fall... just clean up everything really well and then dip in pure wax. Not sure on that yet, but would speed things up if no change in results.

 

[RUGER]

About half my traps haven't even been in the ground yet. Just boiled / washed and waxed.
The other have have been but only a few have caught anything.
I might not dye the half that I have used either.... dunno really.

 

[Hunt 365]

An old timer told me to soak them in a bucket with water and brown leaves. He said oak is the best. The tannic acid will dye the trap

 

[TnKen]

When I was a kid we used walnuts that still had the green soft outer hull. Put them in water with the traps and boiled them.
Dyed our hands pretty good to when we picked up the walnuts

 

[Dean Parisian]

I have a great many friends and clients in the fur business across the country. Some are trappers, trap manufacturers, trap designers, fur buyers, just a broad spectrum. The top trappers I know personally don't mind a canine trap not being dyed right off the bat. They do need to be free from grease and any odor.

Let air and water work on the metal for a bit and any dye you use will adhere better with wax.

Just my two cents. I have been catching fox for over 40 years and coyotes about that long. Clean and odor free is best. If the trap is covered properly an animal won't see it anyway.

 

[shoningram]

The first year I don't use anything. This allows a little adhesion for the next year. I have a walnut tree behind the house. I boil up some and throw my traps in. That's about it. People make it a lot harder than it is IMO.