Make: World’s cheapest fish trap
Pictured to the right is the world’s cheapest fish trap. Click on the image to for a higher resolution shot. I’m sure this has been done before.
It is made from a plastic soda bottle, a couple of push pins, and a bit of fishing line.
(1) Cut off the top of the bottle where the cap screws on.
(2) Cut the bottle in two a couple of inches down from the top of the bottle. You want to make this cut just after the main cylinder of the bottle’s body starts. The one pictured is actually cut too far down the bottle by about an inch. Oops.
(3) Invert the top of the bottle and shove it into the bottom of the bottle. You don’t need to shove it all the way in. As pictured, it just needs to go
(4) Use the push pins to secure the top in the bottom. Wire would work, as well.
(5) Cut some holes in the bottom of the bottle.
(6) Thread the fishing line through the holes and tie.
(7) Throw a few bits of dog food or fish food into the bottle.
(8) Submerge in a lake / stream where there are small fish.
(9) Tie the fishing line to something so your trap doesn’t wash away.
We had fish in our trap within a few minutes. Since it is pretty small, you’ll want to check and empty often. It works because the fish can’t seem to find the hole to swim out, though they will randomly find it every now and then.
If the bait floats, I have found that orienting the trap such that the opening is aimed a bit down works better in that the food floats to the back of the bottle, giving the fish clear line of site from the opening to the food.
If you want to catch larger fish, use a bigger bottle. If you want to catch really large fish, it wouldn’t be hard to build the same kind of a trap out of chicken wire or wire screen. Certainly, there are likely laws governing the use of traps above a certain size.
August 23rd, 2005 at 5:13 pm
This trap works like a peice of junk if you know what i mean? It is not the worlds cheapest trap if you know what i mean? Have any of you heard of okkenoodling, you use your hand and its free if you know what i mean? you know what i mean?
May 28th, 2006 at 9:02 am
yea this works well but i found another way to make it on boys life or sumthin just google how to make a minnow and you’ll find it
May 3rd, 2008 at 2:15 pm
this sucks dude i mean it realy sucks i caught a 2 cm. fish in two days!!
September 7th, 2009 at 2:20 am
Perfect trap. In only an hour I caught about 30 minnows. You need to bait the trap and burley the water around it.