A while back i decided to make a crayfish/eel trap of only natural materials without the use of string or wire. i have in the past made eel traps of hazel but i found it not pliable enough for the fine work needed,and as there are no willows around here i wondered what our ancestors would have used,and what was abundant around here at the source of the river Wyle in the shadow of the white sheet neolithic camp.i have from time to time found beautiful flint tools around here whilst out walking or shooting. after some thought i decided to try ,of all things brambles! i gathered a load of them,and i found that a good pair of welding gloves helped with the thorns.some of the bramble runners were nearly 20 feet long. having gathered enough for the job ,i decided that a former,ie some thing to use to weave over ,would help in keeping the trap a good symmetrical and even shape,ime sure a log would have done the trick,but i cheated and used a length of drainage pipe.having gathered the ends together it was just a matter of spreading the upright sticks evenly.in order to facilitate an easy job not having hands full of thorns i used a 4000 year old flint 'thumb scraper' to scrape the thorns off.it worked really well. next was to start the weave,which really was easy once i had worked out that the brambles bent so much easier once they were twisted! heres a pic and heres a pic of the body of the trap at 3/4 completion! and here my trusty assistant jack holds the completed body of the trap! but how to get the crayfish or eels to stay trapped eh? i hear you say! well next is to fabricate a funnel with a hole in it to sit in the entrance of the trap! this way the crayfish can enter but canot get out!heres a pic of the funnel: next i needed a way to affix a peg or weightlto keep the trap in place so a simple loop was woven into the body of the trapp and then 2 loops were added to facilitate keeping the cone in place! once the loops were added the cone was fitted and a stick simply pushed through: and here it is the completed crayfish trap! took about 6 hours to make in all and cost nothing at all and is i believe the answer to a problem of how to catch crayfish eels and fish the same as our ancestors would have! hope you are inspired to have a go! thanks for looking.
ok that's pretty cool. Hey, so you're a basket weaver now? =P That trap looks excellent, it's a fair bit of work, too. My only concern is the entry hole, I can't really tell from your photos, but is it wide enough? I am thinking about big old fat Louisiana craw dads and eels, mind.
i did enlarge the hole a bit ,this trap managed over £700 worth of crayfish in its lifetime of a year. still got the old thumb scraper flint tool here somewhere will post a pic if yer intrested. ime no basket weaver mind,i just love to make stuff,especially paleo stuff,we are surrounded by flint here and a neolithic camp less than half a mile from me ,i grabbed a couple of nice bits of flint today and will give knapping a go!
hah! That's fantastic! And sure, I am always interested in seeing some old tools and such, if it isn't too much trouble. I just made a test basket last week to hone my skills a bit and used 10 spokes with a double weaver technique and it turned out well enough.
heres the thumb scraper i found it has been dated by the museum to around 3500BC. i found it in a field next to my home.
