Ways to Make Hunting Pay, Part Two

bobcatIn the previous part of this article, we discussed making money by sharing your lease and considering taxidermy-related items that you can sell. With today’s rising costs of recreational costs, every dime matters. With some imagination and open mindedness, you can find ways to help finance your hunting and outdoor hobbies. Here are a couple more ideas:

Expand your activities. Almost all land in all states offer opportunities to harvest predators by either trapping or hunting. Since most predator’s fur is prime during the winter, this might just give you a chance to hunt them outside of your normal big game hunting seasons. You would be surprised how much cash you can get for a properly skinned coyote, raccoon, fox or opossum. 

You can use eBay, Craigslist or one of the few taxidermy related websites. If you are lucky enough to harvest bobcats, some of those can easily make you $100.00 or more per fur. Some of the western bobcats that are prime can get upwards of $500.00 or more. Think outside of your main animals of interest.

If you don’t own land, look at running a small trapline on public property that you can easily drive to before or after work. Most ditches and culverts are great places to trap predators and you would be surprised how many of these areas are legal to trap, even if it is near towns and cities.

Photography and videography can also help pay some bills. Even if you have no formal training, all you have to do is sign up for a few of the many free classes on the internet. YouTube alone can educate you on how to do professional quality image capturing and editing.

One option is to bait animals to film and photograph. If you put out the correct bait at the correct time, you might be able to study and capture common animals doing uncommon things. Once you start getting a decent collection of images and/or videos, you can start trying to sell them as stock footage to outdoor shows, magazines or outdoor-related websites. Another thing to consider is the possibility that you can get in good with a certain outdoor product company and get free products for contributing video or being a part of their pro-team. You can sell whatever outdoor products you receive from your efforts and you might even get a job out of the deal.  

Another idea is to train your dog or children how to find shed antlers. No matter how small, almost any shed can be sold somewhere. You sell them individually for arts and crafts (check your state laws), or you can make a pile and sell the lot in bulk. Again, the internet has many places for you to sell you wares as long as you are doing it legally. 

When it comes to helping pay for your hunting hobby, the only obstacle is you.