Paint or dye?

[tryinhard]

My tub of logwood dye got spilled over the summer so I've either got to buy more or paint my footholds. What's everyone's thoughts & opinions on painting traps? I've always dyed mine with logwood dye. Wondering about the durability of the paint.

[krank]

Walnut hulls....

[tjm]

Walnut or maple leaves (I'm betting oak&elm also) will either do a first rate job of tannin treatment, I gather them by pruning just around the yard every spring just after full leaf out but before the leaves are fully grown.
I'd rather leave my traps rusted than to paint them, rust will stop and form a coating if left alone, but under paint it will keep eating at the steel.
I tried that "logwood" powder once and it was a disaster, MTP brand. I had a few bags of that and gave the rest away. Now I know why some people say don't dye.

[krank]

Walnut hulls work like candy and they are everywhere. Heres one for you. I was reading my 1915 Fur Fish and Game and there was a guy up North that sunk all his traps in the lake during the off season. He said if they lay in mud they would rust but on gravel or leaves they keep fine.

[tjm]

tannin in hulls, tannin in leaves, the muck in a slough or pond will be tannin if it's leaf rot; I have known a few trappers that mucked the traps in over the summer and they had black slick traps come fall. You might remember a fellow on here a few years ago that was trapping a blackwater river in Georgia or someplace and said his traps turned black from the river water? Those rivers are high in tannic acid from the Spanish moss and tree leaves falling in them. wisrag reiswag or something like that.

[krank]

WE got old coal dumps and they are full of oak leaves. My buddy wanted to build a fishing pond in one of them. I cracked an egg in the water and let him watch it slowly solidify and told him fish don't thrive in that.