Well a couple of days ago I happened to be heading to school and darn near squealed my tires for stopping as fast as I did. I saw what looked like someone had thrown away an outdoor store! This goes toward my "camping with no budget" listing of garbage finds from heaven for sure! In it was :
a decent tent,
a Crossman Air Rifle,
3 fishing poles with reels and two without,
A base unit CB Radio,
a huge ball of jute twine,
A Lantern style flashlight that worked by just putting the bulb back in,
a set of antlers I will no doubt use to make buttons, knife handles and other assorted items,
A tackle box with a decent assortment of old fishing gear in it,
and Finally some really decent arrow making materials !
Anyway I brought it all home, the poles are in great shape, one is a big game fishing rig for fishing the great lakes (now I have to make a trip to lake Ontario!) I plugged in the CB unit and it transmits and recieves, I just need an antenna and some cable. The air rifle needed a rivet to re-attach the pump piston to the forearm/lever and the bbs loading gate is a piece of tape but it shoots and has good compression! All in all a good rifle for free..
The tent needs stakes and the fishing reels could do with some lubrication and a change of line but all in all, everything works and it all came from what others threw away. Earlier this year I got a whole set of files, a plane (woodworking, not flying) and a nice (if beat up) Camillus pocket knife, also found a decent hatchet head in the same pile of junk.
A guy down the road picked up a Winchester Model 1300 12 ga from the trash with a cracked stock. With the addition of a hunk of sheet brass wrapped around the grip of the shotgun (where the crack was) , glued and screwed down, he ended up with a really good shotgun...again from the trash! I personally have intercepted a 22 rifle being thrown away and found a decent 12 ga single barrel shotgun in the trash.
All this for free. People will throw away just about anything and if someone has a mind to, they can equip themselves for the outdoors more than adiquately with a few key investments, some igenuity and a sharp eye on trash day
