Survival Hunting

Survival hunting, like survival fishing, is not about the sport of hunting. The whole concept of hunting changes when it means whether you eat or not. Again, as with fishing, I am going to be talking about things that are now illegal. I will not even tell you which of these many methods of taking game for food I have personally tried. I will tell you that I know enough about all of them to tell you that they work. 

First, there is some argument about whether you should use a bow or a gun for most of your hunting. While the bow is silent, many times you need to follow a wounded deer for a mile or more after shooting it. This can cause you to be seen by other people. While the gun does give away your presence, if only shot once it is very difficult to tell exactly where the shot came from. If you are really good with a bow and limit your shots to a distance where you know you will get a good clean hit, a bow is an excellent choice. I use a crossbow, so I have a little advantage in that I have a scope sight on it and tend to be more accurate than I ever was with a compound. I still keep one of my old recurves as a back-up. The down side of a crossbow is that they are noisy and clumsy to carry in the woods. If you are able to sit in one spot they are excellent.  You can even try other methods of hunting. I have taken more than a few rabbits and squirrels with air guns. Air guns have come a long way since the days of my Red Ryder BB gun. Now I will not even look at a air rifle unless it is a single stroke cocking gun with at least 1,000 FPS. Another weapon I have used to kill squirrels with is a slingshot. I have worked with a boomerang and throwing sticks but have never hunted with them. In an emergency, a spear can be used to bring down game, especially small game.  While all of these options are there and should be considered, a firearm is still the best way to procure game for food.

Like I stated, this is not sport hunting. If you see a grouse or a pheasant sitting on the ground, that is the time to shoot it. While when sport hunting that is considered unsportsmanlike, in a survival situation it is considered smart. I would do as much hunting as possible with a .22 rimfire. They make the least noise and you can bring down most food type animals with a .22. Many people will tell you that the .22 is not powerful enough to kill a deer and I will tell them that they are just flat wrong. While you must be closer and be able to place your shot exactly, I know of many deer that were shot with .22s.  However, if you were to try to shoot a black bear or any North American animal larger than a deer, I would not trust the .22 to do the job. I presume that a perfectly placed shot from close range would bring the animals down, but I would not trust it except in dire emergencies. 

I believe that most survival writers lean toward hunting the big game animals too much. I would stay with the rabbit and squirrel sized animals and also the many birds that are large enough to be worth killing and cleaning. All of these can be hunted with the .22 or maybe a .410 shotgun. With the .410 you get a little more noise than the .22 but you get a chance at wing shots if you jump a grouse or pheasant. You can also get slugs for them and some of them will handle a .44 bullet when used as a single shot. With that, the only thing you do not get is a rifled barrel. If I had to pick one gun for all of my hunting I would pick a over and under with a .22 rifle on top and either a .410 or a twenty gauge underneath. With the twenty gauge, you get and excellent deer gun when used with slugs. You also get a gun that is a little better at hitting flying targets. However, that being said, I would still opt for the .410 due to the reduced noise factor. 

You can bait many animals to come to a certain spot on a regular basis. However you need to have what they like to eat for bait. While it is illegal now, I would not hesitate to do it in a survival situation. 

So there you have a few tips on survival hunting. I could write more and have written much more on the subject. However, I like to keep this blog fairly short. My next entry will have to do with the amount of ammo you need to gave on hand. Until then SURVIVE.

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Hunt, Fish, Trap

The three ways to provide meat. First the easiest and best way to procure food is to go for fish. The type of fishing you will do in a survival situation is not anywhere near the type of fishing that is done now for sport. I have never been a true "sport" fisherman. It irritates me when people tell me that I should throw every fish I catch back for the next person. I do catch and release only when I am sure that I can get enough to fill out my bag limit. Say the bag limit on a certain species is five fish. I keep four and then catch and release until I get the one I want to fill out my bag limit. I do not believe in playing catch and release and then going and paying six or eight dollars a pound for fish in the supermarket. I also go after many fish that there are no limit or a very high limit on. Panfish with limits of twenty-five or bullheads and carp with no limits. As I stated in the last post, I have learned how to use even what are considered trash fish and make them not only edible but delicious.

That is only the first thing to remember in a survival situation. You may also do some things that are not legal now. In some states trot lines and limb lines are not legal or you need a special license. In a survival situation, a trot line with a half-dozen hooks on it, set out overnight is an excellent way to provide food. A half-dozen limb lines can do the same thing. the nice thing about these methods in a survival situation is that you can go out after dark and set your lines when no one can see you and you can pick them up before sunrise and still not be seen. Dip nets, gill nets and seines can all be used in a survival situation. I would not use a gill net now a they are not very forgiving of any type of fish. However, I would not hesitate to use one in a survival situation. there are fish traps that you can buy or build. All you need to do is to use a minnow trap as a pattern and make the trap and the entrances bigger to catch bigger fish. Spears are another way to obtain fish. You can wrap twine or vines around your hunting knife to fix it to the end of a long pole and use that in a pinch. 

One thing about every one of these methods, they are all silent. That is why I prefer fishing to hunting, When hunting you are apt to be heard and others may want what you kill. With fishing, by being as careful as possible not to be seen, no one knows what you are doing unless they just happen to stumble on you or your gear. Another silent method of obtaining meat is trapping.

We are not talking about trapping in the way it is understood now. We will not be trapping for furs or for sport. We will be trapping for sustenance. For this type of trapping you can use foot hold traps, body grip traps, snares, cable restraints, deadfalls, pit traps or live box traps. It all depends what you are going to trap. You will not be going after big game like deer or bear, but small game like rabbits and squirrels. You may also want to trap birds like grouse, ducks or geese. There are two animals that are now trapped for their fur that make excellent table fare. These two are beaver and muskrat. When I was a youngster and did a good amount of trapping we used both of these animals for food. They are both vegetarians and both members of the same family as the rabbit and squirrel. While killing a deer or bear sounds much better, remember that you may not have a way to preserve that much meat in a survival situation. To me it makes more sense to catch each days meat as you need it and not have any of it go to waste. If you are fishing and trapping you should be able to keep you and your family in meat on a regular basis. Add to this some wild plants and you can have a fairly good diet.

Here is a tip I give anyone wanting to put together a survival kit. Be sure to include a couple lengths of fishing line in about eight or ten pound test monofilimant. I also suggest that you include a length of fifty pound test.  This fifty pound test would be used in making a snare. For you fishing line you would include several hooks of different sizes and a few split shot. that is all you really need as you can cut a pole near the water and dig bait on the spot. 

Next entry I will take up hunting. Until the SURVIVE and check out:

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