To survive in the wild when SHTF, you have to learn to hunt the most abundant forms of game. This includes rabbits, squirrels, quail, turtle and even the occasional chipmunk, if pickings are slim. One thing is certain: When things start to get ugly, you will need to be able to take whatever game you can, if you expect to be well-fed.
To maximize the benefits of the hunt, here are few things to keep in mind.
Small Game vs. Large Game
Stalking is one of the most effective ways to get squirrel and other small game. Normally, the best time to hunt both is in the early morning, although late evening is good too. Unlike big deer, who will bolt at the slightest noise, small game will hang around a second or two longer. Be ready, though, because they are much faster at the getaway once they decide to take off.
The Best Kill Shot
Unless you want to use the brains for food, the best kill shot for a small animal is a headshot. There are a few good reasons for this.
First, a head shot is a direct kill and won’t damage the hide. Squirrel and rabbit hides can be tanned extremely soft, and they are excellent for boot liners and children’s clothing.
The second reason: It maximizes the amount of usable meat you can harvest from the animal. This also keeps a majority of the long bones in tact. If preserved correctly, the long bones can be used for sewing needles and awls, fish hooks and a variety of other tools preppers need living in the wilderness.
Know What to Keep and What to Discard
Small animals are more susceptible to rabies and other forms of parasites. When you gut the animal, be on the lookout for any indication of illness or disease. If you see anything that looks suspicious, don’t keep the meat. Bury it with the rest of the entrails and make sure it won’t be able to be dug up by another animal looking for food.
If the hide and bones are in good shape, clean them exceptionally well before using them or preserving them.
Do Not Over Harvest
Limit the number of animals you take from one area. One of the best ways to do that is by trapping. Not only does trapping allow you to conserve your ammunition, it also makes sure you take animals from different areas at different times. Set your traps and go about your business.
After a few hours, make your rounds and harvest your rewards. A properly set and bated trap will net animals on a regular basis, if you continue to move and cover them frequently.
Common Sense Rules
No matter where you are or where you hunt, always be aware of your surroundings. Now is the time to take a hunters safety course online so you have a good, working understanding of what is expected of you while you are out in the woods.
A smart hunter knows where to find his prey, but he also knows where his competition is. Make sure you have the advantage by keeping your weapons and traps at the ready.
Good piece for beginning hunters, and good reminders for the seasoned hunter. Thank you!
Don’t you just LOVE all the great tips, tricks, and information we glean from this site?!!!
Here are a few more great tips today, but these are actually posted at BackDoor Survival:
http://www.backdoorsurvival.com/diy-liquid-castile-soap-wonderful
DIY Liquid Castile Soap “Wonderful”
This uses Kirk’s Castile Soap, which I use in my homemade laundry detergent recipe; I get it at China, er, Wal-Mart, about $1.10 a bar (a 3 bar pack, hidden on the lowest shelf with other bar soaps) in my neck of the woods.
Also on today’s blast from BackDoor Survival:
How to Sharpen Razor Blades for the Long Term (hint: use jeans!)
http://www.backdoorsurvival.com/how-to-sharpen-razor-blades-for-the-long-term
My DH recently asked me if I thought we needed to add a straight razor to our cache. I was a bit surprised by the question. He really wants to trust ME with a straight razor against his face? I can’t even hang a picture straight! And then, I started wondering, “how would you sharpen it? A leather strap?”. How about we just do it this way, instead, honey?!!
Good articles, thanks :)
A slight amendment to the razor blade article though, that applies to ALL cutting edges. Most people who use knives/razors misunderstand the physics/materials science underlying such a simple tool, and make a few incorrect assumptions.
At the microscopic level, a cutting edge looks like an extremely small saw blade with all the teeth in-line. If you look closely enough, all knives are serrated knives.
What stropping on a leather strap, old jeans (great idea, BTW), a moccasin sole, or your forearm (not recommended) does is to force the microscopic sawteeth back into line, so as to preserve the sharpness of an already sharp blade. When you see an old-school barber strop his razor, or someone playing “Iron Chef” with a kitchen steel, that’s what they are doing- just repairing the microscopic damage to the edge from the last time it was used, so it is nearly as sharp as it was last time.
Eventually those little teeny teeth will break off, bend over or wear down flat, and your knife or razor becomes too dull to do its job, regardless of stropping or steeling.
What has to be done then is to remove some metal to restore the sawtooth edge. This can only be done by abrasion against something harder than the blade, whether stones, tungsten carbide or various ceramics. That’s sharpening, i.e. re-grinding vs. just ‘tuning up’ the existing grind.
You’ll find that even though barbers, chefs and butchers do frequent “tune ups”, they also re-sharpen frequently to prevent their working tools from turning into something that resembles ‘prison shanks’ :)
A good set of stones is best, but please consider at least a tungsten-carbide “V” sharpener and a ceramic ‘crockstick’ as an important part of your preps. Dull blades are a lot more dangerous than sharp ones. If you happen to be lucky enough to be in the vicinity of an actual “old school” barber, make friends or attend the estate auction (I’m talking guys old enough to be MY Dad – still some in business).
These guys tended to be addicted to trying out new equipment, so they had drawers full of straight razors, imported honing stones and strops that “weren’t quite perfect”. It’s worth a look, in any case.
Good Information…….
Here’s one we all need to read, IMHO. Perhaps this is why we are instructed in the Bible to “be content with such as ye have”!
Poor Choices: Financial Worries Can Impair One’s Ability to Make Sound Decisions
New research suggests causative link between income level and cognitive function
Day care drop-offs and work deadlines may combine with financial woes to put a literal strain on your ability to think.
New work by a team of psychologists and economists supports the notion that humans have limited bandwidth for decision-making. And the capacity to make choices can take a hit once that cognitive load becomes too heavy. The research, based on experimental data collected on people with varying levels of self-reported income in rural India and a New Jersey shopping mall, concludes simply that at least short-term financial stress can max out our mental reserves on par with the level of impairment that results from pulling an all-nighter.
These results are “very convincing,” says Bruce McEwen, a neuroscientist specializing in stress studies at The Rockefeller University in New York City, not involved with the work. The findings are detailed in the August 30 issue of Science.
Read the whole article here: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=poor-choices-financial&WT.mc
Well, if he thought he had trouble in THIS life, he’s really understanding the depth of his sin now. Hebrews 9:27 — it is appointed once for a man to die, then comes judgment.
Ariel Castro, the “monster of Cleveland”, took the coward’s way out – he hung himself. But he knows right now that it didn’t get him “out” of anything. And there’s no turning back.
But I do appreciate him for saving taxpayer dollars.
http://eaglerising.com/1611/breaking-news-ariel-castro-monster-cleveland-dead/
Servantheart, Thanks for the update on the monster Castro. Maybe he had a small taste of what he put these 3 girls/ young women through. Although he would have never known the terror he put upon these young women.
Hey, Pal! Sadly for him (and perhaps deservedly) he will spend all eternity, time without end, paying for his sins, the choices he made, when the ball was still in his court. We have a hard time wrapping our heads around “time without end”, do we not?!
Absolutely we do. I think he (Castro) will have a very long time to figure it out though.
If I remember my survival training from long ago, the ratio of traps or snares to achieve a good success rate was (12 to 1). In other words 12 snare/traps just to capture a single animal. The trade off to you is less energy expended and perhaps the best form of maintaining you OPSEC.
Hmmm…..those numbers are a bit discouraging, don’t you think? So, don’t buy 1 or 2 traps, or build 1 or 2, ‘cuz you might just starve!
LOL- trapping is just like hunting or fishing. There’s a reason they don’t call any of them “successfully catching”.
If every trap caught something every time, the guys in Canada and Alaska who still do commercial fur-trapping could cash out in a week, instead of freezing their rear ends off all winter :)
Well, there ya’ go – bein’ all practical and down to earth, again. Just leave me to my ignorance… ;)
:) Of course, I wouldn’t know this from personal experience, because that would be illegal without the right State license, but Wood/spring rat traps are pretty cheap and readily-available. Keep a couple old, discardable kitchen sponges. Soak a small chunk in hot water, a little honey and peanut butter and use as bait. MIGHT JUST be effective for grey fuzzy-ninja critters. :)
Having not hunted, if you see an apparently healthy looking animal, what kinds of things do you need to look for when gutting that may indicate they aren’t as healthy as you thought?
Now there’s a good question! Answers, anyone?
Excellent question and the first one I’ve seen ever asked. I look for healthy organs while processing the animal. Are there tumors coming off the organs, large dark spots to include the tongue which
would indicate “Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever”, The heart can have worms so I check this to. Target organs for are the heart, liver and kidneys, these are the filter/pumping organs of the body.
We always wrestle trying to sharpen knives etc. We been “sucked in” on so many gadgets that it’s sinful, just trying to figure this skill out. You can bet this article is being printed out! (cost free) LOL
Some (not all, by any means) gadgets work, some don’t. A belt-grinder is great for building knives and actually-sharpening military-surplus machetes the first time. Not so good for resharpening. The slow-speed “Chef” electric sharpening wheels are pretty close to useless. Don’t even consider a bench grinder for anything but the coarsest-cutting big wood chisels and metal-lathe bits.
The $4.95 “Samurai Shark” knockoff tungsten-carbide tool from Harbor Freight is ‘pretty dang good’, but will cut metal FAST, so be careful. Do get some white ceramic “crocksticks” – they can cut metal, but very slowly, in a fine-grained manner and can be even finer than an Arkansas Stone hone.
The “Jedi Secret Teaching” about sharpening/honing/tuning up any blade is simple. Keep the angle exactly the same the whole length of the cutting edge. Lock your wrist, or use a mechanical assistant. This applies to stones, v-cutters, crocksticks, kitchen steels or strops. You won’t get it perfect the first time. There is no rush.
An old smith friend told me “go to Home Depot. Get a big, coarse metal file, and some cheap 1/8″ aluminum bar stock. Cut a 6 inch knife edge on the bar with the file. Then, sight down the edge you cut with 1 eye. If you see any wavy lines, cut that off with a hacksaw, toss it and try again. Shouldn’t take more that 10-20 tries to get it right” Pain inna rear, but that muscle memory stays for life.
*puts on my Amazing Kreskin turban*. Yes, servantheart, back when I had a real house with a real back yard, I was a hobby-knifemaker :)
:) the “sight down the cutting edge(s)” thing is a good idea for any cutting tool you may acquire. If an Imperial Roman engineer would not say “I want my road to be THAT straight!” move on to the next one and check again. Not every factory employee is at ‘pro’ level. I have seen things come out of Buck, Gerber, Wusthoff, Victorinox, Shun, Old Hickory and Mora that were “crooked as a dog’s hind leg”. Don’t settle for bad product before SHTF.
Sadley, we are very short on trap cages. However, we also know we need to purchase more, that’s a start!
Perhaps an old tale, but it’s been said not to hunt rabbit or squirrel until after the first snow…?
Hey, y’all! Did you know you can buy knives made in the USA from Lehman’s?
https://www.lehmans.com/p-239-old-hickory-knives.aspx
The Old Hickory brand knives are VERY, VERY good quality for the price.
I still have and use an OH French Chef’s knife that I bought back in the 1970’s. Still going strong. The “B” 7″ Butcher Knife on that page is one of the best all-around outdoor knives around. If you have ancestors that ran around the American wilderness in the 18th and 19th Centuries, chances are they had a blade very similar to that hanging from their belt. (probably made by the Green River Co.)
The (not listed on that page) Pig-sticker and 6″ Skinner are also very useful Old Hickory designs.
Watch out though, they are high-carbon steel, not stainless. You MUST clean and dry them thoroughly to avoid rust. Give them an occasional rub with mineral oil to protect from atmospheric moisture (the wood handles, too). They are softer than most stainless, so they’ll dull faster, but they are much quicker to resharpen. No matter what you do, the metal will darken and discolor with age. This is not a bad thing. The knife is not ‘dirty’ or ‘ruined’ – it’s a natural chemical reaction similar to seasoning a cast iron pan or the ‘browning’ coating on a flintlock – natural rustproofing. :)
All that being said, if you take reasonable care of an Old Hickory knife, your great-grandkids might fight over who inherits it next.
Some carbon steel knives of various ages.
I have 3 traps in the garage, that belonged to my grandfather that my grandmother gave me, I have never used them. Typical traps/cages would great I think for those who have property, but if your on the move snare type traps I think would be best. I keep 24 of these coiled up in a small bag in my BOB. Sometimes I have taken them when back packing. You can make these for these for next to nothing $ from hardware/sporting good store
Getting harder and harder to find old school Barbers these days. Great info by the way.
Dang, Wyz! Another skill set. I’m in awe!