I spent 3 weeks in canada with a knife and a tarp and the knowledge of a few fish traps and home made snares... anybody with similar experiences i think this would be a great pool of ideas for long term shtf situations where people are stuck out country or possibly get lost camping.
any glory stories about camping rifles would be an obvious plus.
nooooooooooo I started this thread when i heard about the sharpened conduit spear.
I wigged out and didn't want to be a part of society so i went where there wasn't any.... i mostly made drag snares, when making any snare i learned you want to make the snare at camp, cover your arms and fingers with ash to mask your scent and only hang out where you set the snare long enough to set the trap. And only check the snare once or maybe twice a day. Use a good wide stick about a .25 the thickness of your arm, loop the snare under it in a shallow U shape, and set it in the thick brush right through a rabbit trail, leave the noose of the trap about 3 to 4 inches above the ground. Rabbit runs through noose that is attatched to the stick and the stick gets caught in the entrance to the burrow the little bugger is running through to get home and away from what ever the hell is holding it by the neck. the harder the rabbit pulls the less the rabbit can breathe and voila. Look for rabbit sign that is pretty new, dried or white droppings with no sign of new ones isn't exactly where you wanna set the trap. Also try and make the snare only strong enough to catch what you want. That's why i opted against the tension snares with the metal wire, don't wanna maim bambi. Vole traps worked pretty well too, dig a ^ shaped hole in the ground with the bottom portion of the hole wider than the top opening, A stick works well for this, cover it with a rock so that a little mouse or vole can scurry under it, be careful with these because i also caught a couple few snakes with this trap, they are rather tasty but try and stay away from the fangy bits when catching them.
I Set up camp about 15 yards from a fresh water creek at first, had my camp ransacked by some critters so moved camp to a rocky out cropping, that was bad form because not only did camp get ransacked but i had no way of tracking the buggers to figure out what had done it. Finally marked my third camp with plenty of my "scent". Critters stopped coming by. Set up a couple few fish traps with branches and dead bait. Learned i want to set the tops of the gate well above water and maybe leave a little leaf cover over the top so it's nice and dark, to fish eyes a well made water trap looks like a bunch of nice safe tree roots, i'd spear the ones stuck in the trap. Basically when making this you wanna stick a bunch of sticks in the river bed in such a manner as a fish can get in but not get out, this took a lot of practice with a couple few results, ended up just spearing the buggers with a sharpened stick. Turned out I ate a lot of fiddle heads, and fish. tons of blackberries too. Began to notice wild onion and other edibles so i could get something close to the vitamins i needed. Near the end of it i started scavenging supplies closer and closer to a town 20 miles south, and since i was camping so close to town i just came back in. Scared the shit outta myself wigging out like that. Wish i would have taken a few mushroom gathering courses or gone out with somebody who knew what the good ones were. Would have supplemented the diet nicely those.
Spend all your first few couple days building shelter and gathering wood, lots and lots and lots of wood. Then set traps then gather more wood, then check traps, then gather more wood, then eat game, sleep, wake up next day, set new traps, gather more wood, on and on.
This is only applicable to where i was which was the pacific northwest of canada.... it'd be awesome feedback if anybody got stuck in the desert or swamps... i doubt my methods would work in such an environment.
Just realized how many sharpened sticks i used, feel a bit monkeyish now.
When I was a kid, my friends and I would wade and swim out to an island in Galveston Bay. (It's gone now, washed away). Anyway we'd stay 3 or 4 days at a time. We took very little except for water and a sein net. We got our fill of shrimp, crabs and even caught a few fish. It rains quite a bit on the coast so keeping wood and fire making stuff dry was a P-I-B. Being in and out of saltwater is hard on your clothes too.
We didn't have any way of distilling sea water into drinking water or we could have lived on that island for as long as we wanted. The very best thing you have in Saltwater is an oyster reef. All kinds of sea life gathers around a reef and the oysters are good in winter. Oyster shell makes a fine sharp knife too.
Seagulls nested on this island. We could have had all the eggs and young birds we wanted but never found the need.
FYI, Black Widows were under nearly evey piece of wood we picked up, all driftwood,
One kid would carry wood, the other would turn wood over, knock off the spiders and stack more wood on the load.
We weren't old enough for Maryann or Ginger but we used to talk about 'What if.......'
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Aim real good we're nearly out of ammo.
As a city boy I'd leave home without my wallet, and go live on the streets for a few days at a time. It's amazing what wasted food suddenly becomes edible, and what a penny in a parking lot means to you.
__________________ turning up the radio, got just enough religion and a half tank of gas...
Andrew totally applicable to south eastern alaska in the warmer months.... there's a lot of mountains and a lot more wildlife up there so i dunno. There were definately times when i wish i had a longrifle with me, which would definitely be required in alaska.
I totally feel you on the streets living stitch. out of highschool i spent some time on the streets, and it taught me the generosity of your common blue collar cat. And how to read a face. And how cold concrete gets at 3 am.
That brings up another point... urban survival....if society goes to heck that will be the primary environment of your common American. I wonder if the bums will even know the difference.
Good to know about the oyster knife Mike... I wonder about the feasibility of building shelter in the gulf, if shtf happens hurricanes are still gonna hit...
andrew- This is def feasible in AK!! It better be anyway, LOL !! There is abundant food here, anytime of the year. Shelters may vary from a poncho hooch to a ramshackle stick shack to a fullblown cabin, or even a snow cave. Without a large caliber rifle, you are low on the food chain !! In winter, wolves will be your main threat, bears the rest of the time. Staying on the move reduces the threat, and provides for a greater variety of food. A bit harder to do in winter. Down in SE that's not as much as a problem though. Obviously, your food selection drops drastically in winter, but then again, it all stays frozen pretty well, LOL !! Trapping and snaring small game and birds becomes your primary food source. You can make teas to supplement your nutritional needs, but you will suffer through winter. You could, if you have a shelter, do all the prewinter prep to stay alive. i.e., drying fish and berries, picking and drying edible plants and the like. But again you also become a smorgasbord for the rest of the foodchain !! I've done several 30 day winter hunts, and even with my freeze dried foodstuffs and snaring, I lost quite a bit of weight.
__________________ I keep tellin ya Doc, I'm in pretty good shape considerin the shape I'm in !!
'I wonder about the feasibility of building shelter in the gulf, if shtf happens hurricanes are still gonna hit...'
My only advice about hurricanes would be that if you even think one is coming grap what you can a go aws far inland as yopu can. If you survive, when you return there'll be plenty of 'new' stuff to rummage through. Unless you're in Florida hurricanes are only an occasional deal.
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Aim real good we're nearly out of ammo.
did recondo and sere when i was young and dumb. and I got lost in the sinai desert. spent a week doing survival camping i AK one december.
I think i could still last a week or so most places, but the desert will kill me. It's that simple. I think I'm gonna try really hard not to be put in that position.
I've heard tales of guys digging burrows into the sand for shelter because of the cooler temperature the further down you dig.... and keeping close to buried water or surface water. Dew collection is supposed to be another water option but i wonder if you'd be able to get the 50 yards or so of plastic to collect enough water from the local atmosphere to sustain hydration in a survival situation. Also game is scarce and snakes and what not are said to seek out buried shelters in the heat of the day... could be a food source for you but also quite a hazard if you're napping.
all in all i think the desert would summarily kick my ass. I've had limbs swell from dehydration just traveling through the desert with full kit and supposedly enough water.
