(Continued from Part 4.)
Practical Hunting Gear
The basic gear I carry, regardless of season, is listed below.
Clothing that fits and is proper for the environment you’re in. This includes a hat. Always have a change of socks.
Firearm and spare ammunition. Every single rifle and shotgun I own has an elastic buttstock ammo carrier as well as a sling with ammunition loops sewn in. (Butler Creek makes a great sling with ammo loops.) I like these because accessing spare rounds is more convenient and it doesn’t require me to carry so much ammo in my pack.
Knife. I always, and I mean always, have at least a pocketknife on me. I never leave home without it. When I am in the field, I also carry a Leatherman multitool as well as a fixed blade knife. The fixed blade does not get used for butchering or cleaning. Its sole purpose is a last-ditch self-defense tool, or to build a shelter if needed. Fortunately, I have never needed to use it for either. The Leatherman I carry is the Surge model. I have carried it for about twelve years. It has gutted and cleaned deer and many birds. The only thing that I have had to replace, is the sheath. Leatherman makes a phenomenal product. I also carry a small sharpener in my pack.
Water in a non-insulated canteen and purifier. If needed, I can boil water in a non-insulated container.
Ways to make fire. I carry matches, lighter, ferro rod and a petroleum-based fire cube in my pack.
Rope/paracord
First aid kit which includes a small tube of hand sanitizer and foot powder
Toilet paper
Food/snacks
Tent, blanket, stove, etc. When I hunt for several days at a time, I have a fixed base camp. My camp gear depends on the time of year and where we’re camping, i.e. forests, plains, high desert, etc.
Backpack/satchel. Make sure there is room in your pack for whatever animal you are pursuing.
An orange whistle attached to an exterior zipper
Again, this is a basic list. Knowledge, experience, differing environments, weather and changing seasons will determine what gear each person should feel comfortable taking with them in the field. I carry much less gear now than when I started hunting. The wisdom and confidence I have gained has helped me reduce the amount of gear I need to bring.
Pros to hunting can/may include:
The vast quantity of meat you can get if successful during hunting season. A bear or deer will yield more meat in less time than raising animals from a young age. An elk will give me even more meat. A solid weekend or two of successful waterfowl hunting can put more fowl meat in the freezer than I will raise in a year. A weekend in the high desert will provide a variety of meat consisting of doves, quail, chukar, grouse, and rabbits. During a hunting trip to Wyoming, the area I hunted allowed one person to purchase over twenty white tail doe tags during one over-the-counter transaction, with unlimited transactions. That is a lot of deer to potentially fill a freezer with!
Hunting and being out in nature help reset the mind, revitalizing the soul, tapping into an ancient tradition of man.
Depending on what you hunt, you can expand your arsenal with more firearms, different calibers and different types of ammunition. Think Burt Gummer in Tremors.
Cons to hunting can/may include:
Hunting season(s) can be short and/or hard to draw in certain areas for specific game.
Fires or other natural disasters can alter herd behavior.
Access to public land might be revoked due to “emergency” or “unsafe conditions”.
Hunting can be difficult on public land where competition with other hunters for the same animal is likely to occur.
Private landowners may charge an entrance and/or trophy fee to hunt their land.
Weather can set in and push animals, which can change migrations and routes year to year.
The expense of licensing, tags, equipment, fuel, etc. For beginners, the startup cost(s) can be very high and turn a lot of people away.
These are all issues I have come across while in the field and while raising food/meat animals. Nothing is guaranteed in raising animals, and nothing is guaranteed in hunting. That is why I hunt, fish, and raise animals. With my young, growing family, I do not get out hunting or fishing as much as I used to. Because of this, my wife and I try to raise a lot of our food. Our farm yields more each year we are here, with the exception of some of the instances I discussed earlier. We have raised goats, turkeys, and chickens. We plan on raising hogs this year, and beef cattle and sheep in the future. My wife and I take a few weekends in the fall, before the weather gets too cold, and go camping with our kids. During these trips, I take off for several hours hunting and teaching my son how to track, stalk, and find game. When the weather gets too cold, I will go by myself for a day or two at a time to try and quickly fill the freezer with large amounts of fowl, bear, or some other game animal.
Firearm Selection
I began shooting at the age of three when my dad brought out the decades-old BB gun and set up some soda cans in the backyard. As most young, American boys, if you couldn’t find me around the house, I was outside with a coonskin cap and a Red Ryder BB gun patrolling the yard for “b’ars” like Davy Crockett. Even at a very young age, I yearned to be a mountain man and an expert hunter. As time went on, I was outside every day, shooting cans that lined the fence or hung from different tree branches. My proficiency as a marksman only got better as I got older. Firearms were as natural to me as walking. They were an extension of my body. As I got older, my father would take me into the woods with a .22 caliber rifle his parents bought him when he graduated the 8th grade in 1955. This rifle was a Winchester single-shot, bolt-action rifle requiring the firing pin striker rod to be pulled back to fire.
He kept thousands of rounds of .22LR in an old coffee can that also had a cleaning kit and gun oil in an old tube sock that was easily 30 years old at the time. (We were going shooting once when he turned the truck too sharply causing all of the rounds to spill out of the coffee can. For years, we would still find the occasional .22 shell here or there. If I ever took the seat out of that old truck, I wouldn’t be surprised to find more rounds.) As I got older, I started shooting more frequently. After turning 18, I worked at a local camp during the summers. For several years, I ran the shooting sports program teaching hundreds, if not thousands of people how to shoot safely and properly.
In my personal life, as an avid small game hunter, my go-to firearm is a 12-gauge shotgun, a .22LR and/or a .223 Remington rifle depending on what I am targeting. A .223 Remington is a bit much for a tree squirrel, and a .22LR is a bit small for a coyote. If you caught a coyote in a trap, a 22LR is perfect for dispatching, but if you are trying to call one in, a 22LR can inhumanely wound the critter. For big game, I alternate between a lever action .30-30 Winchester, a bolt-action .30-06 Springfield and a bolt-action .308 Winchester. I don’t worry or fret about ballistic coefficients or how many feet per second a bullet goes. What I care about is whether my rifles and I are in sync, accurate or dependable. With proper training and experience, most animals in North American can be ethically hunted with the following calibers.
The 22 Long Rifle
It is safe to assume most people reading this article have a .22LR of some make, model or design. .22LR rifles are inexpensive to buy, easy to come by and the ammunition is usually readily available. (Don’t forget the great .22 ammo shortage twelve years ago. In the words of Mr. Rawles, “While it’s available, stack it deep.”) As with any tool, a .22LR in the right hands is a very effective and practical caliber. I am not one of these gung-ho Tactical Tom characters who preaches about going into the woods, alone, with a .22 caliber rimfire rifle and a box of ammunition to wait out whatever society can throw at me by living off the land. That mindset is foolish and impractical, and it will likely get you killed. Yes, the .22LR can kill most animals in North America, but do you really want to go into the Montana wilderness with only a .22LR because you can carry a lot of ammo in your pocket? A sensible person would say no and would choose to carry whatever tool is best suited for them and their environment. If you were shipwrecked on a deserted island that was loaded with rats, then yes, a .22LR would be a great caliber to have. But having a .22LR as your only survival firearm is not wise.
My .22LR firearm/ammo combo of choice for small game, in an urban area, or for dispatching trapped animals when people may be nearby, is a 22-bolt action with CCI 29-grain CB Short bullet. Shooting the 29-grainers out of a rifle is an extremely quiet and effective ammunition combo. It draws no attention because of how quiet it can be. I have hunted many urban squirrels and various other critters with 29-grain CB Shorts out of a bolt-action rifle. A regular 47-grain 22LR round typically has a little too much noise for harvesting neighborhood critters. (I do stack 29s deep, because if the proverbial Svhumer ever hits the fan, keeping quiet while filling the cookpot will be essential.
The only issue I have run into with 29-grain CB Shorts in a bolt-action, is the occasional jamming that occurs in a detachable magazine. The shortness of the round can cause feeding issues. Get to know your firearms before your livelihood depends on it. If your firearm has frequent jamming issues, get it fixed or trade it in for a different one. Learn the personalities and idiosyncrasies of your firearms and make sure to keep them functioning and operable.
When I’m hunting small game in the wilderness, where making noise is not an issue, I use a standard .22 LR 47-grain bullet.
(To be concluded tomorrow, in Part 6.)