Category: Hunting and Trapping

Rawhide and Brain Tanning, by J.M.

In today’s world, you might wonder why working rawhide and brain tanning buckskin skill would be a benefit to anybody, when you can run to the hardware store and buy an unlimited supply of plastic, nylon, fiberglass, and what not to do your jobs. And why would anybody in their right mind want to wear anything made out of buckskin? When you have designer jeans, and all kinds of clothing to buy, in most stores like Wal-mart, K-mart, or even the used clothing stores? One question you might ask is how much of these things will be available when the fiat …


Three Letters Re: Trapping Options for the Non-Trapper

J.W.R.: Greeting from a long time reader in Southeast Texas. Regarding the article “Trapping Options for the Non-Trapper” by Pat in Oregon: When I was a child some 60 years ago, my neighbor had a problem with pigeons eating the chicken feed.  She solved the problem with large rat traps, which you can still get in any hardware store.   She baited the traps with the feed and placed them on the fence posts.  She also attaching about two feet of string to the trap and tied it to a nail in the post.  This kept the pigeon from taking …


Trapping Options for the Non-Trapper, by Pat in Oregon

Most folks are familiar to some extent with animal trapping but have little experience.  In a TEOTWAWKI world I suggest there are several advantages that trapping will offer almost everyone.  With minimal equipment and some basic experience trapping can offer security, food, and economic opportunities.  Before taking any action please familiarize yourself with your local laws and requirements related to fur-bearing animals and trapping.   I trapped coyotes and bobcat back in my college days with a good friend.  It was a great time but required considerable equipment, preparation, effort, and skill.  Today I still do a lot of trapping, …


Letter Re: How To Butcher a Squirrel

Mr. Rawles,   I had been planning to get a pellet gun for some squirrel problems here at my home. But after reading Will T.’s response to “How to Butcher a Squirrel” I instead bought some Connibear 110 traps.  I got the traps via mailorder and set them last night following Will’s advice. I used paper towels coated with peanut butter as bait.  I came out this morning and to my surprise there was already a dead squirrel hanging in the trap.  These traps are very simple, discreet, and efficient.   Thanks! – Paul B.  JWR Replies: A key advantage of …


Letter Re: How To Butcher a Squirrel

James Wesley: With respect to the recent posting on squirrel processing, I suggest that anyone seeking squirrels for food, not sport, leave the guns at home.  Save the ammunition and preserve the silence.  Use of a 110 Connibear trap on the side of a tree is much more effective and surreptitious.  There are a lot of ways to set them, but the easiest is to place a couple of screws into the side of a tree about an inch apart and set the trap so that it clamps itself to the screws while remaining in the horizontal plane.  A bit …


How To Butcher a Squirrel, by B.T.

It would seem these days the world in which we live is anything but predictable. Who is to say you will always be able to run down to the corner gas station and fill your tank? Or drive thru your local fast food chain for a quick fix, when those hunger pangs kick in? In the event of an economic crash or other disaster, food and other supplies may be very hard to obtain. You may not be able to make your regular trip to the local Wal-Mart or other grocery store. Store shelves will go bare very fast, and …


Let’s Talk About Trapping: North American Furbearers, by Jason L.

My father introduced me to the art of trapping when I was just 10 years old. I remember walking the edges of rivers checking the sets that he had made and seeing him bring home red and gray fox. When I was 12, I took a safety course and got my trapping license. The first year my father did most of the work setting the traps, while I did the baiting. As years went by he stopped trapping but I continued and by definition am now a professional. Whenever I had the chance to trap where someone else was setting, …


Letter Re: Let’s Talk About Trapping: North American Furbearers

Letter Re: Let’s Talk About Trapping: North American Furbearer As a fellow trapper I enthusiastically read the article on trapping and although I have never eaten Raccoon. I can vouch that beaver and muskrat are good meat sources. Muskrat, I do not eat regularly, but beaver is more substantial and I do regularly take the meat and the skin is durable enough to be used for hats, mittens, coats, etc. When skinning beaver take care not to cut the castor glands, first these smell awful and would taint the meat, second you can sell them, and third you can use these to …


Seven Common TEOTWAWKI Misconceptions, by Brian T.

Predictions are like, well, you know what, everybody has at least one.  Many or most predictions made are wrong and the content here is no exception.  I am not a modern day Davy Crockett or Daniel Boone but I have spent a few days in the woods, and hopefully after reading this you will not think I am still lost in them.  I did not fight in any war but had my share of the military experience and the same can be said for law enforcement.  I never bugged out but did backpack and still am a gym rat who …


Lessons in Survival: Family Innovation and Industry in the U.S. Great Depression by W.J.

I have always been fascinated with history and might have become a history teacher if there had been any possibility of making substantial money at it.  Growing up in the 1950s and ‘1960s in rural Texas the lessons of the U.S. “Great Depression” were still fresh in the memories of my family, so our frequent family get gatherings produced many stories from those days, some of which were “not so good old days”.  I want to relate some of this story for the benefit of those preparing for possible future, harder times: There was no money.  For a few years …


Two Letters Re: Hunting for Food

Mr. Rawles, I read the recent post on hunting for survival. The author didn’t mention some of the most nourishing parts of the deer, the bone marrow! Full of fat and very tasty, it should be removed from the bone and eaten or mixed with some salt, dried berries and dried meat, pounded into a flour, made into Pemmican, it keeps well and is light to carry and very nutritious. The tongue, head meat, kidneys, heart, liver, spleen, lungs, leg bones with their marrow are also fine to eat or added to stew. When food is short you cannot afford …


Hunting for Food, by Jim W.

For many reasons hunting as a sport has diminished over the past thirty years in the United States.  Video games, the everyday rat race, lack of interest in the outdoors, and life in general have taken the front seat to a sport that not only brings family and friends together but instills in people a true appreciation of nature.  I consider myself part of a very small but lucky percentage of people.  Growing up I had great role models in my family, from both a religious and moral view, as well as an outdoor perspective.  My grandfather was a game …


Hunting When SHTF: Why Your Plan Isn’t Going to Work, by Conover

I have worked as an ungulate habitat biologist in a western state for a number of years now, and I think it’s given me a rare perspective.  There is a large hole in the plan of the casual survivalist that I want to talk about.  It lies in the animals you will be hunting when the Schumer Hits the Fan (SHTF).             Ungulates are the large hoofed mammals that roam our continent. In the continental U.S. these include: Bison White Tailed Deer Mule Deer Pronghorn Antelope Elk Bighorn Sheep Mountain Goats Obviously for someone with limited ammo, which is all of …


Letter Re: Off-Grid Living on an Alaskan Island

Hello, Many US military personal who serve on an isolated duty station, in effect live off grid.  For example I was in the U.S. Coast Guard and stationed at Cape Sarichef, Alaska for a year. [It is at the end of Unimak Island.]           We had three large Caterpillar generators.  We got our water from a reservoir that was filled from mountain runoff.  I would go the reservoir when needed and start a small hand pull pump (during the winter could take almost 30 minutes to get started.) This would pump the water along a buried pipe line, with …


Letter Re: You are Only as Good as Your Equipment

I am a two-year every day reader of the SurvivalBlog, and going through most of the entries that people write I have noticed that the majority of people believe that in a post SHTF scenario we will be faced with daily battles with marauders trying to take or food and goods. This brings people to the assumption that they must only stock up on only ammunition and firearms. As we all know as readers of this blog that when SHTF we will not have grocery stores or any of the facilities that we take for granted as of today. We …