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To: jongaltsr

Yup - practice.....

When you are extremely hungry, is no time to try to learn to outsmart a deer. Besides, how many companions do you think it would take? How many of them would continue being companions if a couple of them got really hurt by a charging wild boar (or buck, bear, elk, etc.)? Experienced hunters have been gutted themselves for carelessly going up to a downed animal too soon and gotten ripped open by a flailing hoof. A close kill is not going to be without much risk.

Better option is to build a fish weir and trap them. Easily done by one person with some time on their hands. In fact, trapping smaller animals is much more productive.

I still digress though - aren’t you better off having your own chickens, pigs, calves that you have raised and can slaughter at the appropriate time? Combine that with fresh dried or canned vegetables for a balanced diet that will help to keep you healthy for the long-term?

Don’t get me wrong - I have trained with Don Kepler at Penn State on minimalist survival back in the late ‘50’s, and can bake a cattail root like a potato, prepare a rattlesnake for eating, get fresh good water from a wild grape vine, set a trap for a rabbit, skin, gut, cook and eat it,make strong fishing line from the cambium layer of a sapling, make a fish hook from a button or bone, collect edible greens and nuts for a number of different dishes - all with nothing but one pocket knife (or sharp stone if needed). So I do appreciate what you are saying, but without practice, you are a dead duck in most cases.

On the other hand, consider having cases of your own preserved foods, pails of your own grown grain for bread, AND the resources to replenish it year after year. If you use that stock as your everyday food (as I do) there is no conversion shock at all. You have that down pat, and can focus on the new problems as they arise without having to be preoccupied with your next meal.

Does that make any sense?


8,212 posted on 05/23/2009 9:06:11 PM PDT by DelaWhere ("Without power over our own food, any notion of democracy is empty." - Frances Moore Lappe)
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To: DelaWhere

Yep. Those are the easy things to do and plan for. It is the outer edge of survival that I think about. Keeping pigs, chickens, a garden and grain storage is a given. Snaring rabbits and game birds is a little harder just requires skills and patience. I have kept my pellet gun for just such food when I’m out and about. Rabbits are so easy to get with a pellet gun it is silly to use any other method (unless the damn thing breaks).


8,228 posted on 05/24/2009 12:38:16 AM PDT by jongaltsr (Hope to See ya in Galt's Gulch.)
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