Old CW4
BANNED
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2006
- Messages
- 870
How about some of you guys chiming in on ways to hunt or trap game without a lot of fancy modern methods/techniques? I was just thinking about my days as a pre teen and early teen in the backwoods of Arkansas just after WWII. We were dirt poor and I sometimes got one 50 round box of 22 shorts a month ($0.25 at the hardware store in town) for my $9.00 from Sears Savage single shot rifle. Some of the methods I recall were:
- A forked stick for cottontail rabbits. We lived in thick woods country with mixed pines and hardwoods. There were lots of gum trees and virtually all were hollow inside. When walking through the woods and I 'jumped' a cottontail, they always took off directly away and usually to the nearest gum tree. Honest, guys/gals, they would climb up the inside of the gum trees! We farm boys always had a pocket knife so we immediately cut a limber branch from a handy tree and trimmed off the end 'fork' so it was a couple of inches long on each side of the 'Y.' You stuck this up the inside of the tree until you felt it touch the rabbit, then twisted it into the fur and pulled Mr. bunny out of the tree. Rap his head into the tree root, hold him by the head and stick a finger into and through his fur right at the neck hollow. Rip down to the anus and you had a disembowled bunny. Scoop out the innards, strip off the rest of the fur and you had a rabbit for the pot.
- Quail. I got thousands over the years with a cardboard or wooden box. Prop the box up on a stick with a fairly long (30 feet or more) string attached. Sprinkle out some corn, chickenfeed, or whatever in a thin trail ending under the box and lay down in the high weeks/grass with the end of the string. When a quail or two ate their way under the box, yank the stick out and trap them. Reach down through the top, wring their necks one at a time and birds for the pot.
- Ducks and geese. We had a sizeable farm pond and the migrating water birds would set down in numbers in the spring and fall while on their way north or south. I was young and hardy so it was my job to get into the pond and under an old rusted out washtub (remember those?) with some holes I could see through. I would gradually work my way over to some of the birds, then reach out, grab their legs, and drag them under water to drown while I helped by wringing their necks under water. I came out later half froze from the cold water but with lots of meat for the pot.
- Bee trees. We actually has a season for bee trees in my part of western Arkansas in the old days. When walking/working in the woods, especially in summer when the weather was dry and the creeks were dried up to scattered holes, we kids always watched/listened for bees. They would come to the holes of water, drip in, and then make a 'bee line' back to their hives. They only fly 10 or 12 feet high so it was east to establish the 'bee line' and follow them back to the dead or hollow tree and the home hive. Once we'd located that, it was time to get the adults, lead them to the tree, wrap old curtains around your head and exposed skin, cut the tree and get 200 lbs or more of wild honey.
- Frogs. Got lots of bullfrogs with a trident spear made of a long tree limb and using a carbide lantern at night. Any of you remember carbide lamps? I had burn scars for years from lighting the damned things. Anyway, frog legs are delicious!
- Possums. They hang upside down on tree limbs and are easy to club in the early morning. Especially in the fall when the persimmons were ripe and they'd ate themselves into a stupor.
- Intoxicated deer. During summertime in the south and only occasional rains, the water would collect in hardwood stumps along with leaves, wild grapes, etc. You could smell a fermenting stump from a long ways off and the deer and other animals would go to them to drink. I don't know the alcohol content but deer especially would not infrequently be drunk as skunks from 'stump water.' They would stagger along, walk into trees, and fall down. Easy to club one with a hefty stick or rock and then there was lots of venison for the home pot. I can recall also seeing black bears drunk but I didn't mess with them.
Anyway, how about some words of wisdom regarding simple ways to gather food to include traps, deadfalls, snares, and so on.
- A forked stick for cottontail rabbits. We lived in thick woods country with mixed pines and hardwoods. There were lots of gum trees and virtually all were hollow inside. When walking through the woods and I 'jumped' a cottontail, they always took off directly away and usually to the nearest gum tree. Honest, guys/gals, they would climb up the inside of the gum trees! We farm boys always had a pocket knife so we immediately cut a limber branch from a handy tree and trimmed off the end 'fork' so it was a couple of inches long on each side of the 'Y.' You stuck this up the inside of the tree until you felt it touch the rabbit, then twisted it into the fur and pulled Mr. bunny out of the tree. Rap his head into the tree root, hold him by the head and stick a finger into and through his fur right at the neck hollow. Rip down to the anus and you had a disembowled bunny. Scoop out the innards, strip off the rest of the fur and you had a rabbit for the pot.
- Quail. I got thousands over the years with a cardboard or wooden box. Prop the box up on a stick with a fairly long (30 feet or more) string attached. Sprinkle out some corn, chickenfeed, or whatever in a thin trail ending under the box and lay down in the high weeks/grass with the end of the string. When a quail or two ate their way under the box, yank the stick out and trap them. Reach down through the top, wring their necks one at a time and birds for the pot.
- Ducks and geese. We had a sizeable farm pond and the migrating water birds would set down in numbers in the spring and fall while on their way north or south. I was young and hardy so it was my job to get into the pond and under an old rusted out washtub (remember those?) with some holes I could see through. I would gradually work my way over to some of the birds, then reach out, grab their legs, and drag them under water to drown while I helped by wringing their necks under water. I came out later half froze from the cold water but with lots of meat for the pot.
- Bee trees. We actually has a season for bee trees in my part of western Arkansas in the old days. When walking/working in the woods, especially in summer when the weather was dry and the creeks were dried up to scattered holes, we kids always watched/listened for bees. They would come to the holes of water, drip in, and then make a 'bee line' back to their hives. They only fly 10 or 12 feet high so it was east to establish the 'bee line' and follow them back to the dead or hollow tree and the home hive. Once we'd located that, it was time to get the adults, lead them to the tree, wrap old curtains around your head and exposed skin, cut the tree and get 200 lbs or more of wild honey.
- Frogs. Got lots of bullfrogs with a trident spear made of a long tree limb and using a carbide lantern at night. Any of you remember carbide lamps? I had burn scars for years from lighting the damned things. Anyway, frog legs are delicious!
- Possums. They hang upside down on tree limbs and are easy to club in the early morning. Especially in the fall when the persimmons were ripe and they'd ate themselves into a stupor.
- Intoxicated deer. During summertime in the south and only occasional rains, the water would collect in hardwood stumps along with leaves, wild grapes, etc. You could smell a fermenting stump from a long ways off and the deer and other animals would go to them to drink. I don't know the alcohol content but deer especially would not infrequently be drunk as skunks from 'stump water.' They would stagger along, walk into trees, and fall down. Easy to club one with a hefty stick or rock and then there was lots of venison for the home pot. I can recall also seeing black bears drunk but I didn't mess with them.
Anyway, how about some words of wisdom regarding simple ways to gather food to include traps, deadfalls, snares, and so on.
Production went up and he was able to save money and buy the first pair of shoes he ever had.
