Going hungry...

M

max7474

Joined
Mar 5, 2000
Messages
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What are some good ways to procure food on an extended wilderness trip in North America without firearms, snares, or cordage?
 
If you are stationary, build deadfall triggers and set up a deadfall line. If you are moving, move slower, and spend more time gathering/hunting. Beyond that, the methods and items you can gather in north america vary to the extremes with different locales. There are places and times where you could gather enough food in your arms reach at a decent jog to sustain you the day, and places where spending half your day dedicated to gathering food would provide too little.

Where are you thinking about specifically? Do you have a knife, what vegetation is around? Are there rivers or lakes around?


Stryver
 
Good advice from Stryver, dont forget a fishing kit, almost anywhere in North America, with the exception of desert areas, you will be fairly close to some type of water where you can catch fish.

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Lee

LIfe is too important to be taken seriously. Oscar Wilde
 
1. Learn the edible plants specific to your location.

2. Get over your fears of eating edible bugs.

3. Carry fishing line or learn to tickle fish or construct fish traps.

4. Learn to make snares/traps with available natural materials.

Just a couple of ideas...

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Greg Davenport
http://www.ssurvival.com
Are You Ready For The Challenge?
Are You Ready To Learn The Art Of Wilderness Survival?

 
I stopped by the natural history museum at UA-Fairbanks yesterday, and was very amazed with a few odd and assorted things they had. One was a 10 - 12 foot long basket fish trap. The mouth was about three feet across. Wow... The other was a fishhook designed for catchin halibut. It was made with wood, and had a steel spike, but could easily be made of bone. The would make a narrow V shape with two pieces of wood, each about an inch wide, half an inch thick, and six inches long. These were lashed at the base of the V. The bottom piece was carved in the form of whatever spirit they were hoping would catch more fish for them, and was attached to a line at about the mid-point. The examples seen were a knotted line through a hole. This bottom piece of wood then had bait attached to it, and the top piece had the spike attached at it's end such that it angled in and towards the other piece. It was then tied to a rock with a slip knot so that it would float a foot or two off the bottom, but that a pull from the free line would undo the knot. The idea was a halibut would come off the bottom for the bait, and would take it with a predator-fishes sucking bite, not be able to swallow it, and spit it back out. The spike would be over it's head/mouth, outside the fish, and would dig in as it spat the bait out, hooking the fish. You could easily set these, tie the line off to a tree, and go do something else, coming back to your caught fish later. It should work for bass, and maybe trout, though you have to make the bait end small enough to be swallowed, and the rest large enough not to be, since the hook is on the inside of the V. It also seemed to be a pretty strong set-up, requiring little or no metal, and easy to manufacture.


Stryver
 
Interesting how we're writing on electronic
email lists about how people used to carve
totems on their fishhooks to better help them
feed their children.

Interesting how quick we could be there
again.
 
Weapons .. Rocks, throwing sticks, spear/s(fish and animal), atlatl, club

Traps.. Deathfalls, beehive trap,fish trap, fish weir, can traps, insect traps

Other methods are to drive game off a cliff or into pens.
Use a reed as a snorkel and to submerge and
pull ducks and geese down by the feet and drown them.
Reach up under the banks to locate fish then jerk or toss them out onto the bank.
Look for recent road kill.

Earth worms are most everywhere and nourishing. Many streams and lakes have crawfish. Grasshoppers bees and ants are good and plentiful.
Cattail, thistle stems, immature milkweed pods, queen annes lace root, wild onions, ramps, acorns, pinenuts, pine needle tea, sumac tea,cudzu leaves and flowers, chickweed, dandelion leaves, water cress, chickory, plantain, maple sap, wild pear, wild cherry, elderberry flowers and berries, wild grapes, chokecherry, blackberries, day lilies and many many more.


 
Since most of the normal methods have been mentioned... This one has worked for me.

Trade or beg food from backpackers and outfitters. Outfitters will feed you for a big pile of wood.

Theft is a last resort.

Ron

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Learn Life Extension at:

http://www.survival.com ]
 
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