Hunting for survival?

[MCgunner]

I just wonder how many people in the modern world have had to hunt to eat? I have, couple of years in College. Oh, I coulda quit school and worked, did for a semester when it got just too lean times. But, for about 2 years, and especially one summer when I was working down south of San Antonio and living on a very large ranch, I hunted to eat. I had to if I wanted to continue my education. My parents were working poor and couldn't help with the school. Oh, I guess I could have joined the military. That was a good way to pay for school in the 70s, GI bill, but I just kept my nose to the grindstone and worked as many as three jobs, studied every spare moment, and hunted and scrounged when I could.

I used a .22 LR Mossberg M152 semi-auto a lot. .22 was cost effective. I've still got that gun. I shot rabbit, even scaled quail with it. I hunted deer with my .30-30. I'd have preferred using a shotgun for running rabbits and quail, but I just couldn't justify an expensive round for so little meat. That's how lean the times were. I've been broker than broke working my way through college. Haven't ever been so broke since. I guess it was a good experience, though. It sorta shows you how lean the times can get. I've seined farm ponds for crayfish and fished ponds for catfish and brim. I worked a summer job in Seabrook, Texas at the Texas Parks and Wildlife marine lab. Got to legally use all sorts of illegal fishing techniques, there, lots of running gill nets, and of course, after weighing and recording the "samples", we cleaned 'em. I fried up several rattlers I happened upon in my scrounging trips. You really gotta watch for them suckers in the spring.

That's when I found out that dandelion greens are really good. I learned to prepare prickly pear pads and eat the fruit. I picked dew berries every season, what a treat! I knew of every pecan tree around my area. I even learned to eat mesquite beans and made mesquite jelly once, though it was a little expensive to do so I gave it up as a viable food source. Too much pectin (sure jell) required and it ain't cheap.

Anyone else ever have to survive for a while? Any pet wild "lawn greens" or berries you liked?

 

[lawson]

i supplement my diet with hunting and fishing, to save money. you buy the liscence, you might as well get your money's worth, right? i fish at least once a week, and hunt quail for dinner during the season, and lots of rabbits when it's not too hot out. more often than not, i end up freezing a surplus of meat and fish.

i'm pretty lucky, i have a good river for fishing and good land for hunting 30 minutes from home.

someone once asked what happens if i don't catch any fish. i of course replied, "i'll let you know when that happens".

 

[BIGJACK]

Hey man, what an experience and I applaude you for sticking with it and getting the education.

I did a little of the same but not to the extent that you did. I started to college with two sons, aged 2 & 3, at that period of time in the early 60s' that there was no GI bill-it kicked back in at about 65 and I did get the bennefit of a couple of semesters on ;the GI Bill and what a relief it was.

I sold our home and started college with a war chest of about $3500. First semester was a complete dissaster, dam car (58 edsel) broke and I had to get another. Wife got a job in a garment factory and worked there until I graduated. In the Afternoons, when I did not have a lab (I majored in Chemical Engineering) I baby set the boys. To kill time the boys and I would ride around and I found that not only did the agriculture department school have large tracts of vegetables but the place was full of quail and remote areas of the campus was loaded with squirrels and rabbits. In the spring we would ride the "farm" a couple of afternoons each week and listen for quail whistling and find the big old roosters sitting on a fence post or in a pine saplin near the road from which I could pick their heads off with my trusty Remington M550 which I still have. When the quail quit whistling I would concentrate on the squirrels and rabbits but still occasionally taking a couple of quail crossing the roads in front of me. I also harvested the departments vegetables occasionally. Some said that my time at college set the agriculture department back 10 years --oh well, gotta do what you gotta do.

I knew a couple of vets who periodically poached a deer from a near by game reserve but I never had the courage to do that.

I also buddied up with another vet who was going to "butchers school". They would butcher cattle, the choice cuts went to the Atheletic dorm and the remnants of the others were ground into hamburger and students could buy it at 3 pounds for $1.00. EVery time I got a little extra money I would buy a few pounds and my friend would slip in a couple of those choise rib eyes that would have otherwise went to the atheletic dorm.

It was a way to get by then but sound a little crooked 40 years later.

 

[Oldnamvet]

Your story reminded me of my youth in the 50's. My father was out on strike and the small money he got from the strike fund didn't make it to the grocery store after paying for electricity and gas for heat. Friends donated some vegetables and potatoes but meat was a problem.
I had saved and bought a Crosman .22 pellet rifle a few months before. Dad would wake me up at about 4AM and you could see rabbits in the back yard hopping around. I would slowly open the window and start popping them off by moonlight on the snow. About 4 pumps was what I would use so I didn't wake any neighbors. After I shot a couple, I'd go back to sleep. We had rabbit & gravy on fried potatoes for breakfast, rabbit sandwiches for lunch, and baked/broild/fried rabbit for dinner. Maybe once a week on Sunday we had hamburger instead and I think it was cut with ground rabbit. By the time the strike ended (6 months), there were a lot fewer rabbits in the neighborhood. A few months later, you couldn't even tell -- the population was back up. To this day, I can't stand the thought of a rabbit meal. When they come by as I'm hunting birds, I just watch them.

My gandfather was very frugal and even when times were not lean, he would have me diving in the lake for freshwater clams. These with dandelion greens/vinegar would make quite a meal. I used to bring up those clams by the bucket. They were actually very good since he rolled them in batter and deep fried them. Supposedly unhealthy but they were sure good.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

When I was a boy on the ranch, we had a freezer the size of a mobile home. We had a garden of about an acre, and the neighbors often sold produce on a you-pick-it basis as well. Mom would buy TV dinner trays a thousand or so at a time. Then she'd say, "Boys, I need two deer."

This would be followed by an orgy of cooking that would last two or three days.

Later on during the year she'd say, "Are you boys hungry?"

"Yes, Ma'am!"

"Well, you know where the freezer is."

 

[MCgunner]

i supplement my diet with hunting and fishing, to save money. you buy the liscence, you might as well get your money's worth, right? i fish at least once a week, and hunt quail for dinner during the season, and lots of rabbits when it's not too hot out. more often than not, i end up freezing a surplus of meat and fish.

Well, I live across the street from a bay that is great fishing. Now days, after a life of working, I'm semi-retired. I repair small engines out of my shop here and the wife is getting social security disability. We'll both be on social security in 8 short years. I have an IRA that pays me a check every month that pays the bills, boat, bikes, van, car, house all paid for and mine. I even have land paid for 30 minutes from my home to hunt, too! Lotsa deer down there. I have enough income that I don't have to worry about starvin' like I did back then, though, but I've been fishing this bay since I've been down here and have a boat. There's a boat launch less than a mile in either direction from my home. I generally know where the fish are and what time of year they'll be there.

Some sport fishermen down here are into trout (actually spotted sea trout aka spotted weakfish) and reds. They shun bait and only fish with plastics. Well, that works at times, but I don't care, so long as it's an edible fish. It's more my grandpa's fishing habits than my experiences in the past, but I'll eat all sorts of fish they shun. If times got lean enough, even the lowly hard head catfish which even I toss back is fair game. They are actually pretty decent table fair, just hard to find 'em big enough.

If I ever had to survive again, this is a good place to be. At least I know what it's like to be that broke and all my working life I saved and lived well within my means, used cars, modest, but comfortable home, etc. Financial security is more valued when you've seen the other side of the fence. I know lots of guys that are going to be hurtin' when they no longer can work, beat the Jones', ya know? At this point, I know I'll never go hungry again.

 

[BIGJACK]

Mcgunner, you right about living next to the gulf. I was born and grew up Near the Mississippi gulf coast and I have always said that all you needed to survive there was a small john boat, 20ft shrimp troll and a 5hp outboard(with gas of course). I use to pull a 20 ft troll with a 5hp johnson, put her on wide open and pull untill the weight of the ball(catch) would bring her to a halt. Pull it in and have various types of fish, crabs and shrimp.

Go out in the gulf with a small boat and a Zebco 33 and some cut bait(trash fish) or shrimp and catch SOMETHING. REally don;t need the zepco, when I was real little and use to go with my mother and dad we used drop lines with 2 or 3 hooks on it. Another trick was taking a burlap bag appart at the seams and making a lateral back stop down the middle of a small joh boat, put a lantern on each side and paddle down the beach when the mullet were in and they would jump at the light, hit the burlap back stop and fall into the boat. Fish fry that night.

 

[Oldnamvet]

I think there are fish and game no matter where you are if you look hard enough. In the middle of Iowa's cornfields I was never more than a few miles away from a small river or stream full of channel cats. Rabbits (yech ) were everywhere as were squirrels, pheasants, ducks, quail, etc. Even when I lived in El Paso, I was amazed at the wildlife (including rabbits - yuck ) that could be found in the desert. It is always an adventure to find some hidden spot where no one else usually travels. It can be as simple as being willing to buck some brush to get at a portion of a small stream that is rarely fished.
(did I mention that I don't like to eat rabbits?)

 

[lawson]

i should've emphasized that i live in a pretty large city, so it's very nice to find rivers and good hunting land right outside the city. If it weren't for the Salt River, i'd go crazy in the city.

 

[.45&TKD]

If it weren't for the Salt River, i'd go crazy in the city.

I obviously need to go to the Salt River.

 

[T.R.]

Several guys I know have poached deer for the family freezer. It's wrong and I am not proud of them at all. But I don't snitch on my relatives or friends.
TR

 

[Sistema1927]

I have never "had" to hunt in order to eat. I enjoy hunting, and I enjoy eating game, but it has never been a matter of necessity.

However, I did pay for a couple of semesters of college by shooting coyotes.

 

[1911 guy]

Never a hunt or starve situation for me.

But, we did get kinda lean in the wallet a time or two as a kid. The folks put a priority on buying meat and we grew produce. I've eaten ramps, dandelions, cattails, and a few other things that fall into the "What is it?" "Shut up and eat it." category. Hunting supplemented the meat. Mainly squirrels and rabbits. .22 stuff.

As for shooting deer out of season, here's my opinion. If you're trophy or sport hunting, shame on you. Hope a judge tosses the book at you. However, if you need meat, I didn't see nothin', but I'll help you dress it out.

 

[dfaugh]

Never had to do it..But I may have to soon...Trying to survive on SS disability, and its not working. One reason is that I won't give up my 10 acres of property, but there's also lots of game there. Deer come right up into my back yard. Of course I would never shoot an animal "out of season" , but you do what you gotta do. I also fish, but unfortunately the waters around here are so polluted that they recommend only eating a limited amount of fish a month. Lots of good fishing spots, but I'm not real eager to eat what I catch. But that may change as well.

 

[hillbilly]

The problem with hunting for a living is that critters big enough to be worth the time and effort expended are quickly hunted out, or mobile enough to get away from hunting pressure.

I think a better strategy would be to trap for survival needs.

Traps do al the waiting for you. Traps require a little effort to set up, and you'll get more good results from trapping than from hunting.

Now, you'll be catching lots of small, and not-very-gourmet critters.

But hey, it's survival, right?

hillbilly

P.S......as a "survival" strategy, here's how my family fed five sons on a school bus driver's salary for several years.

Forget hunting. It's called "gardening."

There's a reason why agriculture replaced hunting and gathering.

You get a heck of a lot more food tending a little garden plot.

Plus, if you really need the meat, the little garden plot attracts all kinds of critters that you could supplement your diet with.

We gardened hard, and fished a lot. Lots of food.

 

['Card]

When I was a teenager I had a real obsession with 'survival camping'. I'd spend a week or ten days in the field with no food other than what I could find, catch or kill myself. It was a pretty interesting experience, because it forced me to learn what wild-growing plants were edible, as well as how to clean and cook a lot of different common critters.

About the only thing I'd consistently cheat on was cooking supplies like flour and cooking oil - which are things I think a lot of people underestimate in a survival situation. Catching fish is pretty easy, but preparing one so that it's worth eating is damned-near impossible if you don't have some of that stuff with you.

Once I started getting good at it I used to jack up the challenge by making myself leave the guns at home and using a slingshot or bow. Now that is hard, and almost un-doable unless you're near a body of water where you can fish and kill ducks.

 

[BIGJACK]

Man, you take a fish,gut him and cut off his head, salt him up real good and make you a "latice" matt from small green branches or canes(if you don't have a piece of hardware cloth or grill bars) and hold it over some coals or a fire for about 10 minutes and pig out, better than the oil fried stuff but I need that salt. I use to also season up a squirrel and hang him near the fire while I was hunting or fishing for a couple of hours and when I returned you could lick the meat from the bone. yumme yum yum. Might go get one out of the freezer now/

 

[MCgunner]

Well, when I was in school, I didn't have a place to garden. I was living in cheap rental property with roomies sharing expenses. And, yeah, hardwood coals can make danged near anything taste good with little extra. But, flour's cheap and I always bought coffee and fixin's. I've read you can use the stuff on a cat tail flower head for flour, but I've never tried that. I have, however, extended the coffee with roasted dandelion root (similar to chicory root) and it ain't bad. That one summer, I lived off 3 bucks a week. I had a corn patch that came in behind the house I lived in. Got tired of corn after a while. LOL, but it was good nutrition. After I picked all that corn, I had SOMETHING to eat every evening. And, I, shall we say, scrounged a few melons and cantaloupes. The Dilly, Texas area has a lot of melon fields. I ate one good meal a day in the evening and sometimes bought a breakfast taco or ate a cantaloupe for breakfast. I sure didn't have a weight problem... When I got out of school and got a good job and started eating regular, I gained 25 lbs around my gut within 6 months. :banghead:

 

[TomFromTheShade]

When my grandfather came home from WWII he had six children to feed, and with a medical discharge no one would hire him. He poached deer, a lot of deer. Had he not done this, my family would have died from starvation and I would not exist. I don't consider it poaching if you are starving.

 

[swampdog]

I had to survive on the east coast of Florida, around Ft. Pierce, for a couple of weeks, onetime. That was around 27 years ago. I was living on the beach, doing odd jobs for money, waiting for a mates job to become available. I had a castnet, a .22 revolver and a spinning rod. After fried mullet, ladyfish, saltwater catfish and speckled trout got old, I decided to try for a rabbit. There was a jeep trail leading through the mangroves behind where I was camping that was full of rabbits. These were very stupid rabbits. You could kick one up, he'd run 20' and turn around and look at you. The first one I shot ended up burnt on the outside, raw on the inside and very quickly turned into a pile of bones. Lucky it didn't make me sick, but it was good at the time. Palm fronds don't make a very good fuel to cook over, btw.
Between the rabbits, seafood, a bag of beans and a big can of oatmeal, I made out all right. I also ate so much citrus fruit that I didn't eat another orange or grapefruit for ten years. I tried mussels for the first time during that period, liked them and still eat them today. I was 15 at the time.

Its suprising how good just about anything can be when you are hungry. Hunting and fishing has helped me get through other tough times, too. I ate a grilled coon one time. It was pretty good but I was also starving. I drew the line at possom but if I'd went another couple of days, I bet it would have been good, too. I fed my kids so much fish when they were growing up, neither one likes it today. They still like deer meat, though, and they also got plenty of that.

 

[stevelyn]

Subsistence hunting and fishing are practiced in bush Alaska. There's nothing "sporting" about it.

 

[MCgunner]

I drew the line at possom but if I'd went another couple of days, I bet it would have been good, too.

LOL THAT'S HUNGRY! Nasty critters. I caught lots of 'em in home made catch 'em alive traps when I was a kid, STUNK. I'd just turn 'em loose. Coon ain't bad, though. One thing that's easy down here, there's lots of oyster reefs, one just down from my house. Winter, I sometimes carry an oyster knife and some sauce with me in my tackle box and stop on a reef for a snack. Don't even have to cook 'em, yum. We don't have much for cities around here and the water's pretty clean. You don't wanna eat oysters in summer months or when there's a lot of rain water run off, though.

 

[swampdog]

I used to do the same with oysters out of the James River in Va. before the kepone scare in the 70's. There are still plenty of oysters out there now but I'd be scared to eat them. There used to be so many oysters bars or reefs in the lower James they were a hazard to navigation. Great big salty raw oysters, yum. Those were the days. You could pick up a 5 gallon bucket full in just a few minutes. The way water quality is now days, I'm very particular about the oysters I'll eat raw. I usually end up steaming them, which is still pretty good, but not the same.
I used to clam quite a bit as a kid, too. I don't clam in VA. anymore but I clam around Oregon Inlet frequently.
I can't imagine ever truely starving as long as I'm on the southern coast. There's too much good food just lying around, waiting to be caught or picked up. I went shrimping with a cast net in Roanoke Sound last weekend and caught around 10 pounds in an hour, just blindcasting. These were mostly good sized 30-40's, too.

With a castnet, a spinning rod and a .22 revolver a country boy can still survive, anywhere on the southern coast, anyways.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

I used to live on the water in Seaford, VA, if you know where that is. I'd keep a crab pot or two off my dock. There's shoal water at the mouth of the Poquoson river where no one oysters -- I'd go in there in scuba gear and slither around getting oysters.

Add in the ducks and geese, and I used to wonder how anyone who lived in Virginia ever came up with the idea that you have to work to make a living.

 

[Dr.Rob]

I had a friend suggest we go on a 25 mile 'wilderness' hike... we wanted to take NOTHING in the way of food, just a .22 and some fishing gear.

I told him not to freak out if he saw me eating a Hershy bar on day 2. And no, I wouldn't share.

It's nice to know you CAN do it, but setting out in the woods in a wilderness area 60 miles from the nearest town is a bad idea.