Meat On The Table Primitive Hunting, Fishing and Trapping
- BVABC Pro Staffer, Ryan Dotson
- Jun 13, 2016
- 8 min read
Finding food in a survival situation is actually one of my last concerns. Most healthy people can survive for almost a month without food. However, hunger drastically affects your morale, focus, and strength. Without calories one would battle depression and severe weakness after about two weeks. You may not starve to death, but instead may be too weak to collect water or may end up injured in another way. Wild edibles are the easiest source of food when surviving, but you may be stranded in an unfamiliar area. Plants vary from region to region. If you don’t recognize the plants, you are probably better off without them. Eating any plant that you can’t positively identify is very risky. Living on a plant only diet would weaken you as well. Protein is what you really want at some point, but how do you get it?
We can assume that most individuals in a survival situation would not have a gun, a bow, or a fishing pole with them. So let’s start with hunting. We need a weapon, and anything heavy will do. The first primitive hunters used rocks and throwing sticks to go after small game. This requires excellent aim, so plan on practicing in advance if you go this route. Spears are an option, and there are two kinds. You want either type to be long enough that it rises above your armpit when stood on end. This is to prevent you from tripping and falling on your spear. For large game you need a single point spear to penetrate the neck or rib cage. Never throw your spear at any dangerous animals, as missing would leave you vulnerable without a weapon. For small game, a four point spear is best. Once you have sharpened your point, split it into four sections by cutting six to eight inches down the shaft. Then shove two small sticks into the cuts to spread out the points. This will allow you to cover a larger surface area on your prey. The four point spear is effective on frogs, fish, and any other small game that will let you get close enough. Before heading out, place the end of either spear in your fire to harden the tips. If you are talented at flint-knapping, you can fashion a spearhead. However, this takes years of practice finding the right rocks and knowing where to strike. A basic spear is much easier for most people in a survival situation.
Spear hunting and hunting with rocks or throwing sticks requires solid tracking skills. Tracking may be as simple as finding a water source or a game trail. More advanced tracking involves looking for spores. Spores are any sign that an animal has been in that area. Obviously finding scat is a dead give-away, and being able to identify which animal produced it is very helpful. Identifying animal tracks is also important. I suggest studying the tracks of the animals living in your area. You can tell which way the prey is headed by the direction of the tracks. You can also watch for disturbed gravel, broken branches, and even which way grass blades are bent. The best trackers in Native American communities claim to be able to determine the weight, direction, and speed of an animal by looking at the depressions made on flat rocks. Obviously, most people will not have this ability. Any advantage you can give yourself by tracking game will potentially save your life.
Now that you have tracked your animal, you need to stalk it. This is a skill that has largely disappeared due to the use of firearms to kill from longer distances. However, for primitive hunting it is a must. Camouflage is very important. You can use mud, leaves, charcoal, or moss to break up your appearance. Get rid of any clothing that would stand out in your environment. As you approach your prey, move slowly and stay hidden. Use brush or topography to conceal your location, and never walk the top of a ridge where your body is outlined against the sky. Probably the most difficult aspect of stalking is moving silently through the woods. Clunky boots typically make noise, so you may want to opt for going barefoot or wearing sandals. Good moccasins are the best option because they allow you to feel the ground with your feet, but still give you a good layer of protection. You must avoid stepping on twigs or dry leaves, while still staying aware of your surroundings. Some animals have an incredible sense of smell, so rubbing down with pine needles or something else with a natural odor is important. For example, deer have a sense of smell 1,000 times more sensitive than humans, and they can identify as many as six smells at once. Also, watch the direction of the wind. You need to attempt to stay downwind from your prey. Once you can see your target, try to limit movement as much as possible. The exception would be deer. Deer typically keep their eyes forward or down, so quietly get up in a tree if you can do so without scaring it away. Knowing the senses of your target animal and its limitations will allow you to approach without spooking them. If you follow these steps, you should be able to get close enough for a kill.
With more modern weapons, people have been able to achieve accuracy from greater distances. The spear was used to create a more advanced weapon, the atlatl. A stick was hooked to the end of a spear giving more distance and accuracy with throws. With practice, you can hit a target from several dozen yards. The bow and arrow was the next natural progression. To make a bow in the wilderness, you would need cordage and a hardwood stick to carve down. Once you have strung the bow, make sure it has enough tension for the distance you need. Arrows can be made without arrowheads, but you must harden the tip in a fire. If you have access to feathers, fletching will cause the arrow to fly true. The bow has about the same range as the atlatl, but the average person can aim more accurately with the bow. One can also fish with the bow if there are large fish present in a clear pool. These weapons are versatile and can be used in most survival situations.
The biggest downside to primitive hunting is the amount of energy and time it takes. You may wander the woods all day and never get a shot off. Fishing may be a better choice, and without a rod and reel you have to get creative. If you have fishing line or other cordage, you can make a troutline. With this method, you tie several lines and baited hooks to a stick or rope with weights and floats to keep it at the right depth. This works well, but what if you have no bait? Maybe a gill net is an option. If you have netting of any kind, you would use this in a high traffic area for fish. The junction of a creek and a larger body of water is a good spot to target. You would anchor your net to the bottom with rocks and attach floats to the top. Floats can be made out of plastic bottles or floating wood. But what if you don’t have netting? Primitive fish traps are your plan. The most successful and easiest to build require channeling fish through a small opening into a closed off area of water. The fish get disoriented and cannot find their way back out. You can use rocks or poles to make the walls, and at a center point you form a funnel that is only a few inches wide at the opening. Then you can either bait the enclosed area, or just start throwing rocks to scare the fish in the right direction. Once they are in your enclosed area, you can spear them or stun them with a rock. I’ve also seen people spread bundles of grass around the fish and then scoop them out throwing them onto the shore. You can think outside the box and find many ways to collect fish for food.
I completed a survival challenge last year in which fish was my only source of protein. After two days with no food, I was fortunate enough to catch a decent sized bass. Of course you want to eat the fillets, but you can get so much more out of a fish. I saved the bones to flavor some soup later, and buried the head to preserve it for the following morning. When you boil a fish head, all kinds of nutrients and oils are released. You have some meat on the cheeks, and you can eat the eyeballs as well. It sounds gross, but it’s better than starving. One fish can easily make three or four meals if you use all of it.
Finally, that brings me to trapping. Like fishing, you can set it up and forget it. I find the setup to be more time consuming, but still a great option. You must have one of two things to properly trap: either the ability to track animals and identify a high traffic area, or some kind of bait. Most traps can work in either scenario. Snares are one of the most basic options. A slip knot is tied in some kind of cordage and then anchored to tighten around the neck in most cases. For squirrels you would tie several of these to a pole and lean it at a 45 degree angle against a large tree. Make sure the loops of the snares are sitting on top of the pole. Squirrels are lazy and will often choose your tree versus the others simply because you give him an easier climb. You can also set snares on the ground for other small game and anchor them to a stake or spring pole. There is even a snare for birds where the loop is draped on a loose stick with bait. When the bird lands on the stick, it falls leaving its leg stuck in the snare. Dead fall traps are also simple, but require bait. A heavy rock or log is propped up with sticks assembled in a figure ‘4’. Bait is placed on one of the sticks and the trap smashes the prey as he goes for the bait and releases the dead fall. There are several other types of traps, but I find them to be either more complicated or less successful. Be sure to check your traps at least once a day or other animals will make off with your meal. It can sometimes be hard to envision the design of a trap. I suggest practicing the assembly well before you ever have to rely on this skill.
Whenever I consider these options, I always look at the risk versus the reward. When you go after food, you risk calories, hydration, time, and possible injury. As a general rule, I never hunt anything that can seriously injure me. It’s just not worth the risk. When I decide to leave my camp to hunt, I know I am exposing myself to potential falls, ankle injuries, hypothermia, heat stroke, and predator attacks. My safest spot is always at my camp, but sometimes I have to take the risk and venture out into the unknown. Never go hunting or fishing at night if you can avoid it. Even with a flashlight, your odds of injury are much greater and your odds of success are less. Most predators hunt at night, and they will see you before you see them. If by chance your flashlight craps out, you are stuck for the night with none of your resources from camp. You just can’t risk it.
Another risk you take is illness from poor preparation of your catch. Always gut the animal immediately. You want to do any cleaning or gutting of animals at least 100 yards from your camp to avoid predators. If the animal was acting strange or has obvious parasites, it’s probably too risky to eat it. Always cook game meat to well done to avoid diseases and parasites. Many salt water fish can be eaten raw, but fresh water fish will almost always make you sick if not cooked. If you are lucky enough to have leftovers, make sure it is preserved in some way. I will cover food preservation in a future article. Lastly, consider every meal in a survival situation to be a blessing and use every part of the animal you can. I suggest boiling the meat and drinking the broth to get the maximum nutrients from your meal. You don’t know how long it will be until you have another meal, so you have to make it count. Happy hunting!
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