Modern Day Hunter/Gatherer

 (Disclaimer/Warning: All of the scenarios and events below are based upon the entire nation being in a state of chaos with no active civil authorities.  Some of the things I discuss requires license, i.e., trapping/snaring.  Please, abide by all state and federal laws while learning any hunting or trapping skills.  Get some training prior to attempting anything I discuss in this article.  Hunting, trapping, and gathering are skills.  Be sure you know what you are doing before you eat any wild game or wild plants.

No “one” skill is the golden answer to survival.  I have always viewed skills as tools in a toolbox.  You don’t carry around just one tool in a tool box.  The same goes for skill sets.  One skill compliments the other.  So in this article I’m going to cover hunting/fishing/trapping/and scavenging for food and potable water on the move.  First we are going to assume you have planned your route with care, but just to make sure we are on the same page, let’s do a little knowledge check. What is the most important item that must be taken into consideration when planning any route by foot?  If you stated water sources than you are correct, everyone else just died from heatstroke/dehydration way, way before they starved to death.  Fact is water is heavy, one liter of water is almost exactly one kilogram (in fact the whole metric system is based on just that).  Second we are going to assume that your goal is to get home as quickly as possible, bearing in mind that home is over 1400 miles from your starting point, and the last assumption is that your only means of transportation is walking. So I don’t want to hear, why didn’t you buy/find/borrow/appropriate a bicycle or an older model car or motorcycle and ride home?  One, yes it is faster, but riding a bicycle at 15 to 20 mph greatly reduces your situation awareness, limits your choices of routes and allows you to get into a bad situation faster.  The idea of an older motorcycle or late model car is good but let’s worst case this, bottom line you are on foot. 

So let’s set the stage, a middle age male, about 38 years of age, married with a wife and three kids that live in Texas.  He goes to the gym (on average) once a week.  He has his get home bag and some equipment with him in his vehicle.  It is around the end of July (so it is hot and humid) and he is on the road heading up to the Washington, DC area for work.  He has stopped for the night at a hotel in the Northern Virginia area.  When he wakes the following morning around 6:00 AM all the electricity is off, all vehicles and electronics are dead.  He realizes immediately that something like an EMP attack or CMP/solar flare has happened. Anyway you get the idea it’s a SHTF moment.  

So now our stranded traveler must get home to Texas from Northern Virginia.  He is fairly well equipped, not going to get into individual gear in this article as this is about food.  So our stranded traveler has about 12 – 15 days of prepared food at around 1800 – 2000 calories a day.  Here is a list of food he has on hand:

5 x Mountain House meals

Spices – various, a must have, some of this stuff is going to be bland

2 x Greenbelly meals

½ pound of mixed nuts – peanuts, cashews, almonds, pecans, pistachios, walnuts

1 x 16 oz of peanut butter

6 x Individual packets of SPAM

6 x Individual packets of Tuna

12 x Individual servings of Instant Oat Meal (I prefer Brown Sugar and Maple)

2 jars or packs of bouillon cubes (one each of chicken and beef)

4 x ramen packs (crushed to take up less room)

1 x quart zip lock of protein powder

1 x 6 oz bottle of oil

12 x green tea bags

12 x instant coffee packets

2 x MIO squeeze flavor drink bottles

6 x Energy gels (various flavors)

12 x individual packets of honey

Time to make a couple more assumptions.  First our guy is in fairly decent hiking shape, so we can assume he is going to be able to maybe average 12 to 15 miles a day given the terrain (starting in NE Virginia) and some luck.  That is as long as he does not have to scavenge for food or water or twist a knee or develop blisters.  I know, I know, you are thinking that’s not very far.  Backpackers on the AT often average 20 miles or more a day.  Well wake up and smell the roses, this isn’t some pleasure hike with a box of supplies waiting at the next post office, or a store where you can resupply.  But let’s say this is Burger King and you want it your way, so 20 miles a day it is, even if we go with the best case, our person is only going to cover approximately 220 – 240 miles before he is completely out of food.   It is approximately 1400 miles to Houston, TX.  

Also, it is worth mentioning, our hiker must find water every day.  Sounds easy, there are a lot of streams, rivers, lakes and ponds in eastern Virginia, right?  But it really isn’t about finding the water that is the easy part; it is how you handle the water.  One drop of the wrong water could end your trip, forever.  Pick up the wrong bacteria (read cholera), or amoeba (dysentery), or protozoa (giardia), by drinking contaminated water or absorbing through a scratch or cut and you will be down for the count without the proper medical treatment.  Four-fifths of all illnesses in developing countries are caused by water-borne diseases, with diarrhea being the leading cause of death among children.  With no power, where do you think all the sewage is going to end up once all the pumping stations stop.  If there is one item you do not skimp on that is your water equipment.  At least one stainless steel water bottle is a must in case you need to boil water, along with at least one method to filter water, and as last resort, have a back-up bottle of water purification tablets or a small bottle of beach. 

Please bear in mind you also have to take into account the mental agility and toughness of our person. The short-term effects, let alone the long-term effects, of coping with extreme stress can be completely disabling. Those of us that have had to spend long periods of time away from our families might handle the stress better, but that’s not to say it will not wear on us.  Anyone dealing with situations where they have very little or no control or are going through an experience that involves physical hardship, psychological trauma, and/or deprivation of what is normal can react or lash out in other than normal behavior.  There are a couple of different ways of coping with high levels of stress, emotion-focused (passive avoidance-based coping strategies use denial or disengagement from a problem, or attempts to evade difficult circumstances and the associated emotions) and active problem-focused (approach-based coping strategies use active engagement with stressful problems or circumstances, or attempts to actively problem solve when presented with a difficult situation) but that is a complicated subject for another day.  Those whom choose to use passive ^[1]avoidance-based coping strategies will more than likely become victims during a SHTF situation.  Why may you ask is this important?  It should be obvious, denial of problems solves nothing, and it’s just kicking the can down the road.

As far as food goes, let’s break this down a little more; the Harvard Health Publication states that men should consume a minimum of 1,500 calories a day unless supervised by their doctors.  Even at 1,500 calories a day a man conducting normal activity will lose weight.  To maintain current body weight, most adult men will need to consume 2,000 to 3,000 calories a day.  According to another study conducted by the Mayo Clinic, a 160-pound person spends about 511 calories per hour while hiking with a pack at a moderate pace.  That works out to burning about 4,088 calories over an eight hour period of hiking (2.5 mph x 8 = 20 miles).  That sounds like a lot of calories to me.  I am not a medical doctor, but I don’t think anyone could survive or keep up this pace on taking in ½ the calories that you expend each day.  Just for clarification, the study did say “there was many other variables involved that may increase or decrease the number of calories burned, like muscle mass, age, fitness level, and height”.  This might work if all our guy has to do is travel 250 miles.  But multiplying that distance to 1400 miles, you have nowhere near the amount of calories to sustain your body let alone maintaining 20 miles a day.

I will say up front that attempting to keep up a 20 mile a day pace is almost impossible if you are having to hunt, trap, and fish along the way.  First you have no way to preserve the meat for any length of time (yes you could dry the meat, but that takes time) and hunting, trapping, and fishing takes time not even counting the time to clean and cook your success. Additionally, you would want to start immediately supplementing your food with game and/or edible plants. There are many rivers, lakes, and ponds in the Eastern United States.  Water means animals and fish and with some knowledge and a little bit of luck you can easily supplement your supplies with fresh meat and edible plants.  But all of this takes time.  The key to the success of being a hunter/gather is that you get more calories from your hunting and gathering than you expend.

So what supplies would our guy need to survive or at least prolong his ability to make this trip?  Let’s take a look at what our guy is currently carrying in his get home bag.

1 x .22 pistol (never leave home without it in your get home bag)

A ¼ roll of 14/16 gauge wire 

1 x pair of heavy duty set of pliers

1 x digging tool (a small garden hand spade will work, I carry an E-tool)

1 x small spray bottle of scent (more about that later)

1 x small baby food bottle of bait (more on this later)

1 x Redman wire tool (used for planting the wire support to hold the snare open)

1 x dozen Dakota Line Ghost Rider Mink Snares (about 20.00 a dozen, good for mink, squirrels, and rabbit)

6 x Dakota Line Versatile Snares, (about 18.00 a dozen, good for coon size animals up to coyotes)

3 x Dakota Line Wolf & Hog Snare, (these work well for deer, or so I hear, in a SHTF situation, about 25.00 a dozen).

6 x YoYo fishing reels

1 x small weighted net (3 feet by 3 feet) for crayfish

50 yards of 5/50 cord (some of which you will make into a fish stringer)

1 x roll of heavy duty tin foil (off the tube and folded)

3 x tree taps

1 x small nylon mesh bag

1 x small box of fishing hooks, sinkers, bobbers, etc.

2 x sour apple bubble gum packs (very good for catfish)

1 x small jar of fish bait (I carry fish eggs, but any type of smelly bait with do) 

1 x pair of thin leather gloves (to handle any snares and bait.  Would recommend you store these in a heavy duty gallon zip lock bag.)

Keep in mind the types of animals/game you can realistically handle.  Do you really need to snare or shoot a deer or a bear?  Let’s face it, most of you will be making so much noise you will be lucky if you see the back side of a large mammal bounding off in the distance, let alone have an encounter with a large, mature animal up close and personal.  OK, maybe you do see a deer and your month is watering, it depends on the situation, mainly how much food are you carrying or have you already been on starvation rations? Not saying you have to wait until you have nothing else to eat to shoot a large animal, but know that much of the animal will go to waste.  Not really an issue if you are starving.  Do you have the knowledge and ability to dress out a deer and smoke or dry the meat? Or are you going to hack off a hunch and keep trucking down the road.  Again, guess that comes down to how hungry you are.  In a real SHTF moment I would take the best cuts and keep trucking.  I know I would have to be pretty hungry before I would eat a rabbit in July, mostly due to some of the diseases they can carry during the warmer months of the year. But on the other hand, would I, damn right I would if I was on short rations.  In fact here is a list of the more common animals that might make an appearance on the menu (east of the Mississippi).  Bear, deer, feral hog, mountain lion, alligator, otter, beaver, nutria, fisher, feral cat, feral dog, bobcat, coyote, fox, opossum, armadillos, raccoon, muskrat, squirrel, rabbit, groundhog, chipmunks, weasels, mink, voles, mole, shews, mice, rats, cattle, horse, and skunk.  I will clarify that some of these I would have to be mighty hungry to stop and roast, but I have never been actually starving either.  Yes I have been hungry a couple of times, like during SERE school, put starving, no.  Then there are several types of birds that can contribute to the frying pan such as; dove, pigeon, tame ducks, grouse, wild ducks, tame-geese, wild – geese, pheasant, quail, crow, raptors, owls, gulls, song birds, etc.  Most of these you target area (for eating) is the breast of the bird.  Note: be very careful handling any type of carrion birds, the bacteria carried in their guts are extremely dangerous.  Just about anything that flies can be eaten, other than buzzards, I would leave them as a choice of last resort.  Next on the menu are the fish, crustaceans, and reptiles such as; fish (almost anything you can catch on a hook or by fish trap/net), crayfish, eels, crabs, clams, mollusks, fresh water mussels, frogs, terrapins, turtles, and snakes.  After that come our insects, such as grubs, earthworms (be sure and down the worms in some potable water for several minutes to clean out their systems or don’t if you like the taste of dirt), crickets/grasshoppers and scorpions.

Last but not least are our edible plants.  Most of the time we are surrounded by edible plant life, we just don’t realize it. There is no way I am going into edible plants right now.  I could write a couple pages alone on Cattails, which by the way is one of the most wildly spread and useful plants in the eastern US.  Or Black Walnuts, again widely spread and so many medical uses and the hulls can be used to stun fish in a pond or still water.  But overall plants can be a little tricky and some even deadly.  Please get some training before experimenting with wild edible plants.  One word of caution, do not mess with mushrooms unless you are 100% sure you know what you are doing.  There are just so many edible plants east of the Mississippi and this is a skill set you must learn.  There are many good to excellent books on this topic.  Get one, read it, study it, than stuff it in your get home bag so you have it when you need it.  Another excellent example is Pine needle tea.  Easy to make, easy to identify the correct tree, the pine is one of the most numerous trees on the right coast.  Pine needle tea is rich in vitamins, it has little nutritional value but it is high in vitamins.  It will keep you from getting scurvy if you are on a starvation diet. 

So we have a few days of food, some snares, and some fishing gear, now what do we do with it in a SHTF situation.  First order is to get outside the populated areas, the longer you hang around the more likely you are going to get into a problem situation that will at least delay you. You already have a route picked, right? Be prepared to not make your goal for the first few days.  Depending on what shape you are in and how accustomed you are to carrying a load will dictate how far you go on those first few days.  Be extremely careful about taking care of your feet. Immediately address and fix any hot spots or blisters.  At this point your feet are your life, take care of them.

So you are up before daylight that first day, grab your pack and security items (rifle, pistol or both) and get on the road.  If you are planning on setting any snares or fishing or both that evening you need to stop earlier than normal to get everything set up.  So let’s say the sunsets at 8:30 PM this time of year.  I would recommend stopping no later than 6:30 or 7:00 PM and find a campsite.  Once you have identified your campsite, hopefully about 100 yards from a river/lake/pond and with good concealment, than begin looking for places to set your snares.  I would first take a walk along whatever water source you are nearby.  Do not walk right along the edge of the water source. Stay 10 or 15 feet back from the bank and look for animal sign, tracks or worn down paths leading to the water. Pay particular attention to any structure (downed trees, large rocks, large or thick brush right along the bank). If you still don’t see any animal sign move down to the edge of the water and look for paths or areas that raccoons or other animals have used to gain access to the water.  Look for slide areas from muskrats or beavers.  Any of the above mentioned places are good for snare sets.  After you have determined several places to set your snares, now is the time to use your scent marker.  Pull up a double hand full of grass and tie it into a small loose bundle with 5/50 cord. Put a little of your scent marker on the grass bundle and start about 20 yards away from your snare site and drag the bundle all the way to the edge of the water.  Do this on each path leading to your snare sets.   I’m not going to explain the details of setting up a snare set, other than remind you to use items within the immediate area to help channelize the animal to the snare and to remember to lay a small branch or piece of wood across the trail or slide to make the animal pick its head up so it will be cleanly snared.  Use a large enough limb or stick that the animal will have to make a small hop to clear the obstacle; this will also facilitate engaging the snaring action. Do not use a rock for this; most animals will walk around a rock vice stepping over one.

Squirrel sets are fairly easy, if you observe squirrels in the area, find you a downed tree about 3 – 4 inches in diameter at the base.  Drag it over to a large tree you have seen the squirrels running around in. Take 4 of your smaller snares and set about two feet apart.  Once you have them set, take a small bit of peanut butter and smear a little (doesn’t take much, about a marble size piece) between each set.  Lean the downed tree with you sets against the larger tree and go take a nap.  If you have never cleaned a squirrel, than again do your self a favor, so shoot a squirrel, watch a you-tube, and get to skinning.  It is not building the shuttle for space, but it is harder than you think. Please video and post, you might not get a laugh out of it, but everyone else will.

I will warn you that if you are trapping/snaring around the water and there are beaver in the area, pay attention to what you are doing.  You do not want to get bit by a beaver; I have seen them take huge chunks out of a paddle before.  They are easy to catch, simply make a small break in one of their dams and bingo you will catch a beaver.  However, there is a big difference to catching one and holding or drowning one. You must practice your drown sets. The beaver’s instinct after hitting the snare is to get away, most of the time they will dive into the water and head to the bottom.  It is fairly simple to set up a drowning rock.  If done correctly the beaver will drown and you have food for a few days, if not done correctly you will more than likely have a very angry beaver waiting for you to come back.  If your snare is gone than you probably have a beaver in it.  They are very hard to see in the darkness.  Carefully get hold of the wire and pull the set to you.  Do not go into the water after a possible live pissed off beaver.  A lot of time they will tear up the bank as far as the lead wire will let them. There will be no doubt; it will look like a bomb hit the area.  Sometimes they will dig out under the bank and just lay there.  Do not step off the bank anywhere near where the snare was set. Pull the beaver out into the open and wait for him to pop back to the surface than take your .22 pistol and shoot him right between the eyes.  I would not advise trying to club a beaver to death, just save your self a lot of grief and shoot it.

After getting your snares set, pull out your YoYo reels and get those set into the water, I would recommend at least two, but set up as many as you want.  If you set four and get four large fish than you can always release those you don’t need.  I’m going to assume that you know how to clean fish, I know I’m wrong to do that, but come on, get out there one weekend, catch a ½ dozen perch, clean them and cook them on the river bank.  It will save you some grief down the road.  I suggest that you check the YoYo reels every hour or so.  If you are lucky and catch enough fish for the evening and the next morning, I would recommend you go ahead and take up your snares, as you no longer need the meat that day.  Always be careful when you are packing away your snares, as you do not want to tangle or twist the cables.

Both meat animals and fish are easy to cook over an open fire or a small camp stove.  I actually prefer to cook fish in aluminum foil.  I first gut and clean the fish, rub it down with a little bit of oil (oil goes a long way, don’t over use, season heavy with salt and pepper and spices (your choice), wrap in tin foil, scrape back the fire, lay down a bed of coals, lay foil wrapped fish on coals, and finish by covering up the foil wrapped fish with coals.  Cooking time is about 20-30 mins.  Just make sure it is completely cooked before eating.  For most meat you may either fry or boil the meat.  It is amazing what a few spices and a couple of bouillon cubes can do.  Never eat wild game raw or rare, always make sure it is cooked well done, sorry, I didn’t make the rules.  

So with a little luck, some skill, and a can do attitude you can stretch out your provisions to double, even triple the normal time your food would last.  It might slow down your planned rate of march, but it also allows you to stay off the beaten path.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

---

^[1]Journal of Traumatic Stress DOI 10.1002/jts.