You know I have heard and talked to thousands of people and everyone has there own thoughts of the end of the world. You run across those that think we are heading back to a New Dark Ages and fall back hundreds of years. Others think we will fall back in to a modern day Great Depression meaning high unemployment where money is king. Others think that China is going to use high tech satellite that cause a high altitude EMP Electronic Magnetic Pulse this will fried all electric circuits like in the movie “War of the Worlds” not even cars would work. I think maybe it is a fantasy guys like to think about, they think I can make it.
Psychologist believe your formative years are between 3-6 years old you are made up for your whole life. Maybe there is something to that. I was 4 years old when the country suffer through the 14 days of Oct in 1962. The Cuban Missile crisis. Growing up in the turbulent times of the 60’s must have mark me for life. The Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK being assassinated, Black Panthers, Martin Luther King being assassinated, Jack Kennedy being assassinated, The Watts riots, the Detroit riots, Viet Nam War, War protestors, National Guard shooting collage students at Kent State, Ohio, Charles Manson cult, on and on and on. The 70’s was the fake oil crisis (yes it reminds me of today) the country heading to a great Depression, Nixon impeachment, Carter Iran Crisis, the Jim Jones cult, on and on and on. Not to mention living through a few natural disaster no electric for 7 days, snow storm closing the area down, no heat, no stove to cook on, few candles, flashlight batteries dying, no woodstove, etc.
I guess that explains why I wanted to learn to be independent. I have always tried to live in a house with a woodstove, my own well, a generator, a 4×4 truck, a way to cook in an emergency and more. Along the way I started learning to survive in the wilds and live off the land. I read every survival manual I could get my hands on. Study every manual on wild edible plants. But just having the knowledge was not enough I really wanted to do it. Then I started my learning curve on living off the land. I tried making the deadfalls and was big time disappointed, I tried the single strand wire snares and had very limited success. Somewhere along the line I started trapping with real traps and wow what a difference. I started catching animals and I started selling the pelts for cash money.
Why play at trying to catch animals when you can get real equipment and have real success. Yes it was learning curve for me. I had to get that nonsense out of my head that most of the survival manuals were wrote by people that have never caught an animal. Some methods I am truly convince are just myths handed down from one manual to the next. Ever wonder why so many survival manuals have drawing of homemade deadfalls and snares but no pictures? That is why on my web site you see pictures of real catches. Why because this is not theory. This is real world experiences.
« 1976 Second year trapping 37 M’rats in 2 weeks with 12 traps. Ah, real traps equals real catches. Ya that is me look at all that hair. :-)
I started using real traps in 1975. I don’t think it was until 1977 before I finally was able to give up on the nonsense that deadfalls and homemade wire snares worked. Yes I know some folks have real good luck with deadfalls. Ok can you duplicate it yourself? I can not tell you the thousands of people that came to me and said thank you now I am really catching animals.
Anyways a number of people say “get a Pellet gun, rat traps, and a bow or crossbow”. The theory being you want to be silent to collect food. Ok I too went through this phase. I got my pellet gun and tried to get game with it. Yes I was successful with it BUT I also lost a lot of game that was hit hard but not hard enough and escape. I learned to skip the toys. Pellet guns are for kids not for surviving. A .22 rifle is far superior small game choice. The rats traps check out Rat traps. Now the bow and hunting was a real learning curve. I started with a Fred Bear re-curve then to a Fred Bear Compound and then to a Browning compound. Arrows I started with cedar, then aluminum, and finally carbon arrows. Broadheads Steel stolid 4 blade, then replaceable razor 3 blade that I still use.
While I love bow hunting nothing better in the world then sitting in a tree stand in Oct in the North. The woods changing colors the weather is not brutal cold and the deer are dumb. What a learning curve deer are incredible hard to kill even when hit hard. Buying new arrows and broadheads is very expensive. I figure it out one year not counting the price of the gun or bow just what I was spending on each. The bow was the most expensive ways to hunt. But then people think I can always make my own arrows out of sticks in the woods. My advice if this is your plan have your wife become a nurse store plenty of first aid equipment. Why? because a modern high speed compound bow is too fast to handle a poorly made wooden arrow. Even if you are able to shoot one without it exploding into splinters in your face it has to be true to hundreds of an inch the full length and you are going to make this with a pocket knife?
The way I live my life is if I have tested a survival method then it is a proven fact otherwise it is a theory untested and unproven. The same with the slingshot idea. It is a fair idea as something to keep kids busy but I don’t care how good you are it is a toy. I read one article about a guy that had a survival slingshot made his own round ball ammo out of lead. His article with his slingshot talk about shooting 100 rounds to get one squirrel. Wow he must have lived in some great squirrel hunting area because where I hunt if you see 5 squirrels a day it was a good day in the woods.
A long the way I talked to many a trapper that survive the Great Depression by trapping. Not only was it food but the pelts sold for cash money that saved the family farm. Sometimes it was the only meat and cash the family had for months. We are very spoiled generation compare to our grandparents that survive the Great Depression and 2 World Wars. Back then there was not all the safety nets we have today. No food stamps and Welfare to pay the rent and electric bills. I met this spoiled generation first hand when I rented a mobile home out to a food stamp collecting mother of 2. I said take the kids out back and collect black berries they are free for the picking there is also red raspberries out there free for the picking. She reply in a real arrogant voice if I want berries I will buy them on my food stamps.
The next renter was some more deadbeats a supposedly 100% disable Social Security man with a new wife and brand new son. They were collecting in SS disabilities, Food stamps and welfare over $1500 a month not to mention going to the local food banks getting their free hand out once a month. Again I said go out back and collect black berries they are free for the picking there is also red raspberries out there free for the picking. Again the reply was if I want berries I will buy them with my food stamps. So there is the new generation arrogant, lazy, and demanding there free handouts. It still blows my mind that they were too lazy to walk 100 feet and pick ripe free berries.
Because if we have a economic collapse there will be not welfare and no food stamps. What do you think all these deadbeats are going to do then? Do you think they will become humble and walk 100 feet for free food for the picking or are they going to steal everything they can. I believe they would rather steal what you have then work on getting anything honest. Why? Because that is all they know. We have been too liberal and nice. Instead of being real adults and say will you got that girl pregnant get off your big fat behind and get a job to support your family. We (society) say it OK here is free hand out, here is your free food, here is your check to pay for all your bills and oh yes here is your free 100% paid medical coverage.
So what ever your version of the end of the world is I can honestly and truly state for a fact if you plan on obtaining wild game for food skip the Pellet gun, rat traps, slingshots, blowguns and a bow or crossbow and invest your money in real traps and real professional grade self locking snares. Learn how to use them because a properly trained, a trapper, snaresman will out produce any hunter alive.
Bruce Buckshot
Reply from e-mail
Read with great interest your article on “The End of the World.”
Yup, I have to agree with you on those survival manuals and the drawings of the traps.
I tried those myself early in life. Even before my teens I think. Tried the deadfalls with “Never” any luck at all. Tried “snap up snares” with those double tooth triggers and also the figure-4 trigger. Don’t know how many I set but a lot and only remember ever catching ONE rabbit with a figure-4 type trigger on the snap up snare. No problem though, I’d have starved to death LONG before I ever caught that rabbit! I still remember slowly creeping up through the rushes and SEEING that rabbit and was so shocked I almost hollere YaHoooo. ONE little rabbit.
Yup, me thinks a lot of those books are written by arm chair dreamers just like the famous arm chair warriors on the web! They make a lotta $$$ sellin them books though
