Preparing for Uncertainty and Self Reliance

[Okeefenokee]

Both my grandfathers became pretty expert coon and possum hunters in the depression, which was an all night endeavor, while working their respective farms during all the daylight hours. They didn't even have squirrels or rabbits to hunt anymore. Now my dad's mom, her family was over in Benton County on the Tennessee River. There was always fish, and they got by slightly better.

Man I wish I could go back to just one family reunion around 1975 or so to listen to the old geezers; those people were absolutely amazing.

My great grandparents raised rabbits to feed their families. I believe it was a common thing where I'm from.

[Speaker to Animals]

Game Scarcity

Tommy Medlock doesn't always have fond memories of the days when everyone lived on the creek and on what food and shelter its environment provided. "There was always plenty of work and wondering where your next meal was going to come from," he says. "People had to make their own living; I don't know how they did it sometimes."

The fact that there was very little game, such as deer and turkey, didn't help. Today, we know that deer and turkey are plentiful enough to have big hunting seasons every year. But when Medlock was a teenager and young man in the 1920s and 30s, they were extremely scarce. The market hunters and regular hunters "had it all about wiped out by the time I got grown," he says.

Hunting deer for hides to ship and sell to Europe was a big business in Missouri in the late 1800s. The Ozarks was a prime place for market hunters to get the deer. By the early 1900s, however, market hunting started declining because deer became fewer and harder to find. That also means it was harder for local people to find any deer to hunt for food, and when they did hunt them they put an even deeper dent in the declining population. The widespread clear-cut logging of the early 1900s in the Ozarks also hurt the deer population, according to the Missouri Department of Conservation. In 1937, one researcher estimated that the state of Missouri's entire deer population numbered only 2,000 animals. Wild turkey suffered the same overhunting and habitat loss.

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, the government started bringing deer and turkey back to the Ozarks. During the restocking time, it was illegal to hunt the deer or turkey. But by 1944, the government started allowing deer hunting again. It still took a while for the deer population to really grow, though. Medlock says that when he moved in 1942 to his current home near the old Fox Creek community of Bertha "there were still no deer here at all."

http://www.watersheds.org/history/oldtimer.htm



That was just the Great Depression. Imagine a true calamity like a national EMP attack.

They estimated there to be only 2000 deer in all of Missouri in 1937.. 2000..

Last I heard, deer populations on the east coast were way too high because of fewer people hunting, and the deer learning to live near suburbs.

They would clear out fast of every human suddenly realized food disruption was coming.

The best hunters with the most salt could just hunt nonstop until they were mostly gone and then barter the meat.

I would certainly not rely upon it.

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

I think that in the event of a food disruption, the best hunter with the most salt will realize that hoarding is frowned upon; and the absence of a state to protect property, loyalty is the most valuable thing to barter for.

[Speaker to Animals]

I think that in the event of a food disruption, the best hunter with the most salt will realize that hoarding is frowned upon; and the absence of a state to protect property, loyalty is the most valuable thing to barter for.

Did I mention liberals will die in a lefty holocaust?

[Montegriffo]

EVERYBODY is going to hunt for food. What happens then?

I am not saying you shouldn't do it. I am saying it shouldn't be a part of your preps. If an EMP struck right now, I would go out there with my shotgun and murder every last one of those bastard turkeys running around the condos with impunity. Then I would make jerky out of them. But then what? All the turkeys will be gone.

+1

There's a lot of historical evidence that you are on point. During the Depression wildlife numbers were hit hard. Collectivist governments who control availability of food result in over hunting.


So, how much Salt do you keep on hand for food preservation Doc ?

I have four #10 cans. Pretty low, actually. I know I need to get more.

I want to get a couple of buckets more of oats and rice first. Then maybe some more protein, veggies, and beans. I keep quite a lot of flour and oats now, though.

I have been trying to figure out a camp oven idea lately to deal with no power if it ever comes to that.

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

I think that in the event of a food disruption, the best hunter with the most salt will realize that hoarding is frowned upon; and the absence of a state to protect property, loyalty is the most valuable thing to barter for.

Did I mention liberals will die in a lefty holocaust?

And a just and glorious purge it will be I'm sure.

I am just not so sure how much ideology survives crippling hunger, or how restrained the remaining conservatives will be by their love of the best hunter's natural rights to his stockpile.

[Speaker to Animals]

Its more about an ideology that breeds weakness and sets people up for destruction.

Of course the best hunters will team up to kill all the deer and birds they can for barter, and I wouldn't want to bump into them either.

Hunting in SHTF is a bad idea for most people.

[Speaker to Animals]

+1

There's a lot of historical evidence that you are on point. During the Depression wildlife numbers were hit hard. Collectivist governments who control availability of food result in over hunting.[youtube][/youtube]


So, how much Salt do you keep on hand for food preservation Doc ?

I have four #10 cans. Pretty low, actually. I know I need to get more.

I want to get a couple of buckets more of oats and rice first. Then maybe some more protein, veggies, and beans. I keep quite a lot of flour and oats now, though.

I have been trying to figure out a camp oven idea lately to deal with no power if it ever comes to that.

I know how to use a dutch oven. The problem is that you can bake like one loaf on that at a time. To bake more, you need more fires. It's not practical.

I am talking about something that does not have an open fire but burns wood like a wood stove does, and allows you to put bread pans in there just like a normal oven. Has to be lightweight and collapsible.

I know you could build one with some sheet metal sections that fit together into the box for the oven. Then oven racks fit inside. Meanwhile you could use a typical woodfire stove beneath it to heat the thing. So the bottom of the "oven" would also be some kind of cooking surface.


Check out the stove in this guy's teepee:



That stove breaks down into sheets that connect together. Even the pipe breaks down flat.

I am talking about something like that but works like an oven as well as a stove.

[C-Mag]

Both my grandfathers became pretty expert coon and possum hunters in the depression, which was an all night endeavor, while working their respective farms during all the daylight hours. They didn't even have squirrels or rabbits to hunt anymore. Now my dad's mom, her family was over in Benton County on the Tennessee River. There was always fish, and they got by slightly better.

Man I wish I could go back to just one family reunion around 1975 or so to listen to the old geezers; those people were absolutely amazing.

I have the same stories in my family. Even though my family had a wheat and cattle ranch during the depression, they hunted like crazy. Cattle and Wheat was their income. My family and a neighboring ranchers literally exterminated Elk from a small mountain range. Elk were reintroduced in the late 40s and it took 30 years to establish a similar population.

There sideline money maker was moonshining.
Now, there's a subject that many of the hard core, Christian preppers strongly reject. However, alcohol, tobacco and drug supply during hard times is always popular.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Oh, one more thing.. don't make hunting your prep. I think that is about one of the dumbest ideas I ever come across.

Yeah, we haven't left much of anything alive to hunt.