I'm not a hunter. I get all my meat from the grocery store. But I want to learn how, just in case the day ever comes when I need to. I live in the country. On my land I've seen rabbits, raccoons, opposums, squirrels, armadillos, and even deer. I need go no further than my own backyard to practice.

So my question is... how do I get started?

There are many good books with technique...many of them survival books.

The most important thing you need to do is actually do it! Practice and go through with it all the way now so that when you have to it's not new.

First there are so many different types of snares and traps, you need to determine what type/size of critters your going to be going after. The animals in the area you will be doing this in will largely determine this. Second will they be ground dwellers, tree dwellers or both. After you decide what your going after, the best way would be to find someone who has done this before and have them show you. But seeing that you’re asking here I suppose thats probably not going to work. Second best is to look on the Internet or our local library there are some instructional videos and books that can show you how to do it. After you watch a few videos or read the books, go out to the nearest patch of woods (after checking local regs.) and try out your new knowledge and turn it into a new skill. One word though be patient it will take several tries to get it right.

Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making by Gibson
This is a html file of an excellent book from the 1800's.

-Blast

Snaring is a particularly cruel way of killing animals. You should only get started only when you're life depends on it. And if your interested in larger game you should be prepared for the possibility of criminal prosecution by Wildlife and Animal protection services if your lucky and by the Poilce if you're unlucky and you've snared someone rather than something.

A properly set up snare would never snare a person...unless that were the purpose of the snare.

When my life depends on it would be a pretty bad time to start learning, don't you think? I might starve to death before I figure out what the hell I'm doing wrong.

You would normally have about 3-4 weeks to figure out what your not doing properly in setting up a snare. If you can't figure that out in that time then you should probably adopt the Bear Grylls throwing a stick technique.

First step that a lot of people have missed is a consult with your state's fish and game agency- you might have seasons and trapping permits to worry about. This isn't the real thing, and should be conducted within the law- it covers you.

Second, you aren't snaring deer in most places. Not legally, and poaching for larger animals usually is more trouble than most people want to be in. If you ever NEED to snare deer, you scale up, try a different type of trap, or learn to hunt.

Third, learn to skin. Buy a few live rabbits and chickens, kill them (throttle or machete), and clean them. If you can't do that, you shouldn't worry about this yet.

3-4 weeks? Maybe that's what it says in some book. But have you ever gone without food for just one week? You'll still be alive, but you'll also be very weak. It's not like you're going to just be sitting on the sofa waiting to snare a rabbit. You're going to be building shelter, searching for water, and doing whatever other tasks the situation demands. All of this will be burning energy, and every single day that you don't eat will make survival more and more unlikely.

I don't gamble, and I especially don't gamble with my life.

The average person can go 40 days without food before drawing on protein reserves.

But let's see how much work you are capable of doing after that first week. I saw David Blaine sit in a box for 40 days without food, but how long do you think he would have lasted if he was working instead of sitting?

Try this: Don't eat anything for the next seven days. And during those 7 days, I want you to be doing physical labor. Then come back here and tell me how important food really is.

If you work, you'll last less. Once your body goes into a 'fasting' mode (a week to 10 days) you no longer feel hunger. Your body changes and feeds on itself.

I think what hes talking about is is a survival situation( he said "just in case the day ever comes when I need to.")if thats the case, I doubt the local game warden would have the time to track him down, he would be to busy taking care of his own needs.As far as learning now, I would suggest reading books, practice setting the snares, learn where the best places to set them are, learn from someone that already knows.
Raydarkhorse, Hacksaw and Blaze hit the nail on the head.

The biggest thing to learn beforehand is the habits, preferences, and tendencies of the animals you want to trap.

But why are you bothering with snares? I you're in the country already, you could lay in a store of proper quick-kill traps and start working with them.

For that matter, you could lay in some live-catch traps. If you develop techniques that work with those, you'll be well prepared for tougher times.

(Hmm, and if you could live trap hares, a buck and a couple of does, that's possibly an endless protein supply ...)

"Your body feeds on itself." That hardly seems like something that would increase one's chances of survival.

It seems to me that one who has eaten has a better chance of survival than one who is starving. Maybe the starvation in the 40 day period wouldn't be what directly caused an injury or death, but it is potentially a contributing factor.

I wonder if anyone here can provide a link to either studies or stories of survival and the role food played.

Anecdotally, I've gotten so cold in a non survival situation that I couldn't sleep and was miserable. I got up, ate something, warmed right back up, and slept soundly. It's hard to believe that food doesn't play a significant role in survival.

The knowledge that people can last somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 days w/o food does however seem like it might help the informed from giving up hope.

Lastly, while I definitely would not place food first on my list of survival priorities, I think it's a mistake to discount it.

Well, I just have one more thing to say in this thread, and then I'm done with it.

The longest I have ever gone without any food whatsoever was 72 hours. I was not in a survival situation. I was just testing myself. I do physical labor for a living. So during those 72 hours I did 24 hours of labor (8 hours a day).

I was completely worn out.

So let's imagine that it's been a week since I last ate. I've been working hard the entire week. I had to build a shelter. I had to collect firewood regularly. I had to search for water. And I've been putting a lot of effort into trying to get some food. Luckily for me the weather has been perfect so my life has been easy in that regard (god help me if I was both starving and freezing).

At that point my body is screaming, and no doubt my mental state is slipping somewhat. That's a BAD situation to be in. I don't give a damn what anyone says in their survival book. As far as I'm concerned, food is just as important as water.

A similar approach could also be taken when fishing, use a reel and rod to catch fish or use a Gill net. Gill nets are much more efficient ways of catching fish, indeed so efficient thats why they are illegal in many places.

Hunting using legal methods are there for a reason. Most inhumane ways of killing wildlife are illegal. The reasoning behind this is that any method of killing and capturing animals which is indescriminate is illegal, so is the long and lingering painful death of the animal, which has happened to come across your snare. The Gill net is indiscriminate and so is the snare. Snaring is a cruel method of hunting if it can be called hunting in its sporting sense at all.

I would suggest taking up Ironravens points. Take note of your local, state or national hunting legislation. Don't fall foul of the law and if the skills you require for long term survival are really required then legal hunting is probably the best way to go. Same with the legal methods of fishing using a rod and reel.
By doing this you will know the behaviour and locations of the animals and fish you are legally hunting in much more detail. This knowledge is much more important that knowing how to tie some wire to a stick pushed into the ground.

Rationing food is one of the worst things you can do. If you eat less than your body needs each day your body will begin burning fat but won't do so in a proper 'fasting' mode and you'll last way less than 40 days...and you'll always feel hungry and miserable. You should eat the food you have early and use that energy to build a good shelter and collect a boat load of firewood...then relax and conserve energy while waiting to signal that plane or boat. If you expect to be out longer than 40 days, then the whole scenario changes.

The information I have on this comes from the courses I've taken at the Boreal Institute. There is also a fantastic book about this kind of information but I forget the name...I'll post it when I get home.

Now that is the most counter intuitive thing I've ever heard, but if correct highly important. Please do post that book title.

HJ

In 1945, several dozen American conscientious objectors
volunteered to starve themselves under medical supervision. The
goal was to learn how health might be restored after World War II
to the wasted populations of Europe. What the volunteers
endured—and what broke them—sheds light on starvation.

The 17-page report is here.

Everyone on this board should read this report. It goes into deep detail about the short/long term mental and physical changes that happened to a group of healthy people who chose to starved in the name of science.

-Blast

I hear you, and my thinking is along those lines entirely.

I still think that water out weighs food though. On a recent hike, I got fairly dehydrated (my friend was in a hurry and didn't want to stop and filter). I was feeling a little woozy, not hiking well, and feeling quite exhausted. I finally insisted that we stop irrespective of the time since we were about to leave the canyon bottom and tackle a three mile up hill stretch. We drank heavilly, including a liter mixed with electrolyte mix, and refilled our bottles. A little while later, I stopped feeling woozy, and actually climbed the up hill section (a couple thousand feet of gain) better than I had been walking in the relatively flat canyon bottom.

Food: important, way more important in a survival situation than the "conventional wisdom."
Water: still more important than food.

One man's opinion.

HJ

The original thread was asking how to get started snaring for "SURVIVAL" situations. If your life depends on using this technique then who cares what the law is. The only reason the law comes into it at all at this point is so you don't go to jail for practicing. If your life is in jeopardy then the feelings of potential meals are secondary the feeling of those who depend on you. I will admit that for most, actually surviving off the land is a very remote possibility. However the whole idea of this forum is to pass along ideas and tips on equipment to enhance our chances.

The summary of the Minnesota Experiment is really interesting. It doesn't talk about the role of food or lack thereof in survival situations, but I was able to gather the following:

• The human body really wants to eat.
• Lack of eating is really hard on the body
• Lack of eating is even harder on the mind
• The psychological trauma of not eating is frequently permanent

The impact of starvation is pretty major. In the context of this thread, all the more reason to put just a bit more emphasis on food in one's survival priorities.

I think it's important to note that the men who took part in the Minnesota Experiment weren't fasting.

They were intentionally provided an inadequate amount of food for a 6 month duration...this to me is like rationing food and what I've been told never to do.

It is however a very interesting read.

My rule is to only ration food to meet the BMR+extras (cold, work, etc)...not to make it last as long as possible. If I can't eat that much it's better to not eat at all...on the less than 40 days scale anyhow.

Cityboygonecountry

Your going to learn one thing quick about this forum, everyone has their own opinion and it might not be the same as yours or what you want to hear. Most of the time the original post doesn't reflect the majority of the replies. I know from experience this happens more than not. I think you would be hard pressed to find more than a few topics on this entire forum that have actually stayed on trac.Take in the info sort out the garbage keep what you need, then laugh it off. Good luck and hang in there.

Excellent advice (unless it's my avice ;))

Survival: How To Prevail in Hostile Environments by Xavier Maniguet

I haven't had the pleasure of reading the whole book but it was written in 1988 (in french) and more recently translated to english. I really liked what I've read because there's a lot of science involved. If I'm not mistaken Maniguet is a doctor and has a lot to say about both the physiology and psychology of survival.

Back to the subject. The best way to learn trapping and snaring is to get someone with experiance to take you out and actually teach you. Baring that read what you can and then practice to see what works in your area. As what work in one place may be totally wrong in another. One size does not always fit all.

Here is a very good source of trapping information.
Buckshot's Camp

Buckshot is and experiance trapper and a fellow prepper.

Nu-uh. If you have the food, eat.

Having fasted before for religious reasons, I can tell you flat out that while I might have been closer to the spirits, my brain was fuzzy. Think three week old kiwi fruit in the back of the fridge fuzzy. People who have observed me after fasting and while intoxicated say that my hand-eye coordination, awareness of my surroundings and general level of brilliance is BETTER when I was drunk rather than if I hadn't eaten for three days. Think about that. I wouldn't let someone who was intoxicated have car keys or a firearm. I wouldn't let them take out a boat or go climbing, even if I had to knock them down and sit on them until they passed out. No way would I want to let someone that dingy have to make judgement calls in a survival situation if I had any other option.

Remember, your brain doesn't run on protein or fat, your body has to turn that into glucose, and if you don't have it, you're not making the best possible judgment calls. If you need to convert fat into glucose, then you need to eat for it to be effective- trust me, I've accepted that I'm a big boy, diets can't work if you can't exercise and won't work if you don't eat. If you don't eat, you're body goes into emergency mode. If you do eat, only a little, it is like tinder, it lets you metabolize the stored energy in your fat cells much more effectively.

Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but around here snares ARE legal for certain species. So are dead falls so long as they don't have spikes.

Absolutely.

If one person says you suck, big deal, stick around. Before too long, you'll be returning the favor. I've only seen a few times when everyone said someone sucked. :P

please note that the preceeding is a cut and paste and is not the exact order of posts and replies

It seems we have a difference of opinion here. To ration or not to ration, that is the question. Anyone have anything definitive? Yes, we do have that book reference about 5 posts back (Survival: How To Prevail in Hostile Environments by Xavier Maniguet), but I mean anything we can link to here?

Post deleted by norad45.

Gentlemen, gentlemen, please. Let's not have the forum degenerate into national/personal attacks.

My apologies for the inappropriate remarks regarding this thread. I have deleted my previous post.

I tend to agree with your line of reasoning.

In a situation such as the life raft you mention above, there has been some debate here whether it's better to:
a) Eat your food (relatively) normally and then let your body go into total starvation mode.
or
b) Ration your food, stretching it out over a longer time period.

I've always generally thought option "B" was the way to go, but some here have argued that the body will actually do better under option "A."

Anyone have any linkable info on this?

I think you're absolutely on the right track, CityBoy. Take the link Blast gave you, the legal advice (area regulations) others mentioned, get some snare wire, study the trails, scat, etc., and have at it! I'd second Ironraven's advice to learn to gut, skin, and clean (if you don;t already know how - probably do) because anything you snare, you might as well eat.

Start with rabbits, I'd say. They're relatively easy to snare and you should have one in a couple of days if you set multiple traps out.

We use fero flints, steel wool, tinder quicks, cotton balls and vaseline, and all kinds of other stuff while there's a BIC in our pocket! Of course we practice. Don;t let anybody (but legal regs) get you down....trap on! I'm with you - I decided looong ago I wasn;t going to wait until I needed the skill to learn it!