legal harvest of wild foods

fruits and berries ripen, fish spawn, birds migrate, etc. seasonally and often with south to north patterns

The second unreasonably broad hypothetical in one week - 12 foot floods outside of floodplains, now where to go for self-sustaining harvest areas when those areas are massively complicated by overpopulation, ownership, and rules of entry (squatting). But if we can ignore the illogic of a 12 foot flood, I'll ignore the hard part of this scenario too. I would go east of the Cascades, to the Columbia River basin, where native americans lived in reasonably peaceful populations for 10,000 years migrating between the river for salmon, uplands for camas croots and berries and to hunt deer, and most recently over to the prairies to hunt buffalo. Migration patterns were stable, tribally based, which shows that people could survive in any of several different microclimates, but most likely they moved between them freely and seasonally. It could be a good life. I, personally, would die of starvation within 3 months, but what the hell. Its just a scenario.

Every word of defense is of course an admission of guilt, but thanks for playing along even if you find the scenarios unreasonably broad.

Perhaps the 'hard part' of each scenario is the point: what can you actually do to survive long term in the wild?

I would sail into the Pacific Ocean and cruise the coastal and estuary waters of the West Coast fishing, free-diving, tide-pooling, and beach-combing. I do not think I could survive on land with my current skills and resources.

I am interested to read your strategies.

Does anyone really think that is possible?... I don't.
Too many humans searching for too few resources = too many calories expended searching for not enough calories to fend off starvation.
In my opinion, that seems like the only reasonable conclusion to such a "migration".

This is a thought experiment in which everything else stays the same, but you alone are challenged to live off the land legally. How would you rise to the chasllenge with what you know and have now?

Personally, I would try to stay home. Migration is a hard life, both in old and modern times. Today, fences alone would be a huge obstacle.

Today's homeless dumpster divers are probably the new foragers.

And, basic survival is usually different from a nutritional diet. You may be able to collect enough calories, but in many areas, the protein might be a problem. While staying within the law, anyway.

I guess I just find the topic (just) out of scope for what I thought was the topic of equipped.org - survival preparedness for time-limited events and disasters. If your scenario challenges me - or us - to go live off the land for a year, that entails a significant general calamity or personal disaster. It makes a difference to know which one you mean. If I am burned out of my home, I find another one. If the 9.0 quake hits my area, I may move to another area. Its doubtful anything short of a nuclear strike - in which I as a survivor count myself extremely lucky (or not) to continue breathing - could cause me to migrate and start living off the land, and that seems a decidedly survival-ist scenario. There aren't many scenarios where I would either abandon the comforts of civilization or go back to the land on my shy half acre, which is presently unsuited to cultivation. Poverty alone doesn't make me a farmer or return me to migration.

Thank you for hanging in on this discussion.

No disaster is part of this scenario for you or anyone else.

It is just a question of what you would do with what you know and have if you had to live off the land for a year, say if you were offered a lot of money if you succeeded.

It is just to see what strategies various members of this ingenious community come up with, and to stimulate thought about other things you might want to add to your arsenal of knowledge and gear.

I guess I'm just not very motivated by vague prospects of financial reward. I volunteer with the Red Cross, and right now the actual health and welfare of alot of folks depend on me doing my job running shelters, not skinning rabbits or grubbing for camas root for an entire year to win a prize. I get jazzed by the actual survival and preparedness aspects of enabling lots of folks to survive urban disasters.