I just finished watching Out of the Wild: Venezuela and realized that while I may have the essentials necessary to survive a night stuck out in the woods, and maybe even a couple nights, I seriously lack the ability to gather food, figuring that typically I can just endure without for the short term.

However, I can tell that if it lasts even into the medium term (say 7-10 days) that I'm going to seriously be affected energy and judgment wise. Additionally, the odds of me finding medium sized game (small deer, etc) is probably very small compared to small game and fish.

So, I've decided to take another look at the food gathering aspect of short term emergencies, particularly small game gathering and plant identification, both of which I seriously lack knowledge of. As with anything prep related, the odds of me needing these skills probably drops as my knowledge increases, but it's fun to learn new things!

In addition to brushing up on local plantlife, I'm thinking of acquiring new things (yay!) for my pack as well as PSK oriented towards small game hunting. It seems to me that as a factor of energy expenditure, set it and forget it type traps beats tromping around trying to hunt small game. For example, instead of sitting down near a pond with a fishing pole wasting precious daylight and getting frustrated after a few hours, it would be more productive to construct minnow traps and set lines that can be left unattended and checked later.

I am not a fisherman. The only way I have ever been able to catch anything even with a proper fishing pole is to tie a fly with a tiny amount of bait on it, and dip it near the edge of the water hoping a tiny fish will get hooked rather than just steal my bait. And yet I have hooks and line in my PSK and bag almost as an afterthought. To improve my chances, I'm going to try and learn about fishing, the equipment and techniques and try to actually practice with them if possible. Specifically easy set it and forget it or low energy type fishing methods (minnow traps, trotlines, yoyo's, gilnets etc) and practice assuming the methods are legal in my area.

I am not a trapper. It seems to me without a LOT of snares, and experience knowing where to place them, it's almost a waste of effort... that may or may not be true but my mentality thus far has been reflected in that I don't include snares in my kit (though I do include items that could be used as snares). With regards to small game, I almost would prefer active hunting to trapping, probably because of my lack of knowledge on the subject, so I'm going to endeavor to learn more about it, especially identifying proper placement of snares and construction of field expedient traps.

I am not a botanist. Plants and trees look alike to me, I can't even identify poison ivy in person, and I've heard enough stories of two plants being similar with one being edible and the other deadly poison that I feel it's almost not worth the effort if I don't go all in and learn everything. Many guides feature plants that don't exist in my area... however in many situations of extended survival I may be bypassing valuable resources simply out of ignorance and so I think I will redouble efforts to be able to identify useful plants.

I don't like bugs. Yet they're plentiful... something as simple as a pack of honey can be eaten, or it can be used to draw hundreds of ants, which can then be crushed and boiled (drinking an unidentifiable mush seems more palatable). Plus, every little bit helps... and if the above methods fail I may be stuck. So... maybe I should try one sometime and expand my horizons. Maybe cook up a grasshopper or two

At the end of the day, I've decided it is probably more beneficial to step out of the relm of theory and actually step away from the computer and try some of this stuff out, even if it is in my own backyard.

Any thoughts?

as my only survival issue is being forced to swim to shore from a lost canoe i have lots of food in my ditch kit.compressed tabs of pea soup and the bars of cornflakes and granola out of the military survival pack make up most of the chow along with tea,sugar,powdered milk,hard candy,the usual stuff you would find in any kit that is sealed for emergency use.no snare wire or big knives.i could eat at least one good meal a day with "nibbles" and tea at least once.fish and turtles are easy to get in the north woods lakes.the food is carried in a container that opens to make both a pot and cup.items for making a shelter are carried in another PFD pocket.as i'm getting older and have a bad knee i am now wearing the PFD of the walk-backs on the portages so i have the kit along if i go down on the trail.i have read enough about living in the woods that i know that the work involved in finding something to eat takes up a lot of time and energy so having that part taken care of i could spend my time gathering wood and making a shelter.

Look for a wild edible plant walk in your neck of the woods; you may be suprised at what is available.

Look for a primitive skills course in your area. Again you may be suprised at what is within your grasp.

Review the various PSK material on this site to see what others have thought through as good kit. Adapt ideas to your environment.

Play! Try adding various skills to a cookout. Consider a backyard overnight, followed by some easy car camping. Look around for some like-minded folks. From there, follow your interests and instincts!

Dave Canterbury has a couple of good vids about trapping, especially carrying a couple of large rat traps on his ALICE pack frame...some good ideas about a survival fishing kit using the container for a line storage and casting reel (made mine of an old large pill bottle), and trot lining...

where I live, saltwater fishing would be my go to for any long term interrupton of food distribution... I've got some carbohydrate heavy staples vacuum packed away, and plan on either cast netting, snatch hooking, trau lining, or blue crab trap, for food,(of course a snook hitting a top water plug will get the adrenalin going) and if energy is interrupted, am pretty good at smoking fish...think I'll try some biltong this winter... I think Florida's overpopulation of feral hogs and coyotes would go pretty fast...

You raise some valid points. However, there are an abundance of edible plants that are readily available - cattails, oaks, pinyon pine (in the west), dandelions. The catch is that much of their bounty is available only seasonally (except for the dandelions in my back yard). Many edible plants are distinctive, even for a botanical dunce like myself.

A key concept is to broaden your horizons in terms of what is edible. I understand rattlesnake (and probably just about any snake) is delicious. All you need for them is a nice big rock.

I am in luck living near a rocky coast. Lots of intertidal invertebrates are readily available

The key is attention and observation before the situation becomes crucial, just as you are doing. Bon apetite!

A lot of brain time can be spent on planning on foraging for food in an emergency. In many areas there is no food to be foraged upon when you need it. MANY calories are spent on foraging. So don't forage. Plan instead.

Assuming you have water and shelter, 1500 calories per day will more than sustain you for 6 months. You will be lean and mean but you will be sustained. 1500 calories per day for 30 days and you will have just lost a bit of weight.

List where you spend your time that you think you may get stranded. People are creatures of habit. It won't be as many areas as you may think.

Now, can you always be somewhat near a 5 gallon plastic bucket with a little planning? Half of the large survival food bars is equal to 1800 calories. One pound of Purina Puppy Chow is equal to 1730 calories.

A good read is the "MINNESOTA STARVATION EXPERIMENT".

I'm with you on hunting and fishing, but the thought of needing to live off wild edibles scares me, Burncycle. It's not something I want to learn from a book or video. I'm firmly in canoedogs' camp right now - being prepared means carrying food.

Everytime I see a vacancy in one of Blast's classes I think "I wish I lived in Texas." Until I've spent some quality time out with a pro, I'm sticking to cattails, pine nuts and cones, and dandelions, when it comes to plant identification. That said, I'm on-side with your thoughts and have hooked up with a local expert to learn more.

Accident? Oh yeah...right. It would be completely by accident.
-Blast

One thing I stress heavily in my classes is just how hard it is to acquire enough calories by foraging. Vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, etc are easy even in some pretty desolate places but calories can be close to impossible. Burning lots of calories to find calories is a negative-sum game.

You are better off keeping a bag of hard candies in your pocket at all times.
-Blast

Accident? Oh yeah...right. It would be completely by accident.


And How would blowing up part of Texas be a bad thing?