Why Would You Hunt?

[Morgan101]

I have read this in other places, and wanted to get everbody's thoughts here. This would really only apply in a TEOTWAWKI situation. Why would you hunt? Wouldn't it be more practical to bait game, and have it come to you? Why expend the energy, and face the rigors and dangers of hunting if you could harvest in your back yard?

Let's take the ethics out of this. You only harvest what you can use. You aren't slaughtering wantonly. There will be no season, and no limit, and probably no law at that point.

What do others think?

[longhunter]

There are pros and cons to both, staying close to home vs hunting at some distance. A lot of factors would come in to play too, such as the size of the group you need to keep fed, the type of game in your area, terrain etc. Type of weapons at your disposal would be a consideration too, you wouldn't want gunshots to close to home attracting unwanted attention. For me I think it would be a hunt/recon combination. Move out from my base a 1/2 day or so, circling around to see what's up and hunting along the way.

[myakka]

I think you go with what you know sometimes.
Yes trapping is energy efficient, but is is also something that can be found by others and give away your opsec. They know where you have been working and where you will be again.
Hunting is what I know, so it is mostly what I will do. I also have used hog traps, and will again as soon as I can get another decent one., but like longhunter, I see the benefits and drawbacks of both.

[TheLastMountainMan]

Hunting close to home will eventually cause the game to move away from your location. So if you went away from your area and hunted the game will stick around and if ya get snowed in or got injured or sick, you would have game close at hand. Just my opinion.

[drt4lfe]

I think it will depend on how many people may be starving and killing anything that moves....wildlife or domestic....the game will feel the pressure and it will get hard to lure any game to you...it may work for awhile...IMO

[Scouter]

If I understood your question correctly; I would bait game in a survival situation. Might not abandon hunting altogether though. If I am baiting, most game could be taken with bow or cross bow.

[Bue]

Absoluately agree. We also plan to use traps and snares, both for food and predator control

[dalewick]

Would use both, with trapping being my primary means of protein and fur gathering. But I hunt while checking traps and I have always checked my traps with bino's so as to stay as far away from sets as possible. This method makes it much harder for anyone to find your sets and extremely difficult for anyone to effectively ambush you.

Dale

[101airborne]

There are pros and cons to both, staying close to home vs hunting at some distance. A lot of factors would come in to play too, such as the size of the group you need to keep fed, the type of game in your area, terrain etc. Type of weapons at your disposal would be a consideration too, you wouldn't want gunshots to close to home attracting unwanted attention. For me I think it would be a hunt/recon combination. Move out from my base a 1/2 day or so, circling around to see what's up and hunting along the way.

Have to agree here. Another point is hunting close to home would.........
1. eventually kill off/ run off all the game in the area. Cutting down any chance you have of getting game when despirately needed ( bad weather, illness/injury) if you can't get into tje field.

2. Baiting game may backfire on you drawing preditors you don't want, and giving others near you as much chance of bagging the game before you.

As longhunter said getting into the field also allows you to recon the area and even give you a chance to do something "normal" and get away from home base.

[Klickitat]

I live where most will want to be if shtf. I walk out my front door to hunt during season for everything right now. Today I had a spike in my garden and had to chase him out. Little does he know that there is a penalty for fattening up on my garden come Fall.

Now if shtf, I will not be going out to hunt game. First there will be too many people out tramping in the woods trying to hunt and not only will game be shot up fairly quickly, what is left will be hard to hunt, too hard to hunt for the time spent looking for it.

The second reason I will not go out to hunt is that all those people will eventually become desperate and I do not want to have to defend myself in the woods against desperate people looking for an easy meal or to steal my gear. It will be just too dangerous to do so.

Now where I live I am set up with a small farm and we raise a garden and small animals. I am capable of raising as much meat as my family needs. With the stored food preps and the garden there will be no need to go out into the woods and risk my families safety for meat.

[Mortblanc]

There is "hunting" and then there is "hunting".

TEOTWAWKI hordes of people will NOT be roaming the woods. The majority of the population will be dead after only a few weeks. The swarm of urbanites roaming the woods senerio is completely baseless. The urbanites will sit waiting for the government to come save them until it is too late and the diseases have settled in. Colera, diptheria and whatever else raw sewage in the water causes will do the job.

"Hunting" will be what you do as you go about your daily tasks. Working the garden, pop the bunny raiding the carrots with your .22. Catch a varmit in your chicken house, cook him for supper tomorrow night. Walking to see a neighbor, carry the shotgun in case you "see something for supper" as well as it being a defense tool.

I also live in a rural area and the everage person would be amazed at the game available. Speeding along on the way to the supermarket in your SUV is an excellent way to miss seeing everything one could eat.

And you will not see it while hiding in a hole in the ground eating stale out of date MREs.

Who told anyone that shooting over bait, food plots or shooting from a stand was not hunting? It is the same as shooting over a corn field or cultivating a woodlot for deer cover. In many states it is even legal hunting now, befoe everything has gone haywire!

TEOTWAWKI there will be a pile of corn at a measured 50 yards from my back door and a shooting bench at the kitchen window!

[Mangler]

TEOTWAWKI there will be a pile of corn at a measured 50 yards from my back door and a shooting bench at the kitchen window!

I can not agree more.

[wac220]

TEOTWAWKI there will be a pile of corn at a measured 50 yards from my back door and a shooting bench at the kitchen window!

I was thinking more like 200 yards. The gut piles can draw flies. :confused: On second thought right near the garden so you can work it into the ground easier. :D

[nakadnu]

I always thought baiting was just one more way to hunt. I assume you mean actively looking for prey far from home. Eventually ( probably sooner than you think ) all the game in your immediate area will be gone. If you want wild meat you will have to go and get it. It would be wise to be able to harvest game in as many ways as possible.

[coyotee]

Every fall I'm about one shot away with my .308 Remington rifle to fill my freezer. I still have ammo from 1998.

If you're not such a good shot and tend to fire off enough rounds to alert every animal within a few miles in your quest for a meal ... Practice, Practice, Practice.

I also hunt with a 180# cross-bow. Silent and deadly.

Practice.

Being the carnivore I am, I prefer the hunt.

Setting up snares is fun for about a minute in real life. When's the last time you ate something you snared?