By my good friend, Michael Lee (Backwoods Life T.V. Host & Hunt Strong Meathead)
In this day and age many of us take for granted the ability to drive down to the local store, purchase food items needed for dinner and provide a great meal within minutes for everyone to enjoy. What if that luxury was removed? What if you had to hunt to survive? Would you be able to?
Hunting for food is the most primal instinct we have within us. Many do not recognize that they have the trait, but in the right situation, it can come out in us. Luckily, my upbringing taught me many skills of how to function in the outdoors. Growing up in South Georgia, one of our main staples was wild game in our freezers. From the time I can remember, my father showed me how to hunt and fish. At the time I didn’t know it, but he was preparing me for survival.
Wild protein is the purest form of re-energizing fuel for our body’s muscles. Without these vital particles being broken down by our bodies and absorbed into our fibers, we become the hunted in a survival situation. Think of the dominant predators on our planet and their diets. What do they all have in common? Yep, they are all carnivorous meat eaters.
How do we function as the highest on the food chain? The best answer is having the skills to stay on top. When we are faced with a survival situation, the skills you have are the only thing that will keep you eating. The skills of hunting are now a necessity for survival, not just something you can say you know how to do!
A few quick tips on hunting for survival start with knowing what sign to look for. If you are deep in a wooded area, know the game in that region. Deer, turkey, elk, hogs, and so on. Know what their tracks looks like and what they feed on. That will put you much closer finding something to kill. That brings us to the next tip. Carry or know how to make a weapon. If you are in a situation where a firearm isn’t available, be able to use a knife or sharp object to make a weapon. Hopefully if you are faced with a survival situation you will have the tools for hunting already with you.
Next, know how to clean your game. If you are able to kill something to use for food, make sure you know how to take the hide off. All parts of the animal are usable, but not all is edible. Once you have the meat ready to consume, you have two options: raw or cooked. Raw meat such as deer and elk can be consumed raw, but if something like a turkey or hog is what you have ready, you better have a fire to cook on. These critters can have some nasty effects if consumed under-cooked. That’s the last thing you want we in survival mode.
Hopefully these few tips can help you to see if you are truly ready for a “hunting for survival” situation. You never know what you may be faced with if something goes wrong in the wild!