This is some good stuff. Doug (not Doug Brooks) has been working on a lot of interesting concepts lately involving lightweight combat survival kits and the mindset and knowledge necessary to use all of that stuff. So it is cool to see where it is all taking him.
To properly set this up, Doug lives down in Texas, is prior service and has worked in the security contracting industry. He has guest posted before, and is a welcome contributor to the blog. Enjoy. –Matt
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Here is a website and book which I’ve found absolutely awesome. It is set up by some US Military SERE instructors.
Their belief is that any man in the world can live off the land, very well in fact with nothing more than:
-a handful of snares
-.22 pistol
-poncho
-thermals
-bowie knife & multi tool
I have been playing with their techniques out in the woods for the past couple of weeks or so and have concluded they are right. Damn right in fact!
Attached is a picture of a 200 lb. wild boar which I took last week with a single shot from a .22 pistol. As soon as he was hit with the sub-sonic round he dropped to the ground.
(he appears a lot smaller than he actually was, due to me having cleaned him & having his skin with its 1.5″ fat layer removed.)
The boar was caught up in one of my snares. The snare had caught him right around the nose. Boy, was he really pissed off when I walked up on him while checking my trap line the other morning.
I shot him from 20 yards because I knew I could and more to the point I wanted to stay near a tree encase I had to climb it if need be. It was an instant kill so it turned out to be no worries.
At noon the day before, I set up 3 hog snares. By 9am the next morning two of the snares had game in them, while the third had either fallen down or been knocked down by a passing coyote.
Now talk about an easy way to get food. With minimal effort using only a handfull of commercial grade snares, I had 300 lbs of animal laying on the ground. all in a span of a few hours with having burned minimal calories.
Also, this was my very first time setting up snares, so needless to say I am highly impressed. Talk about an extremely successful method of living off the land.
The snares take up very little space in my buttpack. 6 small snares (squirrles, rabbits, skunks, or anything up to 20 lbs), 4 medium snares (coyotes, racoon, deer, or anything up to 100 lbs) & 1 large snare (large deer, aligator, black bear, wild hog up, or anything up to 200 lbs) are a perfect loadout.
Plus, if you were to attach the snares to a lifting trap, one could trap even larger animals.
Now addmittedly it took all day for me and one of my buddies down here to process all that meat. Way too much work for one person. I wont be setting up more than 1 large game trap at a time from now on. But this is how we learn.
In fact I learned a ton on trapping from that one FTX.
Now if one were to combine the skills of living off the land with super lightweight gear from our SERE instructors with trackers, then one could have an extremely highly effective tracking team. They wouldn’t even need to carry armor or much ammo. A rifle with 1-2 mags is all. Their job isn’t to engage baddies but simply trail them and radio in their location.
Even without the tracking aspect, those SERE instructors really know there business. Their $13 book is worth every penny. Those boys are squared away.
As far as outdoor survival goes, everyone and their dog has some sort of survival book & dvd out there. they all say pretty much the same thing. Interesting yes, but I haven’t been overly impressed. The SERE instructors though, are the heat. No bs and all practicallity.
What I really love about them is their travel light & stay warm at night attitude. (you may not always be comfortable, but you will be alive & well.) With my messed up spine, I simply can not carry that much weight anymore.
My daily carry out here in the woods, outside of what is on my belt & in my pants pockets is just a maxpedition fanny pack. (expensive but a very tough piece of kit)
It is loaded with:
-folding saw
-signal mirror
-small frog gig
-10 feet duct tape
-2x lighters
-6 small snares
-2 medium snares
-racoon lure
-4x food bars (400 calories majority fat based) or MRE type food packets
-water purification tablets
-candle
-Fishing Kit (2 dozen fish hooks, sinkers, 3 jigs & 100 ‘ fishing line)
-emergency space blanket
-compass
-medium size medical kit
-2x .22 pistol magizines
-550 cord
-with an ash sock pouch thrown on the belt for my animal watching.
All in all, enough stuff for one to enjoy a couple days in the field hunting, fishing & bird watching and if one were so inclined, survive fairly well indefinately in any type of weather down here in Texas.
Get this..Total weight: 5 lbs
Thats it! 5 lbs and one can live just fine in the field.
(toss a .22 pistol in one of your pockets one has a very small & light weight loadout.) Which is so light & compact it won’t hardly be noticed by the average soldier or pilot.
(a nice little back up for if things go wrong on a mission.)
If I take a small ruck, all that is loaded in it is a few more snares, a bit more .22 ammo, small shovel, rain pants, ground mat, heavy duty thermal casualty blanket, water filter, large water bladder and cook pot. (if one was in the military they might want to toss in a radio & a few other emergency signalling & communication devices.)
My extra food is carried in a claymore bag slung over my shoulder. You were right in your claymore bag write up a few weeks back. Claymore bags are handy as hell. I have had mine for years and it is still holding up great.
I have been carrying my poncho & light gortex rain jacket in my cargo pockets. They do ok there, but I switch them to my rucksack if I have a large enough one with me.
If you are currenly living anywhere near some wilderness, you might spend just a few bucks on some quality snares and give them a go while trapping season is still open. 01 november – 31 march. It is better to gain outdoor living skills ‘before’ one needs them.
Setting up snares & traps is pretty easy, but there are a lot of little details which greatly aid in ones success rate. Only way to learn these is to either have professional instruction or get out there and learn by doing.
Let me know if you ever get serious about trapping or living outside. When things slow down a bit I will write up a report on the finer details of snaring & outdoor living and take some pictures of what to do & not do. Even though I am new at trapping, I have learned a lot in the past couple weeks.
As far as clothing goes, I have tried out a million combinations of clothing over the years. Surprisingly, a lot of the high dollar stuff simply does not work well at all. (except socks) When in doubt, buy mil-spec / mil-issue. It works the best overall.
Once you know..not think..but know in your heart that you can live very well & easily on your own out in the wild anywhere in the world, your confidence level will go through the roof. The basic mindset & skills needed are always the same. -Doug
Go to the website here.
Buy their book here.