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)