American Survival Blog

I happen to be a huge crayfish fan and I am also a proponent of crayfish trapping for padding out your larder in the lean times. The “river lobsters” are found almost everywhere, breed quickly and are pretty nutritious. They are most active at night and can be baited with gizzards, dead worms, corn and quite a few other types of refuse. You’ll need a trap though, which can be purchased from Amazon or if you’re handy one can be built fairly cheaply, as this Pathfinder video demonstrates:

Crayfish cannot support you as a primary food source. I have never seen anyone pull more than an appetizer worth from a single trap (but then again I’m from the North East) but as a protein and vitamin rich addition to your pasta or Ramen crayfish can help stretch out the larder you have. And they are delicious with Tabasco. But more importantly they are easily trapped, and a trap line is my preferred method of making meat in an emergency because it requires the least amount of time and energy, freeing me up to do all the other things that will need doing after TEOTWAWKI.

Trapper Arne’s Crayfish Page is a good start on learning about harvesting these little morsels.

I’ve long maintained that in a survival situation running a trap line for small game is much more efficient than actively hunting in terms of calories taken in vs calories burned. Dale Martin’s The Trapper’s Bible is my personal go to reference for survival trapping but I always keep my eyes open for simple, primitive traps that can be quickly deployed and easily checked in a survival situation.

This Pathfinder video shows a trap that may look complicated at first but is actually fairly easy to learn and set up so stick with it (at 4:30 or so when they start talking about a contest they’re running which may be over by the time you see this) and watch it a couple of times. It’s surprisingly easy to set up with some sticks and a knife and will produce meat if set in an active area:

In the comments someone suggested using thorns tied around the power stick to impale the critter to ensure it isn’t simply stunned. That sounds like good insurence to me.

Foraging wild edibles is a skill every survivalist should continuously work to develop. No matter how deep your larder is or how productive the micro farm in your backyard is, utilizing nature’s bounty will be necessary to extend the life of your stored foods and add nutritional value to the crops you are (hopefully) growing.

Dale Martin’s The Trapper’s Bible is one of the best resources you can own for learning to harvest wild game. It is also available in a Kindle edition. For wild plants things are more difficult as every region of the country will have different environments that produce very different flora depending on the seasons. Thus a survival library will need to be tailored to where you live. Because you never know what the future holds  being familiar with general foraging techniques and knowledge is a good idea and it is here that online resources truly shine.

One of the best websites I have found so far is the excellent Eat the Weeds. “Green Deane” offers physical classes and keeps a great archive but where Eat the Weeds really shines is the more than one hundred videos featuring the harvesting and use of many common plants that is available free to the public. They can be accessed on the site or through the Eat the Weeds YouTube channel and I urge everyone to check it out.

This video of English sportsman/chef Mark Gilchirst processing a pigeon for cooking is good instruction for anyone who hasn’t cleaned a bird before and wants to include small game hunting in their plan for survival. I’ve cleaned fish before but not being a hunter I have limited experience with cleaning other animals and videos like this are a good way to at least get a sense of the basics.

I found this on James Marchington’s YouTube Channel.

I went out to Luthi’s Sport and Pawn in Greenville today to do my own ammo hoarding, looking for cartridges for my Charter Arms Patriot chambered in .327 Federal Magnum. I bought the gun because it’s a versatile “kit gun” which will fire several commonly available calibers beside the new .327 including .32 H&R Magnum and .32 S&W Long. That last round, anemic by today’s standards, has enjoyed quite a comeback thanks to the sport of Cowboy Action Shooting which spurred an interest in working antique revolvers, many of which were chambered in various permutations of .32. Modern ammo shouldn’t be fired from an antique though, so don’t blame me if you try this and hurt yourself.

But although these calibers are available they aren’t, or I should say weren’t, particularly popular. When it looked like Obama was going to win I saw the writing on the wall and wanted to stock up. I chose what are called “oddball” calibers knowing the rush on 9mm, .223 Remington and anything 12Ga would drive prices through the roof and make getting these rounds a competition of who can get to the gun store the fastest and charge the most. Unfortunately I underestimated demand for the unique calibers because Luthi’s is completly out of .327 Federal Magnum and .32 H&R Mag even though two or three weeks ago they had plenty that wasn’t moving.

I guess some big mouthed blogger tipped someone off as my wife said to me as we left. I ended up buying a hundred rounds of .32 S&W Lead Round Nose, which will go well with the couple of hundred rounds of .32 wadcutters I have. But I’m still looking for more .327 and .32 mag for my hoard which is a little thin in the stopping power department. How thin? Less than I want of .327, but hopefully more than I’ll ever need. But I only have one measly box or .32 H&R mag which is a nice intermediate between the .327 and .32 for situations where you need more firepower than the .32 but aren’t quite ready for a mankiller (raccoons and foxes, which we’re lousy with here come to mind) so any readers who want to help a brother out and let me know where I can get some will have my gratitude.

The guy at the counter said basically they weren’t sure when they’d get more in, and that their last shipment of 9mm has increased in price by $8. Their ammo counter was looking sparse and they were doing brisk gun and ammo business at 2:30 in the afternoon, so if you need a piece don’t wait.

I noticed that Cheaper than Dirt, where I’ve also had great success with the “oddball” calibers I like are basically out of the stuff considered unpopular a year ago. This includes most of the 20 GA Buckshot and slugs and .410 buckshot rounds (I told you I like the odd stuff) and if their website is any indicator they have been unable to restock .45 LC for the last couple of months. All the popular calibers (9mm, .40 S&W, .45 ACP) are down to the bottom of the barrel discount Russian stuff or $3 a round specialty stuff few people can afford. Luckily my shotgun shell stash is deep enough that I’m not worried about getting more pistol ammo, but if you’re relying on a handgun as your primary firearm it’s time to worry.

Cabela’s is basically the same, and were already running light on revolver loads thanks to CAS shooters. There are still some deals there but you need to move quickly to get them. Most calibers I’m interested in are on back order.

The counter person at Luthi’s said to just keep checking back in and in these times it pays to have the number of the gun shop so you can check in and have them hold a box for you as soon as they know they’re getting a shipment. But the ammo shortage is is spreading out to rounds that are usually collecting dust on the shelves so if you don’t have what you need there’s no time to waste.

Cross posted at Red Alerts.