Outdoor Life Prepare for Anything Survival Manual (58 page)

STEP 1
Eels feed more consistently on the incoming tide than the outgoing, so find a rocky, seaweed-strewn shoreline and show up 2 hours before the tide bottoms out—then fish until it’s too high to reach the rocky holes where the eels live.

STEP 2
Use squid for bait, or grab a mussel off a rock and use the tough “rind” just inside the shell. (Learn the seasonal restrictions on mussels first.)

STEP 3
Take your poke pole (a straightened wire hanger with a hook at the end will do) and a landing net. Bait the hook, and lightly poke it under rocks and in cracks. Then hang on—a big eel will make you think there’s a human pulling on the other end.

STEP 4
After the fish bites, set the hook and pull it wriggling from the hole. It helps to have a landing net as many of these species, especially monkey face eels, are adept at squirming off the hook. Then take the eel home, skin it, gut it, and fillet it.
Bon appetit!

GATHER TURKISH WASHCLOTH
This red algae is a great source of agar, meaning you can use it to make your own ice cream.

SIPHON GHOST SHRIMP
Using a rubber ball, a threaded rod, and a piece of PVC, make your own siphon to suck shrimp out of the mud.

PICK DOCK MUSSELS
Simple enough: Go down to the docks, search around a bit, and grab some mussels.

NET FISH
Throw nets on schooling fishes.

PULL FISH OUT OF DRAINS
Many drains in coastal cities are positioned over ocean-access waterways, meaning the fish in the bay are the same ones in the sewers.

GO CLAMMING IN MUDFLATS
Dig monster clams out of the local mudflats.

SCRAPE SNAKES
You can scrape them off of breakwaters.

MAKE YOUR OWN CRAB SNARE
Construct a simple snare, and you’ll be eating a five-star meal while the other postapocalyptic wanderers are eating rats and pigeons.

SPEAR A BAT RAY
Huge bat rays come into the shallows during low tide. Spear one with a homemade spear.

Low-tech animal traps like natural-fiber snares and rock deadfalls can be built with natural materials in the wild. Modern traps like cable snares, leg-hold traps, and body-grip traps can deliver even greater success rates. And let’s not forget live-catch cage traps. In urban areas and wild places, traps can generate food, and you don’t even have to be there for it to work—it’s like getting other people to hunt for you.

SNARES
These can be primitive and entirely set with gathered materials. You can even weave your own string from bark fibers. But there’s lots that can go wrong (for instance, a possum chewing through your hand-woven cord and getting away). Cable snares made from braided steel cable are more secure, although you’ll have to bring them with you.

FOOTHOLD TRAPS
Commonly used for the past century and a half, foothold traps are clamping jaws that restrain an animal by the foot should they step on the trigger. These do not have the potential to kill (like a body-grip trap), but modern trappers still frequently use them. The trapped animal is usually then shot with a firearm.

BODY-GRIP TRAPS
These are like oversize rat traps minus the wooden board. Two heavy springs move the trap bars together, snapping necks, breaking backs, or strangling. These put the animal out of its misery quickly but are treacherous to set. Many modern trappers who have broken hands and fingers can attest to that fact.

LIVE-CATCH TRAPS
The typical cage trap is a live-catch trap. This forgiving trap allows you to release animals that you didn’t intend to catch, and it’s ideal for homebound settings. They do, however, bring home the reality of killing animals for food. Since the trap doesn’t do the job, you’ll have to—typically by shooting it through the cage.

Though trappers use many different types of traps, they all have the same problem: They’ve got human scent all over them. To have any luck when dealing with wild animals, you need to fool their noses. Follow these tips to de-scent your traps and hands with nature itself.

USE MUD
Start by washing your hands and any questionable trap parts in the local waterway. Use sand, clay, mud, or silt as an abrasive and oil absorber.

POWDER WITH BLACK CHARCOAL
As your hands and trap parts are drying, you can wipe them with powdered black charcoal from the campfire. Don’t use the white or gray ashes, just grind black charcoal chunks into a powder and apply it.

LAYER WITH PLANTS
Use a strong-smelling local plant as another cover scent. Crushed pine needles, wild onions, mints, and other pungent plants can hide your stink. Just stay out of the poison oak.

GET DIRTY
The final touch in this layering system is fresh, damp, local dirt. Rub it generously on your hands and the trap parts as a final cover and scent absorber.

One of the best traps is the Paiute deadfall, dating back to the early Paiute Indians. Like all deadfalls, there is some type of weight and a trigger system to hold part of the rock up in the air until your future meal gets under there. What makes this deadfall different is the stronger, more sensitive trigger that can be fashioned without a knife. Just break a few sticks into the right sizes, scrounge up a bit of string, and grab a flat rock.

STEP 1
Gather the sticks and other supplies. For an average-size rodent, you’ll need the following: a Y-shaped stick thicker than a pencil and about 8 inches (20 cm) long; a straight stick thicker than a pencil, about 9 inches (23 cm) long; a 2-inch (5-cm) stick that is a little skinnier than a pencil; a slender bait stick half the diameter of a pencil and about 12 inches (30 cm) long; about 8 inches (20 cm) of string; appropriate bait for your critter of choice; and a flat rock that weighs 5–10 pounds (2–5 kg).

STEP 2
Take your 9-inch (23-cm) straight stick (this is called the lever) and tie one end of the string to it. Tie the other end to the 2-inch (5-cm) stick (the toggle). Square knots are fine. Wipe or skewer the bait on one end of the 12-inch (30-cm) bait stick.

STEP 3
Set the trap by laying the rock down on a hard patch of ground. Stand up the Y-shaped stick (the post) by the edge of the rock. Put the string-less end of the lever in the fork of the post, with a small portion of it sticking out toward the rock. Place the rock on the tip of the lever. You should be able to hold the weight of the rock by only holding down the string end of the lever. Now wrap the toggle halfway around the post. Place the baited end of the bait stick between a rough spot under the stone and the tip of the toggle. When you can let go of the trigger stick and the rock stays up, you know you did it right.

When it comes to trapping, you need to use the right bait. Herbivores and carnivores will obviously go for different things—and even omnivores can be tricky.

BAIT FOR HERBIVORES
There are plenty of vegetarian baits to choose from. Groundhogs go for sweet apples cut into pieces so their fragrance is released. Squirrels are very fond of whole peanuts, and they have a hard time resisting crushed sweet pecans and hickories. Just don’t try using them under a tree full of those nuts. The animals won’t go for the human-tainted bait when there is plenty of the same food lying nearby.

BAIT FOR OMNIVORES
Omnivores, by definition, will eat anything. This can make them either easier or harder to bait. For raccoons, you can use canned tuna or sardines. The fouler and cheaper the fish are, the better. You can often trap for raccoons alongside creeks and streams, pouring the tuna juice into the creek so they’ll follow the creek to get their fishy treat. Possums love lunchmeat, hot dogs, and other processed-meat foods.

BAIT FOR CARNIVORES
Meat eaters do have their preferences. Coyotes love beaver meat. Foxes love rotten, hard-boiled eggs. Mink, ermine, and fisher cats love fish. Bobcats love fresh organ meat like liver and lung. You can also use various scent baits—it doesn’t have to be food. Coyote and beaver scent can be used for coyotes. And coon urine can be a useful cover scent against other animals as well as for attracting raccoons.