Category: Hunting

Top 5 Mistakes When Selecting a Firearm for Hunting

2/11/2016

By Larry Ellis

Just like any other activity or practice, hunting requires a solid background based on thorough research in the field. No matter if you are interested in purchasing your first firearm or you want to know how you can take up hunting, you need to do your homework and build your knowledge base.

Before you even begin to consider purchasing a firearm for this purpose, it is fundamental to gather as much information as possible about hunting beforehand. It is highly recommended that you attend an education or safety course for hunting so you can learn the basics about how to stay safe and how to get started with this activity. In addition to this, future hunters are encouraged to learn from an experienced hunter; this is usually regarded as being an apprentice. After you learn the basics, you can proceed with purchasing your firearm for hunting.

If this is the very first firearm you will purchase, however, you need to be aware of several aspects related to the buying process. Selecting a reliable, best value firearm requires background information so you can make the right investment. Amateur hunters tend to make selecting and buying mistakes due to lack of knowledge and this can not only end up in poor shopping decisions, but also in potential safety issues. In this regard, this article aims to present the five most common mistakes when selecting a firearm for hunting.

1. Caliber

By far, one of the most frequent mistakes that beginners make when getting their first firearm is choosing the wrong caliber for hunting. Even though there is not an ideal caliber for hunting in general or for a specific animal, there is a range that you should take into consideration. This means that you need to know the difference between a .17 HMR and a 577 Nitro Exp, as well as when and how to use them. An infographic created by Hunter Ed supports the fact that you should choose the right caliber depending on the animals you will hunt:

Varmint hunting: .22 Mag, .22 Long or .17 HMR are all suitable for hunting small animals.
Deer Hunting: you can look into .22-250, .223 or .243 Win for hunting deer.
Big Game: for hunting bears or elk, choose .338, .300 Win Mag or 7mm Rem Mag.

2. Ammunition

Another significant aspect you need to remember when selecting a firearm for hunting is your choice of ammunition. First of all, not all ammunition works for all types of firearms, so you will need to ask what ammunition will be suitable for the gun you are going to buy. Choosing the proper type of ammunition has critical safety aspects involved; if you select the wrong kind you will not only be wasting money on ammunition you can’t use, but you will also be putting yourself and the ones around you in danger. Always double check with the company you plan on buying your firearm from to see if the ammunition you get on the side fits and works for your choice.

3. Scope

Most beginner hunters get excited when buying their first rifle and tend to forget about an essential component: the scope. You could spend a considerable amount on your rifle, not get the right scope and ruin your hunting experience from the beginning. Optics are just as important as the firearm you choose and also a basic part of the firearm selection process that many tend to overlook. The best way to avoid this mistake is to organize your budget with both the firearm and the scope in mind in advance.

4. Investment

Speaking of budget, this leads us to yet another common mistake when buying hunting firearms. Those who lack hunting experience might end up purchasing a firearm that is way over their budget. This results in not having enough money left for accessories (such as the scope we were speaking about earlier) or for carrying out the practice afterwards. You should always weigh your options and search through various sources before ordering or buying your hunting firearm from a store. If you decide to purchase your hunting firearm online, it is recommended that you search for a particular model through at least three sources to see where you can get the best deal.

5. Complexity

Last but not least, complexity tends to be a trending mistake among amateur hunters. This mistake can equally go two ways; a hunter can either purchase a firearm that is too complex for his or her level of training and knowledge at that moment, or they can get a gun that is too basic and won’t meet their needs. Be aware of your level as a hunter and choose the complexity of your firearm accordingly.

Image via www.chuckhawks.com

Image via http://davidshoebridge.org.au

About the Author

Larry Ellis is a firearm and hunting enthusiast based in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He specializes in deer hunting and, during off season, contributes guidelines and opinion pieces to various hunting blogs, as well as professional firearm websites such as Riflescopecenter.

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Gathering & Hunting to Stay Alive In the Wild

6/15/2015

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By Dennis Diaz

For obvious reasons, in a survival situation, food will be one of your top priorities. After shelter/fire (keeping your body core temperature) and water (staying hydrated), finding food is most likely to be your next priority.

Following the “Rule of 3’s”, the average adult can survive without food for up to 3 weeks. This is why food is a lesser priority than other elements, like core body temperature and hydration, but soon enough food, or the lack there off, will become a problem. Staying fed in the wild can be a challenge. The more you learn about your local environment the easier it will be.

Image Via www.assets.inhabitat.com

Plants
Many of the plants you will find in the wild are glorified salad. Roughage and vitamins but not a lot of calories, so you will need to add meat to the menu at some point. Most of them also can be cooked as a potherb, and if you change the water once or twice, the bitter taste usually will become palatable.

Common plants like Dandelion and chicory are most useful in the wild. Not only do both provide greens that are decent eaten raw or cooked as a potherb. Both also have a root that can be eaten or roasted and brewed into a coffee substitute. (If the brew is to light and weak, try roasting the roots darker)

Images Via http://www.ardentlight.com

The best course of action is to get a good guide of edible plants in your area, and then go out and use it. Make several practice runs in order to learn what these plants look like in your area, along with how you like them prepared. Check out these guides

Trees & Shrubs
Obvious food sources include fruits and nuts when in season. Gather as much as you can and dry/store any extra.

Image Via www.bosse-interspice.co.uk

The inner bark of most trees can be eaten. I have tried it on several and in my opinion they won’t be winning any taste tests. I have read you can dry this layer and powder it to use as a flour substitute. I have not tried this yet but plan to someday.

Hunting & Trapping
Hunting can be a real calorie sucker. Meaning you will burn up more calories hunting than you will gain by eating what you kill. However if you are in an area where you only need to do sit in one spot and kill several animals without burning hardly any calories, then you are in luck and hunting might be your best option.

If, on the other hand, you must do a lot of walking for every critter you bag, you should consider trapping as a better way to make meat. Then you hunt while you are checking your trap line.

Image Via cdfgnews.wordpress.com

Feeding yourself in the wild isn’t as hard as it may seem for those who are knowledgeable and practice the right skills.

About the Author
Dennis Diaz is the Chief Editor of Survival Ready. He is an avid survivalist who is passionate bout learning and teaching survival and preparedness skills and strategies. Author of the The 12 Month Prepper & Survivalist Playbook.

He enjoys helping others prepare themselves for multiple dangerous scenarios, by coaching them on how develop their own customized survival & preparedness plans and develop their survival skills. He teaches his students and readers to make preparedness and survival knowledge part of their daily lives.

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Tips for Leasing to Individual Hunters

5/11/2015

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By Survival Ready Blog Contributor

Landowners across the United States are discovering they have a valuable asset that sportsmen are willing to pay for. The popularity of land leases for hunters is a reflection of this discovery, with more landowners choosing to make their lands available through both long- and short-term leases. Leasing to individual hunters is just one of the many options available.

As a landowner, you might be a bit nervous about leasing land to hunters. Perhaps you have heard stories in the past about leases gone wrong, or maybe you have even had a bad experience yourself. In either case, we want to encourage you to reconsider. It is possible to enjoy a very productive lease with individual owners that can benefit you financially and in terms of keeping up your land.

Here are some tips for leasing to individual hunters:

Ask for References

It would be nearly impossible in this day and age to rent an apartment or house without furnishing adequate references. The same should be true for your land lease opportunity. Ask each person to be named on the lease to provide you with three or more references. Then do not be afraid to check those references. Anyone unwilling to provide them is probably someone you do not want to lease to anyway.

Attorney Lease Review

There are many generic land leases that you can find online for next to nothing. These documents may be adequate, but not all of their provisions may be applicable in your state. If you do not plan to have an attorney write up a lease from scratch, at least have your attorney look over your lease before it is signed. It is imperative that your documents comply with the law and provide you maximum protection. A poorly written or executed lease is one that usually causes problems.

Hunting Insurance

Hunting lease liability insurance should never be a question for either landowners or sportsmen. Far too many things could go wrong to allow hunters without insurance on your property. Insurance should limit your liability while also providing for damage to land, personal injury, and liability issues concerning neighboring lands. Landowners also need to be sure that the hunting lease insurance policy covers everyone signing the lease, which leads us to our next point. For additional information visit the following resource page.

Lease Signing

Leasing your land to individual hunters requires that every hunter who intends to use the property sign the lease. The only exception would be cases in which a lease allows a hunter to bring occasional guests with him/her. Nevertheless, such events should not be the norm. In other words, if person A plans to join your lessee as a regular hunter throughout the lease term, he/she is no longer a guest. He/she is a regular hunter whose name should be on the lease. Your lease should also limit the total number of people that can be hunting at any one time.

Specific Rules

Unlike hunting clubs, individual hunters with groups of friends rarely have established rules for how they hunt. You need to make sure that is not the case with your land. Included in the lease should be specific rules about things such as vehicle use, hunting insurance liability limits, building hunting structures, the types of game hunted during the various seasons, and so on. These rules act to protect you against those rare hunters who would misuse your land.

Leasing your land to individual hunters is a good way to allow others to enjoy the land while also earning some extra money. Nonetheless, be smart. Protect yourself against potential liability.

Additional Resources:
1. American Hunting Lease Association - http://ahuntinglease.org/hunting-club

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Traditional Archery: Hobby? Or Life Saving Skill?

2/26/2015

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By Randy A.

Traditional/Primitive archery is a fun hobby and it might just save your life in a survival situation. If you really get into it you can make all of your gear, and almost nothing is more satisfying than taking game with something you built yourself from scratch.

Muscle Memory
You may think that by shooting modern archery equipment, you are building muscle memory that will help you in a survival situation with primitive equipment.

This is not the case. Everything your muscles are being trained for will be different with primitive or traditional equipment. The draw is completely different on a compound bow than either a recurve or longbow. Your anchor point will be different when not using a release along with a slightly longer draw.

In short it is similar in appearance only.

Sights
Shooting by instinct is much different that using the peepsight on your compound. This takes practice or what many call "stumpjumping". Aside form target shooting woods loafing with your bow and shooting stumps and trees at varying ranges and conditions will improve your shooting tremendously.

Arrows
I have never shot a graphite arrow. I still have a few old aluminum arrows that were new in the 60’s and have antique broadheads on them.

Most of what you will be shooting in traditional circles is wood shafted arrows. With a little research you can find how to make your own shafts from scratch.

Flemish Twist Bowstring
If you learn to make your own bowstrings in the Flemish twist style, you can add a couple to your Bugout Bag (BOB) and have a ready made bowstring for any bow you build in the wild. Since they are twisted to the final length they are quite forgiving on bow length. (within reason)

If you must you can dismantle one and have several lengths of prime cord for other uses like snares or fishing line.

Doing it now
If you start hunting traditional now, if the time comes where you need archery skills in a survival situation, you will have them in place.
Traditional/Primitive archery is an excellent skill to have just in case.

About the author
Randy Augsburger lives and writes from an old farm that has been in his family since 1866. Born in northwest Ohio, Randy grew up in a small town in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. He draws on his experiences of hunting, fishing, trapping and prospecting for his writing. Randy is also an ordained Southern Baptist preacher.

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Hunting and Getting Food When SHTF

1/4/2015

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By Randy A.

The first thing many think they will do to feed themselves when SHTF is grab ole Betsy and head to the woods to kill a bar’.

While this isn’t a bad idea in and of itself, but if you live near any kind of population center, you will be in direct competition with every Tom, Dick and Harry that owns a gun.

So how do we get food during SHTF?

Hunting
Yes, hunting will be viable in some cases, either where there are fewer people for competition, or when done in conjunction with other food gathering activities and taking targets of opportunity when they present themselves.

Out in the wilderness, in many cases you will spend more calories hunting than you eat from actually getting something. Best to hunt while gathering food in other manners.

Trapping
Trapping will usually put more meat on your table than any other activity, with the possible exception of fishing. You set the trap and it works for you 24/7 until it connects.

You only have to glance at it once it is set, to see if you need to pick up your food and reset it , or move along to the next one. See post Trap and Snare Construction,

Foraging
A vegetarian would have a hard time keeping themselves fed in the wild. While wild foods are not too difficult to come by, it is hard to get enough calories to maintain yourself if you are going to do anything besides gather food. A good field guide and time spent online familiarizing yourself with the local flora will help immensely. No one wants a diet of exclusively dandelion greens; because that is all you know how to identify.

If you have edible nuts in your area gather as many as you can find, since they are high in calories and fat, things you need to eat a lot of to keep going in the wild.

Fishing
If you have good fishing waters, you can feed yourself for a long time on the fish they will provide. A well stocked fishing kit (hooks and line) should be in everyone’s kit. If you are planning on only hunting for your food, you have a faulty plan.

But if you plan for diversifying our gathering capabilities, you have a much better chance of feeding yourself and your family no matter what happens.

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Basic Survival Hunting Skills

12/30/2014

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By Jesse Jones

There are many reasons you should have some basic survival hunting skills learned and practiced. During the first few days of an event happening which leads to your move to the wilderness, panic can lead to very bad decisions. The lack of food and water can create even greater stressors, including bad decisions making, hallucination's, and hysteria. Knowing just a few skills can make the difference between survival, and death.

Basic Survival Hunting Skills
Part of preparing your family and your self for future survival, is learning a balance of hunting skills to cover many areas of potential resources. Being able to gather meat is vital, but along with that comes many other resources that can be useful.

Not only does an animals meat provide you with food to survive on, you can also utilize it's other resources such as skin, fur, bones, intestines, blood, and the fats and oils from the body. Although consumption is not possible with all portions of an animal, it's intestines can be used for bait, bones for tools, and pelts for warmth.

Fishing
Although not directly a form of hunting, knowing how to catch fish can be very important to the initial survival process. This is usually the first and sometimes last resource available to those hunting and gathering their own food.

Some important skills to learn about fishing include creating makeshift fishing lines and poles, hooks, stringers, nets, and the process of cleaning fish. While out in the wilderness, fishing is a potential resource for unlimited food. Knowing how to cure a fish can help preserve your caught food for longer periods of time.

Trapping
Trapping is probably the second most important skill for your family and your self to learn and practice. In most cases there will be plenty of small animals that can fall subject to your traps and provide another line of food.

One major advantage of learning how to trap, is the potential to capture food while not having to fully focus on the process. Once an animal trail has been located, you can set multiple traps throughout to increase your chances of catching an animal. Once your traps are set, you are free to leave them alone for several hours, and continue other work.

Projectile
The most commonly known type of basic survival hunting skills is projectile. This consists of many different kinds of weapons ranging from spear, to firearm. Although it's important to know how to fire a gun accurately enough to kill an animal, other skills such as shooting a bow or crossbow is even more important. The downside to using a firearm is the limited supply of ammo. Once you fire a bullet, you will never get a chance to fire it again, unlike arrows, slingshots, and spears.

One of the most useful skills a person can learn for outdoor survival, is building your own bow and arrows. Even simple bow designs can be effective in killing small to medium game. The projectile is reusable, and they make very minimal noise.

There are many more skills to learn while preparing for your survival, hopefully these will be a good starting point for you. Learn as much as you can from the list above, practice them in real life application, and your family will be able to safely survive in the wilderness.

About the author
Jesse Jones has been writing for over 8 years for many news outlets and online media sources. He is an avid survivalist and prepper who can be found writing articles on his personal survival blog www.365preppers.com go check him out!

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Top 5 Mistakes When Selecting a Firearm for Hunting

Gathering & Hunting to Stay Alive In the Wild

Tips for Leasing to Individual Hunters

Traditional Archery: Hobby? Or Life Saving Skill?

Hunting and Getting Food When SHTF

Basic Survival Hunting Skills

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