low energy hunting

LOW ENERGY HUNTING
If you are a coyote, you don’t get a heck of a lot of respect. You run along, eating mice and small game, pretty much whatever jumps out in front of you. No glory in that. The wolf gets better press, the mighty pack working together to take down game. The only problem with the pack strategy is that it is high energy hunting. You need a lot of participants which means a lot more mouths to feed. So bigger game is needed. Kind of like farming, raising dairy herds or meat herds. Dairy needs less land to produce protein.
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Rednecks barreling down the bayou in monster trucks listening to country music about “country boys will survive” are going to be a little surprised when crunch time comes. Unlike the rural South sixty years ago where a barefoot bib-overall’ed hick with a rimfire or flintlock could go out hunting in the woods down in the hollers and get meat for the family, today the area swarms with Carpetbaggers, jacking up real estate prices as they suck down geriatric welfare checks. The population has grown enough that one week after Winn-Dixie’s shelves are bare there won’t be any mammals surviving in the woods. However, that being said, hunting small game is still preferable to relying on larger prey. Your odds are much better you will get something to add to the stew pot. It might not be enough to handle your meat craving, not like a slab of venison, but it is better than nothing.
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Most importantly, small game hunting can be done with renewable weapons. No need to expend cartridges. You can use a crossbow, a pellet gun and a slingshot. Yes, you can use a bow. But I think the skill level is too high for the average Joe. Initially, first stages of a collapse, stick with your cheap, easy to use hunting weapons. Later you can play around making and using your own bow. Frankly, I suck at using a sling shot. A pellet gun in my price range isn’t much better. But my use of a bow was a total failure. As in, how the heck can I keep missing a friggin hay bale at such a close range? I will stick with a crossbow, given a choice.
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No weapon is perfect. Crossbows will break, their string split apart. The bolts bend or break. The slingshot ( the wrist braced type ) needs replacement tubing. The pellet gun will eventually experience parts failure that few know how to fix. But these are meant to be short time weapons. Keeping meat in the cooking pot until farming/ranching/herding become established. They are great at what they do for the time period they are used. They are silent. They take limited skill ( the slingshot more than the others ). They are dirt cheap right now. I just added a $20 pellet gun to my Amazon prep gear page. www.bisonpress.com/amazonproducts.html as well as a $20 crossbow. An 80 pound pull pistol crossbow has limited use but the bolts are really cheap as is the weapon itself. The pellet gun is of course Chinese and can’t be expected to be top quality, but it did get good reviews and is, again, better than nothing. I also added two books to www.bisonpress.com/affiliatebooks.html . One is the Kunstler novel that must be pre-ordered ( they seem to be taking their time getting it out ). Post-Peak Oil living. The other book is on human powered weapons.
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I didn’t much care for pellet guns before. The ammo is almost as expensive as .22 LR’s. So why spend the same amount on a pellet gun as a .22? But with the gun only costing $20, why not indeed? Crossbows are more toy than anything at the $20 mark, but why spend $100 on a crossbow? The string breaks quickly, the bolts are not cheap and the range sucks. I would prefer a silenced rimfire. As far as the slingshot, if you can find cheap enough replacement tubing it is a great little game getter. I imagine medical supply stores should have it. I know the retail replacement made especially for the slingshot is a bit pricy, as in half the slingshot cost.
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