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Static Fish Trap
Life is dependent upon water, so when you find a source of water in the wilderness, chances are it’s a good place to look for your food too. There are numerous designs for fish traps, and in this article, we’ll be talking about a static funnel fish trap.
How it Works
A static funnel fish trap works by channeling or funneling the fish from the open body of water, into your trap, and making it difficult for them to find the one way back out. Fish aren’t that smart, it’s basically like building a fence maze in the water, a maze that anything smarter than a fish would have no trouble getting out of, but still it will work just fine on fish.
How to Build One
Since the trap is static and built in place, location is everything. That being said, the basic design can be adapted to work in other locations if you get the principles. For now, we’ll talk about building one on the side of a stream, perhaps an inlet that is not running, though as I said before the design could be adapted to build it in the middle of a stream. The reason for selecting an inlet that is not running is that it is a dead-end, this will mean your trap will be more effective with less material and less work for you.
Gather several arms full of supple branches. You will want them to be sturdy, but still give a little. Take them to the mouth of the dead-end inlet you have chosen.
Starting at one bank, take sturdy pieces of the branches that are a foot or two longer than the water is deep and drive them into the mud about 6 inches away from each other. Each successive stick being both further towards the center of the inlet, and further towards away from the mouth of the inlet. Do this until you get to the center. Then do the opposite on the other end so that you are left with a “V” shaped arrangement.
Then extend the center of the “V” with more sticks on each side, so that there is a channel about the width and length of your arm protruding off the “V” so that it now looks more like a “Y”. This channel is where your prey will enter in.
Now take the remaining supple branches and weave them through the vertical sticks. It doesn’t need to be pretty; it just needs to function as a barrier. Make sure that your barrier extends several inches above the water.
Now, just bait your trap with whatever you have available. If you have already eaten an animal, the discarded innards will work, or bones, or even animal droppings if you have nothing else. But I wouldn’t suggest wasting any plant-based food you might have, eat that for yourself as it will be ineffective bait.
One nice side effect of your trap is that it will also attract animals that want to eat what you have caught like birds or racoons. These could also be potential prey for you if you are prepared when you check your trap.
This trap is easy to build and effective. Usually I would tell you to go out and practice it so that you aren’t using it for the first time when your life depends on it, but these days environmentalists have ruined everything and traps like these can be illegal in some areas for purposes other than survival. So check your local laws before DLNR rights you a ticket.
January in Sherwood Forest was known as Wolf-Month for a very good reason; wolf packs driven by snow or cold to shelter in the woodlands in the same way as the outlaws would become a serious threat; the wolves natural food was scarce at that time and starving animals were known to overcome their natural fear of man and enter nearby villages in an attempt to carry off livestock and on more than a few occasions even small children - grown men and horses passing through Sherwood in the medieval period are recorded as having been attacked by wolves, a wintertime hazard that remained until the 14th Century.
In one medieval example, a wolf leapt out on a horse and rider, bit off a piece of horse-rump and fled into the forest with the reeking piece of flesh before the rider realised what had happened. A small child was carried off from Linby by a wolf in the early 12th Century.
Even an armed man on foot would become a hunted quarry and possibly have to face a desperate and terrifying foe suited to the environment and equipped with deadly weapons designed for face-to-face close-combat.
A wonderful morale-booster, fires frighten animals and give off warmth and light and you can then heat your water and cook your food using it, adding a civilized aspect to living rather than just simply surviving outdoors and is what makes most folk today remember as a comfortable camp under canvas or the stars from a past outdoor experience.
Fire can be made using natural materials and is not as hard to create this way as you think if you simply have a go and practice; an everyday task which would be as natural and easy to a medieval person as tying shoelaces or switching on an electric light would be to a modern city-dweller.
Medieval people often carried flint and steel but could also recognise the correct materials for making fire by rubbing two sticks together at a glance. This method generally falls into two categories - the fire plough or the fire drill.
FIRE
Solar Eclipse's Path a Reminder
of Our Preparedness Journey with You
On August the 21st of 2017 a vast majority of us in North America took a timeout from our concerns about nuclear threats from North Korea, terrorism from ISIS and ongoing hostilities from our polarized politics... to view a natural phenomenon that has not occurred here in 38 years.
Those along the 70-mile wide path of totality observed a total solar eclipse. This stretched from Lincoln Beach, Oregon to Charleston, South Carolina. Others experienced a partial solar eclipse ranging from 50 to 90-plus percent.
In those areas of totality, it was so dark during the total eclipse it looked like nighttime and the street lamps turned on.
It was nothing less than sensational. The wonder of this solar eclipse was all many could talk about for much of the day.
For me, the eclipse was a stirring reminder of the awesome forces of nature that keep us alive every day.
Just think... a giant ball of fire 93 million miles away sustains life on this planet... while our one and only satellite 240,000 miles away stabilizes the Earth's rotation and causes magnificent tides.
It's just incredible to ponder.
Nature Is Our Preparedness Guide
Taking what nature has provided for us – food, water and power – we've learned that while the future is uncertain, you can prepare for it in tangible ways that will protect yourselves and your families.
There are great tasting and nutritious foods nature gives us... and using modern-day methods it can still be good up to 25 years from now. Guaranteeing it will be ready no matter when you need it.
We can take our planet's water and using sophisticated methods remove up to 99 percent of the contaminants that can spoil it. Ensuring we always have delicious, pure, clean water to drink.
We can take the power of the sun to charge our generators so that they can supply potentially life-saving energy.... for when the electrical grid fails and we need it the most.
Of course, this all comes back to self-reliance.
We can't control when the sun will shine or when the moon will cross between it and our Earth.
But we can certainly bask in the beauty of a natural phenomenon such as a solar eclipse. And we can definitely control how prepared we are for whatever natural or manmade disasters may be carving a path toward us as you read these words.
Thanks for taking this journey with us. We couldn't imagine being on it without you!