The Survival Gear Category
Food bag for a bug out bag
For years, and I mean for years I have kept a food bag in my bug out / camping bag. For the most part the food bag contains a single burner stove for a bug out bag, pot for cooking, eating utensils, lighter and matches for the stove and for building a camp fire, hand sanitizer,,,, and other odds and ends.
The purpose of a Bug Out Bag is if you and your family have to leave home in an emergency, the bag provides a few days of supplies for each person. Lets say there is a chemical leak near your house and your family has to evacuate. Everyone grabs their bag, and heads to a shelter or friends house.
My main bug out bag use to be a large ALICE pack. But a year ago I bought a large MOLLE pack with internal sleep system, which is currently my main bag. To add a little more room to the pack, 2 sustainment pouches were added.
Lets talk about this food bag in a little more detail.
The main bag is made of a brown cloth, has a drawstring at the top, when empty laying flat on a table, the bag measures 18 inches tall, 15 inches wide and has a 7X9 rectangle bottom. In a bag this size, someone should easily be able to carry at least 3 days worth of dehydrated food.
Stockpiling trotline supplies
Yesterday evening I started working on some trotlines to be put out Friday evening. The first thing that I realized was how much supplies its going to take to deploy 2 trotlines about 150 long.
The line being used for the main beam comes in spools 300 feet long, and has a tensile strength rating of 330 pounds. When you start running a line across a slew, 100 – 150 feet can go pretty quick. One trotline I saw awhile back must have been close to 200 feet long.
Lets talk about running the main beam line of a trotline. With the spools having 300 of line, your probably going to need 3, 4, 5 or even 6 spools of line for a SHTF stockpile. This of course depends on how many trotlines your going to be running. Some of the slews that I fish in are probably 75 – 100 feet wide. With 300 feet per spool, I would only be able to run 2 or 3 lines across a slew. If I was running a trotline across the main river, 300 feet would probably only get me 1 trip across the river.
About every 6 – 8 feet on the main beam I tied a loop knot. In the loop knot I put a barrel swivel. The first 8 – 10 feet of line is for tying around a tree. From the first loop knot to the end of the line, I probably put about a dozen swivels on the trot line. To put this into perspective, for each 300 foot spool of main line, your going to need about 2 dozen heavy duty swivels.
Thoughts on the AR-15 AK-47 and FN/FAL
As I am sitting here thinking about buying another rifle, my thoughts keep turning back to the AR-15. Even though the AK-47 is a little cheaper, its the reliability, cheap ammo, light weight of the weapon, availability of the ammo, shootability,,,,, that keeps me coming back to the AR.
In a SHTF situation, and I had to hand a rifle to my wife, son or daughter, how well would they be able to handle the rifle? That is just one of the many questions I have to ask myself.
In this article we are going to be looking at 3 of the most popular SHTF rifles and battle rifles in the world: the AK-47, AR-15 and the FN/FAL. The AK shoots the 7.62×39, the AR shoots the 223/5.56mm and the FN/FAL shoots the 308 Winchester / 7.62NATO round. These rifles were picked because they have a reputation of being reliable in just about all combat situations and they have been battle proven in several conflicts.
Lets start from the very beginning:
Inserting a magazine
Quest for the ultimate survival rifle
For years, and I mean for “years”, my survival rifle list went something like this – Marlin 336 in 30-30, AR-15, Ruger mini-14, Ruger mini-30, AK-47, Ruger 10/22 and the Marlin model 60. The problem with that list, all of the rifles are short and medium caliber. The largest caliber rifle would have been the marlin 336 in 30-30 or the AK-47 in 7.62×39.
In my opinion, no survival rifle collection is complete without at least a rifle in the 308 Winchester and 30-06 range. When push comes to shove, a survivalist needs a rifle with some knock down power. In north America, the 308 and 30-06 are capable of taking just about any animal, except for the most dangerous grizzly or polar bear. For most applications – whitetail deer, hogs, prong horn, coyote, mule deer,,,,,, the 308 and 30-06 can fit the bill.
So where does this leave us? We could go with a bolt action rifle like the Remington model 700, Weatherby Vanguard or the Ruger model 70. But for a long term SHTF survival situation, I would like something with a detachable magazine.
Bolt actions rifles aside, this leaves us with the M1A, PTR-91, and the FN/FAL.
Instead of going into a lot of detail about each rifle, long story short, I decided to go with a DS Arms SA58 FN/FAL in 308 Winchester.
To help answer the quest, I posted a thread in the forum – best 308 survival rifle.
Uses for trotline string
When people hear the word “trotline”, most may think of stringing a line across a river or a slew to catch some catfish. While its true that trotline is mainly used to catch catfish, it has lots of other uses.
Jug lines – this is where some type of float is used and the trotline is tied to the float. The float floats with the current of the river or stream, and goes where nature takes it. For most jug lines, people use 1 gallon beach bottles, noodles, or just about anything that floats and a line can be tied to it.
Braided cord – in a pinch, trotline string can be braided to make a cord. While on a camping trip back in 2008 with my kids, we brought some new hammocks with us, and the new hammocks did not have cord included to attach the hammock to a tree. Well, there we were with hammocks and no way to hang them up. So what did we do? I got a spool to trotline string out, then my kids and I took turns braiding the string into a heavier cord. we got the hammocks strung up and everything was fine.
Stockpiling fishing supplies for SHTF
As I have said in several forum post about stockpiling survival gear for SHTF, I think fishing supplies should be at the top of the list. That is, unless you live in a desert or hundreds of miles from a water source. In some kind of long term SHTF survival situation, fishing could be an important food source. The better prepared you are to utilize fish as a food source, the better your chances for success.
On the way home from work today, my wife and I stopped by Ward’s Outdoor Supply in Jasper Texas. The store is snuggled in the corner of an Exxon gas station at the northeast corner of Hwy 96 and Hwy 190. To be honest, when I entered the store, I was not expected much, but I was pleasantly surprised. In fact, I was very surprised at the wide selection of fishing supplies that Ward’s had in stock.
This is what I picked up:
Bucket for trotlines and noodles
A few weeks ago I posted an article about fishing with juglines after SHTF. One of the problems is organizing the noodles and trot lines so they are easy to deploy. In an effort to keep everything together, I bought a 5 gallon bucket. The bucket provided a way to keep the noodles and trot line string together, but it lacked compartments for holding hooks, weights, swivels and leader material. This problem was fixed on Fathers Day.
On Fathers day my Grand kids picked me out a lid for my 5 gallon bucket. The lid is made by Plano, its 2 sided, has 6 compartments in the top tray, and the tray is removable for access to a storage compartment. The compartments are large enough for hooks, weights, swivels,,,, anything that you might need for setting up a jugline or trot line.
Along with the trotline and jugline material for catfishing, I am going to include some supplies for perch fishing, and maybe some stuff for catfishing.
Buying fishing gear
While my wife and I were doing our Sunday shopping at the local china-mart, I went to the sporting goods section to look at the fishing supplies. Choices, choices, so many choices. Should I get some perching supplies, or stuff for catfishing, bass fishing,,,,,. Do I want supplies for artificial or live bait.
A lot of survivalist stockpile freeze dried foods, food in mylar bags, canned goods, seeds for a garden and ammunition for hunting. One thing that I do not see talked about a lot is fishing supplies. Maybe fishing supplies is a given, that everyone should have fishing supplies stockpiled, or maybe its overlooked by a lot of people?
Fishing supplies bought today:
1. Zoom artificial lizard, 6″ long, cotton candy color – for bass fishing
2. Eagle claw hooks, box of 40, size 1/0 – for catfish, noodles and trot lines
3. Water Gremlin split shot weight – for perch fishing
4. Eagle claw Barrel swivel with interlocking snap, size 5 – for catfishing and jug lines
How to organize a tackle box
Last night I was going through my tackle box trying to get it a little better organized. The problem was that I had hooks and weights spread out over different section of the tackle box. The top of the box is mostly lures and a few weights and hooks. With the bottom of the box being an assortment of different hooks, weights and other supplies.
After looking through my tackle for a little while, I realized that I fish for about 3 different types of fish – perch, bass and catfish.
For perch I use split weight and small hooks. To organize my tackle box for perch fishing gear, I bought a small double sided container. On one side of the container goes hooks, on the other side goes split weights.
For bass fishing I use artificial bait, like worms and lizards. A bottom section of my tackle box is dedicated to artificial worms, on top of the worm is a small double sided container like what I keep the perch fishing stuff in. In this container hooks go on one side and weights go on the other side. Unlike the round split weights for perch fishing, the weights used for bass fishing are oblong split weights used for making a texas rig so the bait does not get hung up in the weeds.
For catfish I use a little bit larger hooks and some teardrop weights. A loop is tied in the fishing line, the end of the loop is inserted through the wire on the weight, then wrapper around the end of the weight. This makes the weight easy to take on and off the line.
Starting with mylar bags
I have a confession to make, this was my first time to seal food in mylar bags. To be perfectly honest, I was a little intimidated by it all. What if I screwed everything up, what if I sealed the food wrong, what if the seals did not hold,,,,,.
Thanks to SafeCastle, Prepared.pro I have a bunch of 1 gallon mylar bags, and 50 02 absorbers. So off a sealing I went.
After work today my wife and I went to the super wal-mart in Jasper and I did a little grocery shopping. While we were getting our usual stuff, I picked up a 10 pound bag of Krusteaz instant pancake mix, all you have to do is add water and your good to go.
Went home, got everything ready, and started sealing the mylar bags.
March 31, 2011 food cache:
20 pounds white rice
10 pounds instant pancake mix
5 pounds pinto beans
1 pound navy beans
5 boxes mac & cheese
2 boxes pasta
2 pounds 4 ounces (2 containers) Quaker instant oats
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