Trapping stuff
Buckshot's material is good and even if you don't buy his products, there's good free information on his site that's well worth a look. I heartily recommend an old author we don't read much about anymore: Ragnar Benson. Buy his various trapping and poaching books. There's maybe just enough BS to keep things interesting, but most of his tips are spot on and work.
I don't think most of us appreciate the resources we have available to us today. For one thing, the internet opens huge vistas of information and products that were unavailable not too many years ago. I can get on eBay and order weird hunting/trapping/survival items with a mouse click that I well-remember searching long and hard for in the pre-'net days. For example, even here in the Deep South, steel traps aren't very common anymore. In (many) years past, every hardware or sporting goods store would stock them. Those days have long passed. For years, I'd pick up the odd trap or two at a garage or yard sale, but you'd never see new ones for sale in the stores. Since the advent of eBay (and online retailers), you can find all the new and used traps you want pretty reasonably.
Use these resources to stock up on things now. You can make your own snares easily enough, but making longspring or jump traps would tax the abilities of any home craftsman.
Also, trapping is fine, but you can get a lot more food (and a lot quicker) out of most waterways. I'd recommend that - if you're near water - you devote as much time to learning about harvesting seafood as you do about trapping. Also, the internet and the flood of cheap Chinese goods has resulted in wonderful things becoming available to the prepper at very low cost. Nets, traps and other fishing gear are examples of this.
You can harvest a lot more fish with the right nets than you'll ever get with a fishing pole. Also, don't be afraid to get in the water! The man or woman who's willing to get wet can reap 10x as much food as the guy who sits on the banks with a pole!
Learn to use a simple gig. This can be nothing more sophisticated than a broomstick with a sharpened nail driven in the end. You use this to "gig" (spear) flounder on the bottom and crabs. If you're on a rock coast, use your gig to poke into crevices and holes. Eventually, you'll hit something soft. It's probably an octopus. Aggravate the animal by continued poking and eventually it will wrap its tentacles around your gig. Quickly remove the gig and you'll find dinner wrapped around the end! Add a rubber band to the basic gig/spear and a barbed tip and you have the basic Hawaian sling spear gun. Buy a simple mask and snorkle and your capabilities increase tremendously. I have shot small fish, such as mullet (which I love fried), many times with a speargun. A lot of folks have the idea that spearguns must be used on big game fish. Nothing could be further from the truth. They work great on small fish.
You don't need to be a great swimmer to do any of this and there are tremendous amounts of food in water no deeper than chin level.
BTW, in a TEOTWAWKI scenario, I don't think scuba will be much good. Where will you get air fills, parts, etc. On the other hand, the simple mask and snorkle rig should keep you going for decades.
A pry bar (or even a screwdriver) puts you in the oyster (and other shellfish) harvesting game. Throughout the world, most pilings and other structures are home to countless shelfish. A lot of areas have delicious clams only a few inches below the bottom. Here on the Gulf Coast, oysters are a favorite, but relatively few people know that there are countless, delicious clams buried in our sand and mud. This is a regional thing. For some reason, clam eating never caught on here. You can be sure that in other parts of the country (and the world) there are similar regional preferences and overlooked food resources.
It's a smart play to let others scramble for the familiar food resources, while you harvest something no one's looking for.
Best regards
Doc
