Vince wrote:Ask your grandparents about how often they ate deer during the depression. Squirrels were a treat to find and kill. That's why those 22 rounds will be so valuable.
There were pretty much no deer in KY until hey started importing and regulating them. When people could hunt all they want they pretty much wiped out the population.
I think the first legal hunting season was in 1959 but it was a huge deal to even find a deer to hunt.
Even in the 70's in was rare to see a deer.
Turkey were imported about 30 years ago because they were hunted into oblivion as well.
Populations are only maintained now because of regulation, and when people get hungry laws go out the window.
Squirrel don't cover as much range and are harder to spot, so they stayed around.
A couple years ago I read an article that squirrel populations are just a small percentage of what they used to be though. Chestnuts used to account of something like 1/3 of the trees int he forest, but due to disease there are few left.
Also, people would go on hunting trips and come back with thousands of squirrels.
There used to be squirrel migrations where tens of thousands of squirrels would swim across the Ohio River.
As for .22 rounds, they will kill anything in the U.S. (except for maybe a bear).
It is illegal (and unethical) to shoot a deer with one, but a well placed shot will drop one in its tracks.
Shooting one through the lungs will kill it, but a lot more slowly.
And for protection, I'm going to run and hide just as quickly if someone is pointing a .22 at me as I would if someone was pointing a .45.
I paid $16 per brick (500 rounds) for .22's a year and a half ago. Now the same bricks sell for about $60 online.
Prices shot up about a year ago.
They sell out as soon as they hit the shelves at Walmart.
Most gun shops will only sell a limited quantity, and the prices are high.
I heard (but haven't verified) that Smith & Wesson has a contract to buy the entire stock of a 22LR manufacturer (I think CCI?) for the next few years, as they plan to offer a free box of ammo with each of their .22's so supply/prices look bleak.
I know they had more trouble in eastern KY than western KY as far as getting the deer population to take hold. Those mountain folk just weren't cooperating with limits on what they could shoot for food.
I'm wanting to say the food stamp program actually helped with that. Plus they stopped figuring in to their population equations that people were going to stop hunting just because they said so and brought in a whole lot of deer.
There were deer on my dad's land for as long as I can remember (early 70's). But that's low lands near the river with a lot of farms around growing corn and other grains. I think it being boggy so much of the year around there helps as well. Harder to get in to harvest them.
Edited By Vince on 1393951515
"... and then I was forced to walk the Trail of Tears." - Elizabeth Warren
They still have trouble in Eastern KY.
In fact my ex-GF (but mostly her crew) has been spending time down there as part of a new study.
They're trying to trap/release 75 deer so they can put tracking devices on them and pinpoint why populations aren't rebounding like they should.
When I asked about it I was told something like, "The problem with studying trapping deer to find out why there aren't many is that there aren't many deer to trap." So things are going slow.
The deer traps are sort of like cages that you'd catch a raccoon in, but larger, and made out of mesh nets instead of metal.
As far as deer populations in the 1970's go, I was going off stories I heard. I know Tim Farmer of the hunting/fishing show Kentucky Afield (Tim only has the use of one arm. Check out his bow fishing clip.)has talked about how it was a big deal for someone to get a legal deer back in the 70's. All the friends and neighbors would come over to check it out, and it might get a write up in the paper.
Nowadays, you can harvest and unlimited number of does in much of the northern counties (any Zone 1 county).
As far as poaching goes, it hurts everybody.
A healthy doe will have two fawns a year, every year. (I think I heard that 80% of them will, while some have triplets in good years and some have one or none)
So in any given deer population, if half are female, and 80% of those have viable twins, that's adding 40% to the population every year.
Poach a healthy doe in the winter and you're essentially removing three deer that would be around in the spring.
You'd be removing the twins that mother would have the following year, and the several years after that.
Plus you'd be removing all of the twins that her offspring would have had.
Paul wrote:Poach a healthy doe in the winter and you're essentially removing three deer that would be around in the spring.
You'd be removing the twins that mother would have the following year, and the several years after that.
Plus you'd be removing all of the twins that her offspring would have had.
Now that's RIAA math... poach one doe and you've taken millions of pounds of meat out of the system.
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
Paul wrote:As far as deer populations in the 1970's go, I was going off stories I heard. I know Tim Farmer of the hunting/fishing show Kentucky Afield (Tim only has the use of one arm. Check out his bow fishing clip.)has talked about how it was a big deal for someone to get a legal deer back in the 70's. All the friends and neighbors would come over to check it out, and it might get a write up in the paper.
I don't think it was ever quite that bad in our area when I was growing up (my dad pretty regularly took bucks, but nothing like today), but the fact that you could rarely harvest does supports what you are talking about. I remember when they DID have a season when does could be harvested, they had a specific season apart from the season for bucks. And much shorter.
Weird.
"... and then I was forced to walk the Trail of Tears." - Elizabeth Warren
As far as prepping goes, a lot of it is having a reliable group of people you trust.
I have people I trust that have the resources I need for long-term survival.
I have one friend who is *really* into this sort of stuff. He keeps telling me to get survival food, but I have yet to pull the trigger on a purchase. I may get a couple one month supplies off Amazon though.
With what I have on hand my daughter and I can hole up in the house for a month.
With what I have prepared I have 4 or so days worth of survival gear packed and ready to go in three minutes. (No guns in the bugout bag, but I'd grab some.)
There was some dude on that show "Doomsday Preppers..." he was saying that he would absolutely raid his neighbors if he wanted their shit, and he had enough firepower that they absolutely could not stop him. He was arrested soon after on some charge.
Don't watch the show. Read the news about it.
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
Vince wrote:I remember when they DID have a season when does could be harvested, they had a specific season apart from the season for bucks. And much shorter.
Here in KY there are four zones.
Zone 1 & 2 have the longest seasons.
Zone 2 & 3 have a shorter season.
In every county, you can only harvest one antlered deer. This is to give them a chance to get big. (This makes KY a top-5 state for deer hunting... #1 last year)
In Zone 1 you can harvest an unlimited number of deer, as long as you buy tags for them.
In Zones 2 & 3 (I'm a zone 3) you can harvest two deer with firearms and two with archery equipment. (One being and antlered)
In Zone 4 (Eastern KY) you can only harvest one deer, and it can only be antlered. They want to save the does for breeding.
Paul wrote:As far as prepping goes, a lot of it is having a reliable group of people you trust.
I have people I trust that have the resources I need for long-term survival.
I have one friend who is *really* into this sort of stuff. He keeps telling me to get survival food, but I have yet to pull the trigger on a purchase. I may get a couple one month supplies off Amazon though.
With what I have on hand my daughter and I can hole up in the house for a month.
With what I have prepared I have 4 or so days worth of survival gear packed and ready to go in three minutes. (No guns in the bugout bag, but I'd grab some.)
I try out the various ones before you commit to a large purchase. Otherwise you might be stuck with something you don't care much for.
Every so often we'll get a variety pack of mountain house freeze dried foods. We backpack and camp, so we eat those over time anyway. Good for a bug out situation, and they taste pretty good. Especially for freeze dried food. The down side to them is they don't stick to your ribs for long. I suspect it's because they're freeze dried and the cellular structure of the food is already compromised making them very easy for your body to absorb. Rapidly. But that's a guess on my part.
So we keep a week or two of those around, and beyond that I just pick up extra food during our weekly grocery trip. Our Kroger always has a big bin of $1 food items. Dry mashed potato packets and flavored noodle and rice packets and chef-boy-ardee little mini cups of ravioli and whatnot. I try to stick to stuff we can heat up directly (or eat cold) or what would only take boiling water to prepare. Plus I'll eat those for lunch on occasion so they are rotated and won't go to waste.
I used to think I needed to get the survival food like you'd listed, but at the end of the shelf life you're either going to have to eat it or toss it. For me it's easier to get a little extra of stuff you'd eat anyway. The down side of that is we're running out of pantry space.
"... and then I was forced to walk the Trail of Tears." - Elizabeth Warren
GORDON wrote:There was some dude on that show "Doomsday Preppers..." he was saying that he would absolutely raid his neighbors if he wanted their shit, and he had enough firepower that they absolutely could not stop him. He was arrested soon after on some charge.
Don't watch the show. Read the news about it.
I watched a few of those. Doesn't surprise me. They mostly picked people that were on the extreme and trying to make them all look nuts.
I did see a few of them talk about how they didn't believe in guns. So I thought someone WITH a gun would be grateful for their gather and storing all that food!
A few months ago the NY Times had an article about how being a prepper might not be a bad idea. Because now that they've had hurricanes that impacted New Yorkers, it might be a good idea.
"... and then I was forced to walk the Trail of Tears." - Elizabeth Warren
Yeah, it comes down to "eat it or toss it" for survival food, and it's not gourmet, so it'd be tossed.
That's stuff you eat when you don't have better options.
I got a free sample of some of the survival bucket food last year and I threw it away after a few bites.
Of course, if I hadn't eaten for a day it'd have been delicious.
I wish I could find some instant rice in bulk. It lasts forever and I'd eat it anyway.
Paul wrote:Here in KY there are four zones.
Zone 1 & 2 have the longest seasons.
Zone 2 & 3 have a shorter season.
In every county, you can only harvest one antlered deer. This is to give them a chance to get big. (This makes KY a top-5 state for deer hunting... #1 last year)
In Zone 1 you can harvest an unlimited number of deer, as long as you buy tags for them.
In Zones 2 & 3 (I'm a zone 3) you can harvest two deer with firearms and two with archery equipment. (One being and antlered)
In Zone 4 (Eastern KY) you can only harvest one deer, and it can only be antlered. They want to save the does for breeding.
I hunt at my dad's in zone 1. He says they're having an increase in rabbits in the last few years also. He said they'd been in short supply for a few years and he rarely saw them. Seeing them a lot more now.
"... and then I was forced to walk the Trail of Tears." - Elizabeth Warren
I was surprised when my dad said that the rabbits had gotten scarce. I used to run over them all the time driving the back roads growing up. They're pretty stupid when it comes to traffic. One would dart across the road and be all the way across and then panic and try to run all the way back.
"... and then I was forced to walk the Trail of Tears." - Elizabeth Warren
Hopefully some ranchers out west will be able to save breeding stock until the first wave of human die-offs happen. I would hate to never be able to eat beef or bison again.
"Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid."
Playing Rust a little too much, the first thing I saw when I clicked that was how it looks all packaged up when it's shipped - Just like an unopened airdrop!
Troy wrote:Playing Rust a little too much, the first thing I saw when I clicked that was how it looks all packaged up when it's shipped - Just like an unopened airdrop!
After too much Assassin's Creed I find myself trying to visualize the best way to scale the faces of churches and other buildings around town.
"... and then I was forced to walk the Trail of Tears." - Elizabeth Warren
