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Survival And Prepping Tips For Serious Preppers

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If you’re serious about keeping your family safe during disasters, you’ll want to keep these survival and prepping tips filed away in a good (handy) place. While some may not work in your area or be applicable to you, there will be useful information for anyone here.  From tips on staying safe to the best gear for different situations and skills you should learn, reading this guide will be beneficial to you and your loved ones.

Survival and prepping gear

I am a firm believer that learning skills are the best preparation anyone can make. Knowledge to me means the information you can learn from a book, to make it a skill you have to actually learn it hands-on.

Better yet, do it repeatedly until it is easy. Knowledge is far better than nothing, but I’d encourage anyone reading this to go the extra step and turn what you can into a skill. Skills learned cannot be taken away by anyone and are always with you, whatever the situation.

Survival And Prepping Tips

These are in no particular order. Just take a look and see where you need help.

Basic tools for prepping and survival

Carry basic tools with you all the time. For me, in my job, this means a Leatherman Wave in a custom sheath I had built that also holds a magnesium rod and fire-steel on my right side.

I also carry a small Benchmade folder in my pocket or, when working horseback, a Mooremaker fixed blade in a sheath on my left side. The fixed blade is just in case I ever get my right hand hung up in a rope doctoring cattle, I can reach the knife with my left hand.

Fit your survival tools to your situation.  No need to get expensive tools. But if you use them regularly, you get what you pay for. I’d avoid the $5 generic knives since Buck, Gerber, Kershaw, Mora, and others have much better knives for $ 10-15.

Every coat or jacket I have has a small inexpensive lightweight folding knife and a mini BIC lighter. I want to be able to cut material and start a fire no matter what.

Survival Kits

Survival kit

When building kits, think of buying things in quantities that can be divided between several kits. All types of cordage, fish hooks, lighters, many items can be bought cheaper in bigger packs and then split up.

Buy a roll of braided nylon cord in a couple of weights. I like a light cord at around 150 lb and a heavy cord at around 350 lb knot strength.

Paracord is great to have along also, but bulkier so I save it for bigger kits.

Cut off 15-30 ft lengths and roll it around 3 fingers then slide it off your fingers and wrap it with electrical tape. Having it wrapped up like that keeps it from tangling anything in your pockets and ready for when it is needed.

This is cheap, light, and can go right in the jacket pockets with a lighter and small knife. The cordage can really make a difference in many cases:

  • trying to lash a shelter together
  • if your bootlace breaks
  • when you want to make a snare
  • endless uses

For a quarter of a pound and not much bulk, the lighter, folding knife, and cordage can always be with you.

Altoids tin kits are the next step. I like to slip them in my hunting coat pocket, tackle box, saddlebag, glove box, ATV, etc. I like to have at least one for any given situation. Fit them to your area and environment. Nothing in them needs to be expensive either.

Here is what mine includes:

  • Rectangular tin
  • Reynolds oven bag cut in half (water storage)
  • mini fire steel & striker
  • Small BIC lighter
  • 2 Vaseline coated cotton balls (wrapped in plastic twist-tied shut)
  • Fish hooks 6 small 6 medium
  • Fishing line 30 ft 25 lb Berkley Big Game (wrapped around lighter)
  • Repair needle to fit fishing line or trotline cord
  • 15ft green 142lb trotline cord (fits through eyes of medium hooks)
  • Leatherman mini flashlight (batteries backward to prevent accidental discharge, 30hr life)
  • 4 1qt water purification tablets
  • 6 wire fishing leaders 45lb 18” long bent into snares
  • Strips of 1” wide gorilla tape wrapped around outside of tin holding it shut

Protein can be hard to come by in the wild without much gear. For that reason, I’m a big fan of absentee fishing and snares. Both can be effective and the components don’t weigh or cost much.

Fishing Kit

Fishing kit

Inexpensive fishing kits are another thing I like to have around in any larger kit. Walmart can be a great resource for that. You can make a lot of kits for around a $20 investment.

I like Berkley Big Game fishing line because it is reasonably priced and tough. It isn’t designed for smooth casts or finesse: it’s made to stand up to rubbing against rocks or logs. It works really well for what I do.

I like to have a couple of weights, a clear or green 12lb spool, and a solar colored 25-40lb spool.

Fit it to the size of the fish in your area: channel catfish are a lot bigger than brook trout. Cut the line into lengths that fit your kits and wrap them around something else in the kit (lighter, pen, etc.) to keep them untangled and out of the way.

Fishing Hooks

For hooks, I like to buy a panfish assortment and a catfish assortment and divide them up between kits. Hooks should be sized to the fish where you are going. For example, I don’t pack catfish hooks when elk hunting in the mountains.

The decent brand hooks like Eagle Claw are close in price to the really cheap ones. So, it pays to buy the name brand. Real cheap hooks are often dull or poorly tempered, and you want a sharp strong hook for absentee fishing.

For panfish, I like a longer shanked J hook. The extra length gives me more leverage to pry the hook out. Too small or short a hook and the fish will swallow it so you have to cut it out each time.

For the medium size hooks, I prefer to buy Kahle style or circle hooks, as it seems to improve my hook-up percentage for absentee fishing which we will get into later.

Lures

Lures can be good to add also but will up the cost of the kits depending on what you buy. I like lures that can be made to work without me providing them action for absentee fishing. For

Lures can be good to add also but will up the cost of the kits depending on what you buy. I like lures that can be made to work without me providing them action for absentee fishing.

For example, a crappie jig will bounce under a bobber with the waves on a pond surface. A blade bait or inline spinner will flash with the current in a stream. These lures can be used for absentee fishing in a pinch. I don’t pack lead weights or floats in survival kits as these can be improvised.

I will pack a few swivels of both straight and 3-way designs to give me options in the rigging.

Water bottle

A water bottle or similarly shaped item can be used as an improvised reel for fishing. Wrap the line around the bottle and leave a few feet of slack out with your hook/lure on the end.

To cast, throw your hook/lure out into the water with one hand while holding the bottle with the other hand, with the bottom pointed out toward the direction you threw the hook/lure. The line will spool off the bottle freely. To reel it in simply wrap the line around the bottle as you pull the hook back toward you.

Trotline cord

The braided nylon “bankline” or “trotline cord” in a pack can be used to stringer fish to keep them alive until needed. It will need to be kept where turtles or raccoons cannot help themselves to your fish easily.

Also, the string should be run through the lip of the fish, usually the lower lip, or somewhere else that it doesn’t interfere with the gills working. If it impedes the gills the fish will die much quicker.

Food gathering tools for preppers

The other food gathering method I like to have in any kit is an Altoids tin or larger is snaring.

Snares

For the smallest kits, I like to have 18” long 45 lb wire fishing leaders. Any shorter than 18” and I can’t make a loop large enough for rabbits. Picture wire works also, as does the light copper snare wire.

The cable leaders I feel are tougher than the light snare wire and pack smaller than the picture wire. For larger kits I include picture wire and real pre-made self-locking cable snares.

Predators are prevalent in my area so any snare I set for rabbits or squirrels I try to make a spring snare. This uses a sapling to pull the game up off the ground once caught and hopefully out of the reach of a raccoon or coyote coming through.

It also keeps an improvised snare without a self-locking mechanism tight. Much more and better information can be found on snaring and how to set them online with some searching.

Food traps

The beauty of snares and set lines (absentee fishing) is that they can be working for you while you do other tasks. Other types of traps are excellent to have also as snares will become damaged with use while they can be used over and over. The biggest disadvantages to the other trap designs are cost and weight.

Fish gig head

A very valuable survival tool often overlooked is a fish gig head. If you are near any good water source having a metal gig head in your pack can be a great addition again without much bulk or weight.

A shaft can always be made from wood in the field, just carry a screw or other way to attach the head. While wooden gigs can be made the metal version penetrates scales much better and the barbs help retain the caught fish.

It can also be handy to pull a rabbit out from under a brush-pile or piece of old machinery, to pin a snake until his head can be removed, multi-purpose.

Predator call for survival and prepping

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Another item I like to keep in any long-term kit is a good open reed predator call.

I like to use one of the higher-pitched howlers for this, as I can make a wider variety of calls with it. If I have a predator hanging around my camp robbing my snares this gives me an opportunity to take him.

Also if I ever find myself needing to prove that I can be a useful addition to a group removing some of the local predators and providing hides can be a good start. It’s a small item that doesn’t take up much room or add much weight.

Feral dogs are another problem that the call can come in handy for. The call can give you a chance to deal with problem animals on your terms, at a place of your choosing, giving you the upper hand.

Deer or other game can also be made nervous, made to stand up in tall grass, or move out of timber for a clear shot with a howler.

Dryer lint

Keep dryer lint every time you clean it out in a Ziploc or old condiment jar. It makes a good tinder to catch a spark and flame up although it burns very quickly. Your longer burning tinder material needs to be set-up and waiting for the lint.

I like the plastic condiment jars best myself as a large quantity of lint can be packed into them and kept dry. I like to tape a small fire steel and striker (a piece of hacksaw blade) to the inside of the lid.

Firesteels.com sells small inexpensive fire steels that can be purchased in bulk for this. Free book matches, lighters, other ignition sources work also, but the fire steel can store forever and doesn’t need to be dry to work.

I can then store these fire kits in handy places like my boat, truck toolbox, the rafter of an old shed in our calving pasture, anywhere it may someday come in handy.

Cotton balls

Cotton balls rolled in Vaseline and stored in a pill bottle are a much better tinder source. They burn much longer than the lint.

Wetfire cubes are good also. Throwing a few Wetfire or Esbit cubes in their factory containers or a small bottle of Vaseline cotton balls inside the jar of lint isn’t a bad idea for real damp or tough conditions.

The lint can be used in decent conditions, the better tinder saved for when it is really needed.

Always be on the lookout for tinder sources when walking through the outdoors. Awareness of your surroundings, in general, is a great habit to have. Something may happen to turn a jaunt into a survival situation and the bird’s nest you passed a little way back can be the tinder that gets your fire going.

Take time to stop and look behind you as you move through the outdoors, especially in unfamiliar territory. Everything looks different going the other direction so this can help keep you from getting lost. It can also show resources that were hidden behind a bush or rock as you passed them by. It costs no extra energy to see the whole picture.

Primitive weapons

Remember primitive ranged weapons are primitive. I am certainly not saying that becoming proficient with one or more isn’t a good idea but saying that their limitations need to be remembered.

Spending several afternoons practicing at 10yds with an arrow firing slingshot, I got to where I could hit a cardboard rabbit stuck to a round bale at waist height.

I switched it to ground level and had to start all over again learning where to hold. Growing frustrated I took my 3” barreled 357 and put all 5 of the shots it held into the vitals from twice that distance.

Gun

Primitive weapons have their place, but it’s often much easier and more effective to use a gun.

That revolver takes up less room and isn’t much heavier than the slingshot and arrows. I’m still trying to improve with the slingshot with both arrows and ball-bearing ammo, but would much rather feed myself with a firearm.

If you plan on relying on a primitive weapon, plan on putting in lots of time mastering it.

If noise needs to be limited, a good quality air rifle or 22 rifle with subsonic ammunition, is a great tool to have around. I keep an older 22 rifle (Marlin 60) that I wouldn’t otherwise use zeroed with the subsonic ammunition. It cycles it fine.

Knowing these survival and prepping tips will help you in many situations.

Written by: Catfish Hunter

Every serious prepper needs these survival and prepping tips to keep themselves and their family safe during trouble d times. #survival #prepping #preparedness #shtf #survivaltips #preppingtips