When the crisis becomes prolonged, how do you survive?

UbiqueContributor - April 13, 2021

AdviceScenarios

Come with me again and let’s look at a different scene. It is late September 2023. The trees are wrapped in warm golds, oranges and browns. Leaves are beginning to reach for the earth. The air is scented with a spicy decay.

The world is a different place in September 2023. 

Covid-19 never went away because transmission between humans continued. Each time the virus transmitted from person to person, it copied itself between 10,000 and 1,000,000 times. Each time, those copies carried a risk of variant creation. 

The emerging variants became the wild cards in a new and deadly game of survival.

In 2021, during the third wave, everyone saw how younger people were now being infected. No one could have imagined what life in 2023, less than two years away, would become.

Vaccines had been developed and at one point, people relaxed and thought it was over and that life as they had known it would soon get back to normal.

That was before two variants quietly merged to form the first recorded ‘recombinant’ virus. The event was reported in the media on February 17, 2021. Two variants, B.1.1.7 from the U.K. and B.1.429 from California combined.

B.1.1.7 was more transmissible and B.1.429 was able to resist some antibodies. It had researchers worried but not panicking. They felt that the future might focus on booster shots to workaround any pesky new variants.

But, the last paragraph was one that contained the warning that was buried at the end of the article:

“There are a variety of factors that impact the transmissibility of a virus, including human behavior, population structure and immunity levels, if some deadlier recombinant strain spreads or not.” 

The world played the wrong hand by not changing the one thing they had control over: their behavior. 

Two more variants again quietly merged in the winter of 2022, only this time both variants were highly transmissible and both antibody resistant. The event was a biological marriage made in hell. 

Their union unleashed a variant that was highly lethal and easily transmitted upon a world that was exhausted from coping with a pandemic since 2019.

Leaders from the civic through to the national level all struggled to find solutions and ways of navigating through a situation that had become much worse and more taxing of their already strained resources.

Researchers, who had so quickly developed vaccines in 2020 for SARS-Cov-2 now labored fruitlessly to arrive at an effective vaccine. 

Control of the new variant was just beyond their reach, and more variants were occurring because a pandemic fatigued world had tired of mask wearing and social distancing.

Those who had been doing what they could do to stop the spread of Covid grew tired and fatalistic. Those who refused to do anything to help stop the spread, said “I told you what you were doing wouldn’t work.” 

Many people were beginning to show signs of mental instability from the ongoing and worsening stress. Homelessness was increasing. Murder suicide, domestic violence, addiction and child neglect skyrocketed.

Theft, vandalism and acts of violence further drove the crime statistics up.

People wanted to wake up from the nightmare or escape it. It was a groundhog day, endlessly repeating and from which there was no escape.

As the death rate climbed, health care was over run. People died alone and suffering badly for a lack of drugs and other supplies that would have helped them have an easier passing. Mass graves became commonplace as they had in the Spanish flu and other disasters.

Those who could still work, worked from home. Children were home schooled. Still others lost their jobs and relied on their wits. Start up businesses failed for the most part because no one had any money.

Gardens became gold. People tilled their entire yard and planted everything. Elaborate security systems were devised to protect these precious crops. Hungry people were shot at for reaching into a yard to pick a tomato. The lucky gardeners could electrify their fences.

Hunters hoping to use venison as a food source discovered a chronic wasting disease in deer that also affected other animals such as bovine and sheep, a form of mad cow disease. Eating the meat was not recommended.

People began to fish instead, but instead of setting up fish farms, most of them over fished and soon the fish populations were decimated.

People who didn’t understand safe stewardship of rabbits contracted diseases that required treatment and medical intervention such as pasteurellosis, ringworm, mycobacteriosis, cryptosporidiosis and external parasites through scratches and bites. 

Unfortunately, medical intervention and treatment now consisted of field hospitals where the ill and dying are laid on cots and administered what little medications are now available. There isn’t enough equipment to go around.

The factories that produced ppe’s, sanitizer and other items fell to the economic tsunami caused by the prolonged and worsening effect of Covid and the new variant. There weren’t enough people to run the factories, or to supply them with raw materials, or to ship and transport what they needed.

Many people adopted a vegetarian diet and sought protein in increased legume crops.

We are preppers. We were ready for this, at least in the beginning we were, or so we believed. Were we as prepared as we thought? 

Now, we are all only one bad gardening season away from starvation.

It feels like the world we knew is being de-constructed.

Look around you. This is our world as we stand here on a crisp autumn day in September 2023. There is no one outside. Many are ill, some are too afraid to come out even if they have a mask. In the distance we can hear coughing, crying and death rattles.

We look at the road ahead of us on the street where we are standing. Where do we go from here? Do we bug out and go back to nature and throw ourselves on her mercy? 

What do we do now to survive?

Here are the links for factual references in this scenario:

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/two-variants-merge-to-form-first-recorded-recombinant-virus-1.5312679

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/environment/plants-animals-ecosystems/wildlife/wildlife-health/wildlife-diseases/chronic-wasting-disease#:~:text=Chronic%20Wasting%20Disease%20(CWD)%20is,and%20even%20plants%20and%20soil

https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/distribution-chronic-wasting-disease-north-america-0

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In this scenario, and a host of others, most of mankind will not survive.  That is the hard, cold truth.  Very few people prep for a complete collapse of society.  Most prep to survive the short term until help can come or things return to normal.  Thru the many years of mankind’s history, there have been several near extinction events.  This will be another.  Hopefully enough will have remastered the skills needed for self sufficiency to keep our species alive… plus have survived the virus.

I place my hope in science, especially in the work being done with messenger RNA.  I have no hope in politicians.

 

Redneck, 

I wonder if this scenario is perhaps more hopeful than it appears at first glance.

I admit when I finished writing it, I thought wow, this is an extinction event, but then reflected a bit more. Here’s what I think could happen:

It is a massive loss of population, however there will be some who survive. The fact that people who are lucid and want to live are pushed to the point of staying indoors could create a situation where the variant virus is unable to find new hosts and either mutates into a less lethal virus or goes dormant or dies itself.

There is the hope that whatever researchers are left alive will be able to finally break the antibody resistance of the variant. There is also the hope that they may discover information about antibody resistance that will help in other ways or in future scenarios as they work to find a vaccine.

New gardening techniques may evolve or there may be a fall back to ancient techniques and crops that could actually make our agriculture and gardening stronger.

An aside: We have had far too much monocropping for too long. It is another disaster waiting to happen. Plus endless fertilizers and super weeds that are another disaster already happening. Dead soil is dead soil.

Our society may become more compassionate. The massive amount of suffering may cause humanity to become more humane and compassionate. It could revolutioninize how we care for each other.

There could be huge leaps forward in medical care. Look how the battlefield was the proving ground for so many new methods in surgery, plastic surgery, and wound care. Trauma care for PTSD would never have existed without first recognizing it in our military.

The pause caused by the variant crisis could also be good for the environment. During covid-19 the air cleared considerably in certain heavily industrialized cities.

People would be less lethargic and more physically active.

There would be diet changes to a less fat, more vegetarian sources of protein. Perhaps people would be happily growing Amaranth, Upland Rice, Soybeans or other Legumes for their protein sources?

I think that the people who are left will understand that governance is not about some hierarchy, but is more about personal responsibility and accountability. They will understand that regardless of the political system, we all have a personal interest in how our communities are managed. We need to be actively involved to achieve this, so perhaps volunteerism will become a big part of our society.

I agree many in this scenario will die. Those who live, or have the best chance of survival, are those who prepare.

The people who embrace the idea of lifelong learning throughout their preparedness and continually challenge themselves to learn new skills will be best equipped to carry on in whatever conditions this scenario may leave them in.

It will always be the prepared.

As always, thank you very much for your reply. 

 

If you do a bit of study on the advances in using mRNA, then you will see the hope I mention.  Right now, we developed these Covid vaccines and tests using that technology, but these are the first.  There is so much more that is coming.  Right now we worry about mutating strains getting past the antibodies generated due to the vaccines.  But they can do so much more… and will in the future.  As opposed to tricking your body into making antibodies, they can modify your immune response to recognize the virus… and kill it outright.  This mechanism was developed by bacteria fighting viruses for billions of years.   It is some truly amazing technology.

 

I did some reading on mRNA this morning. Really interesting. I had no idea this technology has been around since the 1970’s. 

The VSV technology developed by Merck worked to create a successful ebola vaccine, but failed in their attempt to use it for Covid-19.

The way they explain the technology is that mRNA is that it may not work for everything the way VSV didn’t work for Covid-19.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/03/how-mrna-technology-could-change-world/618431/

It makes sense that multiple technologies and approaches are going to be needed, but every one that is developed is another tool in the tool box.

I agree it is amazing and each discovery can lead to new and even better technology with time.

Thank you for raising the mRNA technology issue. I got some good reading in this morning 🙂

 

 

Good morning Ubique,

Human behavior and population structure determine much else to include immunity levels. The industrial age gave us the tenament building to house the workers near the factories, mills, mines,….

Minor aspects of behavior are changing.  The overcrowded cruise ship is identified by some private citizens as a petri dish of infectious diseases. The office building is slowly thinning out thanks to these new-fangled telegraph keys. The political establishment is starting to use the available tools: insurance rates changing – … guess which direction ! … , Cars might become unaffordable (“clang, clang, clang goes the trolley”).

Is it really national leadership having strained resources or the national leaderships allocating resources not meeting national requirements ?  It’s been over 72 hours down here since a new publicly-funded sports stadium was built.  The D.T.s are already building up.  We need a drink or two to calm down.

Mass graves and gardens have the same requirement: labor.  Are there plans to bury the masses of dead ? Have the plans been tested ? Is not a garden merely edible berries found by wanderers looking for food ? – unless the garden has a security program ? … that’s been tested !

In reply to questions; 

Re “Where do we go ..?”; Teach this stuff and show up at the meetings.

Re “What do we do to survive? … Organize a society – starts with individual – for each tile to make a mosaic that’s geared to striving for advanced-level civilization. (What is the purpose of embalming the dead? What is the purpose of a religious exemption on getting the flu shot/jab? Are bars the equivalent of opium dens ?)

Had thought this thread was about the Tenakh, Holy Bible and Koran.

“Spicy decay” reminds me of drinking Saki. Always thought the drink tastes like decaying rice.

 

Good morning Bob,

“The times, they are a changin’…” so said Bob Dylan.

The industrial age…a good example of “build it and they will (have to) come.” 

The age of Covid gave us the remote worker, a concept that began in the 1980’s and now of necessity, taken root. Will working in physical isolation have a detrimental impact on our immune systems? Even the act of getting up and out of the house every day and challenging our bodies in cold air, strengthens the immune system.

It’s about time someone realized cruise ships are pointless. I wonder how this has affected the floating city concept touted some time ago. I believe some such ships were built but haven’t followed the results.

Strained resources…we could really use some mothers who have raised 6 children on a budget of X amount per year to teach people how to allocate resources.

Re mass graves and gardens – everything is good on paper until it is tested and even then, the results can vary according to circumstance. Without testing it is like pulling the trigger inside a metal chamber and hoping nothing hits you during the ricochet.

Re where do we go: Agreed, teach and participate is the best way forward. We need to teach to counter the plethora of misinformation that is now so easily disseminated. It is easier to teach than to overcome a mind full of nonsense.

Re what do we do to survive: We all have to do something productive and constructive, the “tile to make a mosaic” as you so well stated.

I had an NDE. It was an interesting experience and hard to find a language for it, very much outside the realm of our experience here. Most come back without the memory of their purpose. I came back with the memory of mine, but without the knowledge of when I am fulfilling it. We are all here for a reason.

Sake and spicy wisdom remind me of a story about a Canadian working on a freighter enroute to China. He and a couple of other people discovered a barrel where the word “alcohol” was translated from the Chinese language.

They tapped a small hole into the barrel, and using a shared straw, sipped their way toward China. Just before their arrival, they were caught imbibing. It was then that they discovered that the barrel contained a body preserved in alcohol. The remains were being shipped home.

Spicy decay, indeed.

 

Good morning Ubique,

Many skilled observers have told me that physical isolation is detrimental to one’s immune system.  They cited both the germ theory of disease and the stress theory of disease.

The mothers who raised the 6 children on austere budgets were the foundation blocks of the societies.  Their replace by the governments – the “welfare state” – pulverized these building blocks.

Speaking of misinformation …… I’ve attended enough public meetings to understand how difficult it was to end treatments like blood-letting and snake pits. At one meeting a speaker said not to use slip knots for securing someone to a makeshift stretcher for a rescue from a hurricane-damaged house.  Just because some speaker does not know how to properly make and test a slip knot does not help our community.

It approaches the impossible to describe a NDE. Someone told me it’s like a male Medical Doctor describing the comprehensive aspects of childbirth. Yes, a description. The rest approaches the impossible,

Good example re the preserved body on the freighter. I am now in the mood for a Chinese “why – see – gay” – a shot of whiskey.

 

Morning is Good Bob,

The slip knot example is an excellent on for how evolution of better practices gets throttled by the people who base change upon their limitations and skills. It does not help at all.

Glad you enjoyed the example on the freighter.

How are your preps for hurrican season coming? I had no idea hurricane season lasted as long until I began reading about weather events.

 

Good afternoon Ubique,

Personal hurricane preps on schedule.

I am an emergency responder and cannot say the same for the public orgs.

 

Good afternoon Bob.

This one is for you:

“I’ve always seen first responders as unsung heroes and very special people because, when everyone else is running away from danger, they run into it.” – Dwayne Johnson

Public orgs get the glory while first responders get the job done.

Stay safe.

 

Thank you, Ubique.

 

I think for understanding how this would affect things moving forward,, we would have to look to the past pandemics.

The Black Death, provided by the wiggly Yersinia pestis, the bubonic plague, lasted around 7 years and was the most fatal pandemic in history, killing at least as many as have been infected with COVID at this point in time. The world did continue on even with that much loss. We’re also technically in another epidemic, HIV/AIDS has been going around for decades.

Reading into the information about the recombinant virus, it hasn’t been published yet and from what I understand, it’s only one sample that may have mixed in lab or in the person and possibly hasn’t spread much farther than that. 

With the vegetarian thing, I feel a lot of indigenous people knowledge of living off the land as well as primary food reserves like buffalo in the US have been lost/destroyed enough to this point that going back to that form of living would be much more difficult. The people who keep that tradition alive will be the guides back to the times of living off the land sustainably and effectively.

The growth of the virus could be likened to the wild fires recently and coming; it burned so fast and quickly because it had a lot of fuel. At the point things are at, it’s burned through most of the available fuel, meaning people are immune to it or dead.

Assuming no immunity functions, the irresponsible people that do not continue to take the behavior seriously and correctly as they did before would be burned as before, but would not be around to correct their faults. After that goes away and any close people that also caught it go away, the reservoir of the virus would shrink significantly, as we see now with the positives trending down somewhat with vaccines and the fuel having been “burned” through the last year.

It wouldn’t be pretty or pleasant but things would eventually come to some sort of normal, as it is now with the people that are still able to perform safely. Like countries with wars that have been ongoing for decades, people will adapt and it will end.

As for the medical shortage, that’s already happened with the last surge. Hospitals at 100 percent ICU bed capacity, you get pushed away or sent to another place or wouldn’t be able to see a doctor for a day or more and might not survive something that’s usually trivial to treat. Being in a place with already terrible medical services, I think that part is manageable. I’ve invested in that Where There Is No Doctors book and the dentistry one, it’s something that other third world countries have dealt with forever. Real wasteland hours are every day and night.

I would hope we don’t just lay down and take it. We are adaptable and while things will strain and break, I think we’d see something like omegle where we just go online and video chat with random people. As a person isolated for most of life, not having to go out and see people is already something I’m used to. People need to find what can supplement their social needs and do some of that regularly. Voice chat has held me for many years.

 

Good morning Underpreparcoon,

That’s a real good analogy re the recent wild fires and the virus.

Some discuss “irresponsible people” only with adding the term “social Darwinism”.

In my area, even prior to this pandemic, there’s been a shortage of health care delivery aspects. 

I’ve lived in second and third countries and received medical care there (Dental care was superlative standard although ultra-high cost). It is the US that has the declining standards of public health care delivery although believe there are major changes in place just waiting for the trigger mechanism to get activated.

One US national illustration.  Medicare Part A does not cover the cost of the 2 shot/jab series of the new Shingles vaccination. Medicare does cover the ailments if person developes them.  I think I know one of the reasons there are health care rising costs throughout the fruited plain.

 

Underpreparcoon  

I wanted to examine the idea of a prolonged situation or crisis and how we prepare for that.

In this thread I wanted to create a hybrid situation by taking the actual Covid situation, research and blending that with possibilities of where the result might take us in the future. 

Many of the Indigenous people in Canada have lost their traditional diets. Some have managed to retain their ways.

People need to become closer to their food and a simple garden is a good start. In a protracted crisis, it becomes a matter of life and death, so learning the skills while other foods sources are available and finding methods to counter the poor gardening years in nature, makes prepping sense to me.

Your analogy of a wild fire is why I wrote “It is a massive loss of population, however there will be some who survive. The fact that people who are lucid and want to live are pushed to the point of staying indoors could create a situation where the variant virus is unable to find new hosts and either mutates into a less lethal virus or goes dormant or dies itself.”

I think it is a reasonable possibility that the virus will no longer find hosts unless as that article stated in the last paragraph

“There are a variety of factors that impact the transmissibility of a virus, including human behavior, population structure and immunity levels, if some deadlier recombinant strain spreads or not.” 

The human behavior could be the factor that changes everything and causes a much longer event.

They have already constructed field hospitals in Ontario because our third wave and variants is that bad.

I understand isolation and I wholeheartedly agree with your point about supplementing social needs and to do that regularly.

Excellent post and thank you for your reply.

 

The question is, if all these things will happen, -and it is very likely they could- what will we as survivalists and preppers do today to be ready for that day? 

Basics of food, water, fuel, and shelter are all vital things to secure now while we can. 

• Do you have a couple months worth of food?
• Can you treat water and make it safe to drink?
• Do you have enough fuel to cook and drive around with?
• Is your housing situation stable? 

 

Do you have a couple months worth of food?    Yes.  Actually much more.

Can you treat water and make it safe to drink?   Yes.  But I also have my own well & the resources to get to the water if the grid is down.

Do you have enough fuel to cook and drive around with?   I have plenty of wood to cook with and store a fair amount of diesel for the tractor & gas for cars.  In such a crisis, I wouldn’t expect to be driving much… if any.

Is your housing situation stable?   Yes, the house & farm are all paid for.  I live in a very rural setting.

 

Liz,

It is important that we do raise those questions and work on the basic issues of survival.

As we cover the basics and expand our preparedness, we can add options to become more sustainable. I have been doing this in tandem with bumping my store bought preps to a multi year supply of food.

Also, Bill Masen had a link for a great bicycle trailer that could work on 1 wheel or be modified into a full cart with 2 wheels. This alternate source of transport could be necessary in a prolonged situation. Here’s the link:

https://bicycledesign.net/2010/04/monowalker-hikingcycling-trailer/

 

That is a cool trailer, but I’d rather ride my horses than pedal at my age.  🙂  Took this yesterday when heading down to feed horses.

 

Redneck, Those are beautiful horses. I miss having horses.

 

I like your dog following you around.

Do your dogs do any pest control (mice-killin) around the farm? 

 

Stanley is the only of my 9 dogs that is allowed outside their fenced in back yard.  He is a worker, and absolutely has to go down to the horses when we feed morning & evening.  When younger, he killed every varmint in sight, including armadillos.  And yes, he would kill any mice in the horse barn that he could catch.  He tried that with a skunk a few years back and that didn’t end well… for us.  The skunk was fine.  He used to chase deer when younger but now he knows he can’t catch them & doesn’t try.  Yesterday morning a baby rabbit scooted out in front of us & he was trying but I was able to call him off.  He is 13 now, and like his dad, has slowed down.  🙂

 

So cute!

 

to answer your questions –

do you have a couple months worth of food? – about three to four months

can you treat water and make it safe to drink? – i have a backpacking filter, can boil water, but would like a third option 

do you have enough fuel to cook and drive around with? – no, this is something i need to work on

is your housing situation stable? – got about another 200k on my house that i need to pay off. 

 

Being prepped for the long run depends on where you live. I am close to the Gulf of Mexico. Therefor in addition to seeds, dehydrated food and all the normal stuff I have cast nets, fishing rods. Springs are close by for fresh water on land. Over a million hogs run loose in the state, more than deer. Beside the normal arsenal of guns and ammo, also have crossbow and compound bow. Snares (50) which I made from a kit at a cost of 2 dollars a piece. If your in the high country the topography dictates necessary items.

 

Rider,

I agree prepping for prolonged circumstances is driven by environment, and lately, the changes that are cropping up in our environments.

You are well situated and stocked for water, food, sustainability, supplies and the means to hunt. You should do well in a long term situation.

If you grow food, do you have a means to keep the feral hogs out of your garden? From what I understand, they are very invasive.

 

Around here, one has to deal with feral hogs, deer & racoons.  I haven’t seen any hogs in the last few years, which is a good thing.  Not only do they destroy crops but they can hurt you bad.  I have friends at church that hunt them regularly.  My plan in a crisis would be to trap some hogs so as to domesticate their babies.

My orchard is over an acre & it is enclosed by an 8′ fence, which keeps the deer out.  But during a crisis, when I greatly ramp up food production, controlling these animals will be key.  I can certainly see having a roving security patrol to watch for them plus two legged intruders.  Another reason for having a community.

 

you will be the richest man during the apocalypse with that good pig meat. what’s your plan on domesticating piglets? 

knowing absolutely nothing on the subject, if i had to try it, this is what i would do – trap a few wild pigs and keep them in a pen. stay clear of these wild adults and let them have some piglets. once the piglets are young enough to survive on their own, ie. eating whole foods and not drinking their mother’s milk, then i would separate the piglets and keep them in a separate pen and interact with them daily and get them used to humans. eat the original adults.

 

Whenever you see a team of wild hogs, they always have youngsters with them.  They are breeding machines.  My plan would be to capture part of a team, kill the adults & then raise the youngsters.  They would be humanized & eventually domesticated.  The adults are too dangerous to mess with.

In the south and I think many many farms during the depression, you wouldn’t see many cows.  Just enough to keep the farm in milk.  There were two animals kept for meat.  The first was pigs, because they breed so rapidly and the meat is well suited for smoking & curing for long term storage.  The other animal was goats.  They can fend for themselves & find what they need to eat out in the woods.  They are the proper size to feed a family for a couple of days so therefore no need to worry about preservation.

 

There is a Canadian biologist that passed away who worked extensively on the feral hog problem. He travelled throughout North America working on the problem in Canada and the USA.

They are very dangerous, as are domestic hogs. A hog can snap your leg because of it’s powerful jaws.

I wonder if feral hogs can tunnel under fences? I ask because they use their powerful snouts to root out food.

There would be ways to drop a perimeter barrier/shield below the bottom of the fence line to keep them from tunneling beneath the fence.

 

I’ve never heard of any pig tunneling under fences.  

 

Hi Redneck,

I just checked this out and yes, feral pigs do root and tunnel under fences. They also caution about domestic pigs escaping via this method.

The first link is from a fence company about hog proof fencing. They also have good info as you scroll down:

https://tejasranchfence.com/fence-solutions/hog-proof-fence/

This one from Ontario Canada offers info and solutions:

https://www.ontario.ca/page/fencing-outdoor-pig-production-protecting-your-livestock-and-environment

and finally, this one about pig rooting behavior. They note that rooting is part of pig behavior and it is important to retain/allow domestic pigs to have an area in their enclosure in which to root. However, they warn that pigs are escape artists and to watch for pigs rooting near the fence line.

That’s where the submerged panel to prevent rooting beneath the fence comes in. I think it is explained in the Ontario article.

https://petpigworld.com/6-ways-to-keep-pigs-from-rooting-under-fences/

It may not be a problem for you at the moment, but in times of disaster, there seems to be a trickle down effect on people and their environments. I like getting ahead of the curve.

I hope this helps out.

 

It does.  Thanks!

 

Have you ever used a cast net before? I’m curious if you can do that from the shore or if you need to get a boat out into the middle of the lake in order to use it. Certainly has the potential of being more effective than a fishing pole that catches one fish at a time.

 

Good afrwenoon Oily,

Yes, I’ve used a cast net and also the indirectly mentioned trawl nets pulled through the water by boat.

The cast net is something thrown by hand over a water area.

On boats, there are a few different names to nets used with different procedures. The big commercial fishing boats typically have different specific manufactured types for the different nets such as the multi-mile long trawl nets.

For our purposes on the inflatable boat for survival fishing, we’re basically using a trawl net arrangement.  It’s pulled through the water.We’ve also got a light weight seine net arrangement that’s rigged up to lift net w/ fish into inflatable, In practical terms, it’s all the same net; just configured and used differently.

Got many types of nets here collected by default by lost by others and drifting around.

For survival purposes involving natural perils, net fishing provides abundance of fish.  

 

So if I have a little canoe or inflatable raft, you’d recommend a trawl net that I can drag behind my boat?

 

Good afternoon Oily,

Can’t make any recommendations.

It depends on your environment, the season, the weather and number of experienced people working the net and boat.

I’ve got a 3 meter inflatable boat.

The Chesapeake Bay and bordering Atlantic can be rough. The most difficult place I’ve encountered was the Great Lakes.  Offshore Thunder Bay, Lake Superior, can be VERY rough.

 

Good evening,

CORRECTION:

A correction; Our inflatable is ~ 18 feet long. Three into 18 = 6 meters. A yard is about the same as a meter but it takes 3 feet to make a yard and a meter.  There’s a 3 inch differential but in arty recon, we just rounded off.  The worst thing that could happen is missing my make-up classes, inter alia – amongst other things.

My math is like my other subjects: much improvement needed.

 

using a passive form of fishing using a gill net is another alternative. place a net down in the water with holes that are about the size of the fish you want to catch. the fish swim through the net and get caught in between it and are stuck. you then go pull out the net and have fresh fish waiting for you

 

Good morning Pint,

After a rough storm or wildfire, the Bay would have much debris on the bottom so we improvise for both max safety and protection of boat and net.

We’d try to work the midlevel water if food needed.

As an aside, it could prove advantageous for a prepper hiking an evacuation to carry a hand net (The Barnicle Bills and Steamboat Sallys call them “landing nets” to bring line-caught fish into boat). I’d recommend a hand net without handle to save on load weight and volume. Use one’s pike pole or hiking staff for a handle after pre-planned improvision.  

 

Really good suggestion Bob. 

Thank you.

 

Good afternoon Ubique,

With a return Thank You for comment.

For the “infantry” type fish net, one can use a mosquito head net – if not needed to fight off the mosquitos – and I seen some skilled folks use the orange mesh bags used for oranges in grocery stores.  Two bags together even allows for small fish …… if not seeking a full size meal.

 

Good morning Bob,

It is amazing what can be improvised and head net and orange bags illustrate this.

There are also collapsible fishing rods suitable for various kinds of fishing.

The original Popeil Pocket Fisherman is in the gear here. It works well and is compact for carrying.