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top 5 or 10 survival skills?

4K views 19 replies 17 participants last post by  Gatorbait1 
#1 ·
Hello all,

I am a self professed newbie where all of this is concerned. I was wondering if any of you might have a suggestion of what might be the top 5 or 10 skills someone should learn first if their intent is to survive. Everywhere I turn in here there seems to be something being and it's somewhat overwhelming. So I figured is I had a shorter list it might be easier to get started.

I appreciate any advice given.
 
#2 ·
What are you surviving?

Are you lost in the woods with nothing but a knife? Are you surviving a nuclear holocaust? Are you surviving a worldwide pandemic? Are you surviving a general economic breakdown in society coupled with food shortages?

The top 5 or 10 are different for each of those. Personally, I'd say to start packing away some food for emergencies and learn to produce your own food.
 
#4 ·
1)finding water
2)makin fire
3)makin shelter
4)finding food
5)making cordage
 
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#5 ·
Where to start

Lets start with the question "What condition or situation am I preparing for?"
When you answer this question you can prioritize your goals.
If its wilderness survival you will have one list. If its Urban survival, you will have another.
I go back to the rule of three for priorities. 3 min without air, 3 hours without shelter, 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food, 3 months without love (hope).

If you can breath start thinking about how to protect yourself from the elements be it heat, rain, cold or whatever. Once you have a shelter think about water and water conservation. How much do you have, where will you get more, and how long can you keep it? Keep in mind that a canteen full of water does you no good. It only works for your body if you drink it. Then look to the other priorities in the same way.

Begin with shelter building or improving techniques. This could be a house or a debri hut. For both you need walls, roof, and insulation.

Build a solar still and view the results first hand.

Place a mouse trap with different baits and look at the "Process" of trapping.

When you think about fire, learn what fire needs to occur. Then learn friction techniques, or sparking techniques.

Learn to not rely on modern modalities for your survival. You can put up a years supply of food and it can be wiped out in seconds by an f5 tornado.
Or a flood can fill your basement in a few min that will ruin all your electronics, food, and other gear. Start with basics and don't worry about the "Top techniques". Start somewhere or you will stay overwhelmed and never "Do" anything.

There are many books on the subject of wilderness survival and some of them are even pretty informative. Stay away from the military ones though as well as material that has used those books as their only source of reference. Look at Cody Lundins book "98.6 degrees, The art of keeping your ass alive" as a starting place Then maybe Ron Hoods video series. All good information there.

Hope this helped
 
#6 ·
Good topic! I've been thinking about this too. When you enter the wonderful world of survivalism, there is a tsunami of information coming to you and it's hard to make priorities. I think a few important skills are the following (I can't rank them for you).

  • obtaining drinking water
    - How to do this depends on your situation, getting water in woodland is a diffirent proces then getting water in the desert or at sea.
  • obtaining food
    - again, depends on your situation.
  • firemaking
    - both without and with basic tools. With some flint/magnesium and tinder it's a lot easier, but for backup it might be useful to learn it without tools (so rubbing sticks together, I'll still have to try that).
  • self defence
    - this can be done with no tools (bare hands), basic tools (primitive weapons) and sophisticated tools (mainly firearms). I suggest specializing in one, but still training all three a little bit.
  • shelter building

Which one is most important depends on the situation. If you're in an urban environment, self defence has top priority, while the other ones aren't very important, because a lot of things are available in the city.
If you're in the woods, everything chances. Self defence isn't as important, shelter building and firemaking are ways more important there. In the desert is the ability to obtain water very important, while firemaking isn't as hard there as it is in woodland.

So judge your own situation. Do you live in a rural area or in the middle of the city? Is the main natural environment woodland or desert? Depending on that you can make a decision.
 
#7 ·
- Water identification/collecting/purifying
- Food identification/collecting/Cooking (Both Plant and Animal)
- Fire starting
- Navigation using Map/Compass and more importantly, primitive methods like Nature & Astronomy
- Basic/Intermediate First Aid knowledge for various siuations


I don't think shelter is that vital to train in. It doesn't take a genius to throw some foliage together and take cover.
 
#8 ·
Fire/water (one of those is one the other is two depending where you are.) Shelter/self defense (one of those is three the other four depending on where you are.) Fishing/hunting (one is five depending on your skill and where you are.) The bushcraft skills. Foraging for wild plants is last on a 10-place list because it is the hardest skill to learn with the smallest return. (And I say that as someone who can make a meal out of my backyard.)
 
#9 ·
I think the most important skill is adaptability. Of course water, food, shelter, fire, and self defense are the top five things you'd need to survive any situation... but depending on your recourses available the skills you have might not be the skills you need. It is overwhelming, like you said. I would suggest just reading and watching videos of the things that interest you most first. Between this site and U Tube, you can learn how to do just about anything... really. Recently, I've been watching videos on how to clean squirrel, fish, birds, pigs, deer, etc. Will I ever kill and eat a squirrel? Probably not. But, if it's ever the only food source available, at least I've got a general idea how to prepare it.
 
#10 ·
I can tell you mine, which assumes spending a pretty good amount of time living in a remote patch (or if needed patches) of woods in the northeast. These are not is order of importance.

orienteering/bushwacking
making shelter
fishing
hunting small game and deer (haven't started working on these skills, except for shooting)
firemaking/water purification
first aid
foraging (still working on this one--it's a toughie!)

...that's all I can think of right now.

HippieSurvivalist
 
#11 · (Edited)
I agree with what most others have said.

1. Shelter: I put shelter first because it gives you a place to stop, get your mind together and get ready to get the rest of the important stuff in order. Many people die of exposure and a shelter will get you out of the elements and allow you to focus on the rest. The ability to make a shelter and to protect it falls under this section.

2. Fire: Same as above, heat and the ability to boil water to purify it is handy and primary for survival. The fire will enable you to cook food, signal, deter insects and animals and purify whatever water source you find.

3. Water: What else can be said. Water is essential for life. People have survived without food for weeks and some even months, but go a day or two without water and you are hurting.

4: Food: Always last but important is the ability to forage, trap and hunt for food. Food can be many things, natural growing items, wild vegetables, fish, animals, birds, and a whole lot more. Even bugs and grubs can be eaten to survive.

That is it, all other stuff is just extra that you don't need but would be nice to have. Making a flint knife, or a stone tool is always good to know. How to make things to wear, spices you can find, and cordage is good as well. Finding your way. Beyond these four there is a whole library of skills and knowledge to be had. Start with the basics and go from there.

These are the keys to any type of survival. If you are in the jungles of Peru, or the Andes Mountains these are what you start with. I was taught them this way, except fire and water was switched, fire was number three and water was number two. I figured that you would need the fire to purify the water so changed the order a bit. No way to know where the knowledge originated, but the Native Americans teach it this way, and I am sure the mountain men and the other travelers throughout time used the same elements to assure their survival.
 
#12 ·
Basic survival skills are as old as cave man.
Food, how to get it.
Water, how to find it.
Shelter, how to build it.
Fire, how to make it.
Everything else you do will be to build on this and make life comfortable, either by refining these skills or bringing other skills into your world.
 
#17 ·
My short list...in no particular order:

How to procure palatable water
How to shoot (pistol, rifle, bow, sling, catapult...i don't care)
How to build a shelter
How to trap/ensnare
How to build a fire (didn't see that one coming, eh? ;))
How to sharpen a knife
How to make cordage
 
#18 ·
I just wanted to say thanks again to all of you. I've been pondering a lot of what has been suggested. Some of it was expected, water, fire and shelter. However the mental side I hadn't even given any thought to, and stuff like making my own cordage in hindsight makes perfect sense. You have been a wonderful help, thanks!! :)
 
#20 ·
By in large, the skill sets that you will require will greatly depend on the Event, as has been mentioned numerous times on this thread... Another consideration is geographically where you are.. Nevertheless, the core skill sets of a survivalist, of any level, are transient..

These would be the skills like Mongoose mentions:
1)finding water
2)makin fire
3)makin shelter
4)finding food


Understand though that these are broad topics and each category can take years to master (keep in mind I'm still no master and I've spent my life learning these things!) The good news is that "unplugging" and taking the time to learn some of this stuff can be fun! I love heading somewhere with no food except maybe some rice or ramen.. Catch some fish or kill a wild hog; just whatever, and PRESTO a decent meal! lol
 
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