[Gator Bait]

Does anyone here ever try to practice evasion like skills when they are camping, hunting, etc.? What I mean by this is trying to make ones campsite secluded and hidden, hiding ones waste, methods to trap and fish with minimal attraction (i.e. limb lines, snares), and even ways to hunt game around areas where there will be people. Now I'm not talking about anything illegal, so maybe an example would be wise. An area where I have permission to hunt, trap, pretty much do what I want is being selectively logged. Being a solitary type anyway, I hate people knowing what I am doing. So, being that there are now crews all over those woods, I am using it as a learning opportunity. I have used snares to catch some small game, one within twenty yards of where they take their lunch break but well hidden. Bow hunting last week, I killed a nice doe and removed her as they were coming in to work within close sight of the access road. I also make it a point to check my trap line while they are about, and run a trot line in a pond in the area they have yet to see even after walking by it.
Now, if they see me it is no big deal since I have permission, but to my knowledge no calls have been made to the landowner about my activities, and he would tell me, and no traps or limb/trotlines have been disturbed. I find it a fun exercise, and potentially useful since it helps one remember beith stealthy and proper camoflage of one traps and such. I frequently do this, even on my own land and have had family go off to see me at my campsite and not find it.
No Rambo stuff, just what I think is a good practice of evasive skills when surviving in the woods. So, back to the question. Anyone else do this on occasion, if so, how?

 

[Guerrilla]

My wife and I walked to our current home from our old home. 290 miles of city, suburb, farms and railroad. Lots of camping in not so allowed areas. (the law defines trespass as failing to leave when asked. So this was legal) we never camped more than 20 feet from the old tracks, as to respect peoplesprivacy and property, but we still had to avoid attention from everyone from the homeless to vineyard managers. I continued north another hundred miles, but there I was walking through an area notorious for pot growing, so I was as loud and obvious during the days so nobody would think I was sneaking in on their fields. At night though, I simply hung my food in a of laundry bag, and slung a tarp... Never saw anyone though, but did hear a bird one night that sounded like Mothra.

After five years of light and noise discipline, and another five camping round the areas we hiked, the hardest part was convincing my wife to really really bury the toilet paper.

Currently, I also have a neighboring timber parcel, but have been way too busy building to go play. You've given me some fun ideas. I'm so glad most of the grids around us are designated for recovery, so no logging for a while. Been hiking on Sundays, trying to get the lay of the land.

I wrote a section on camoflaged camping in my guerrilla camping blog, it's on the right sidebar as Sight Unseen. I'd link it or copy it here, but I can't copy and paste with this phone.

 

[neo1]

i camp stealthy all the time,in the pic below you would not be able to see me unless you look up,i blend in well with my camo tarp and hammockneo


http://www.hammockforums.net/gallery/showimage.php?i=1683&catid=member&imageuser=11

 

[test]

Many times I get to be the volunteer bad guy for our adult tracking classes. I go out into the woods and have to evade the student trackers for a three day weekend. I love doing it and have a hard time breaking out of that mindset at the end of the weekend.

I also go out on these classes sometimes to "hunt" the volunteer bad guy. A person's best bet is to use ONLY natural items. Professionals have no problem picking man made camps out of their environment.

rill

 

[d6165]

Speaking of keeping low key while hunting, trapping, and camping. I have one trick you all might like. Using a 22 bolt or leverage gun with CCI CB longs is exceptionally quiet. The bullet hitting makes as much noise as the gun going off. So if you choose your shots and your angles to keep the muzzle in the direction you don't want the sound to travel. It is exceptionally hard to hear and it doesn't make a crack like a regular round.

I have used these rounds in the past doing pest removal for local farmers. I have killed many a raccoon out of barns for them while they slept never to wake them. I have also used it to dispatch opossums in the summer in the trash with windows open on the house and not wake the family.

D.

 

[NiteFly22LR]

Being an old Scout we always packed it in and packed it out, never tried to conceal, just low impact camping. Sounds like it would be a fun and educational weekend.

 

[daibutsu]

Maybe a little off point: When not too weight restricted, like on not so long bike and canoe trips, I bring an extra older very small tent and pitch it well away from my primary site. It serves both as a "red herring' if people might be up to no good and in a pinch I could break down the primary and scoot over to the secondary.

 

[HippieSurvivalist]

I camp a lot and I pefer to pitch my tent where others won't find it. On the AT you're allowed to camp within 100 yards of the trail, and I can usually do this in such a way that people won't find me unless they are really trying.

I do it more for larfs than anything. Although, sometimes it's reassuring to think that when I'm away from my tent that my stuff is pretty secure since most people won't see it.

HippieSurvivalist

 

[Guerrilla]

another note: my wife and I each carried surplus camoflage panchos. Good rain covers for our pack, and, laced over our bright yellow rainfly; covered nearly the whole tent. Nice on city limits on Saturday nights when you are worried about being found by bored drunk teenagers.

 

[Gator Bait]

The CB caps are a great tool. When I lived on the coast, the deer camp I was in was pretty small (150 acres) with only 3 members. It was surrounded by patches of woods and cotton fields we had permission to hunt on. Being just outside town, the developers came calling, and subdivisions came popping up. Don't know know why, but subdivisions attract wildlife in the beginning stages. We got to thinking, the people living close by are used to workers coming and going all day and night every day of the week. So why don't we go in and hunt it. We killed many a squirrel and rabbit in patches of woods by where they were building houses by day and possums and rabbits at night using CB caps. When it came to deer, I didn't bow hunt then, so getting a deer adopted a one shot policy and extreme stealth while going in and out. I would have given anything for a bow. But a jeep and a bolt action 16 ga. did the job. Also, we had a policy that if a trap/deer stand/trotline was found we avoided the immediate area for a few weeks before moving back in. Only one run in with a ATV rider who lived in the subdivision that we successfully avoided. Must have done something right considering the possum police knew about it.

Since I love canoeing, I want to go on a several day trip down a river, but my job keeps me from it at present. In the state of Mississippi you have I think 100 ft from a public waterways edge you can camp. Not sure so don't quote me. Some landowners don't care, and sometimes some a**hole will try to steal your boat while asleep. But, I read some mountain men slept in their canoe secured to a tree by a rope. Great in summer but I bet cold in winter. Working on a way to comftorably lay down without having to deal with crossbars if I need to get up quick.

 

[Gator Bait]

One good resource to learn stealthy methods of food procurement is Survival Poaching by Ragnar Benson. While some methods are illegal, I have used it to modify, while still legal, ways to get food that are outside the box.