Excluding trapping, how did the hunting techniques of the colonist days (1700-1800 ish) differ from today's? Did they hunt from trees, still hunt, from blinds? I haven't been able to find much info on the subject other than the tools used... Does anyone know? I'm mostly interested in deer hunting but I'm guessing they used alot of the same processes for other game.
How did people hunt back in the day?
- Thread starter NateKirk
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Smoke & Recoil
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Start a search with the words (snare & pit), snare being the more popular.
Since they had their lives and their families live were often riding on their ability to bring home game, I imagine they became very knowledgable of their intended game, the weaknesses of their weaponry and were extremely disciplined and patient.
I doubt they had the ability to get the latest technology and became extremey proficient with whatever weapon or skill they possess. I ,too, agree they didn't count on a gun alone to take game.
I doubt they had the ability to get the latest technology and became extremey proficient with whatever weapon or skill they possess. I ,too, agree they didn't count on a gun alone to take game.
kilimanjaro
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We're still running the herds off a cliff, around here, with the womenfolk waiting down below. Some things never change.
reynolds357
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I think they planted food plots using high dollar buck on a bag seed.
Trapping was probably more common in addition to the stalk. There are lots of techniques that today are considered unsporting. Horseback, Hounds, Spotlighting, Baiting, Traps and other devices.
A fence with a gate and some grain could get you more meat then you could ever hunt in regard to flightless animals of course. Water foul was commonly hunted by boat with guns as big as cannons spraying shot across a bayou. The take could be an entire flocks with a single shot.
A fence with a gate and some grain could get you more meat then you could ever hunt in regard to flightless animals of course. Water foul was commonly hunted by boat with guns as big as cannons spraying shot across a bayou. The take could be an entire flocks with a single shot.
buck460XVR
New member
.....if they were not successful, they went hungry.
Well there were far fewer Trophy hunters for one. When your actually subsistence hunting people tend to be more opportunistic. If they were hunting they would shoot the first animal that fit their needs, which may not have been the animal they were looking for in the first place.
The Still Hunter
Well, perhaps not colonial times but you can get a digital copy (free due to copyright being expired) of a book on hunting written in 1883.
The Google Books project scans in older, out-of-copyright works for preservation purposes. One is called The Still Hunter by Theodore Strong Van Dyke. It's freely available here:
https://books.google.com/books?id=N...Ch18cAi_#v=onepage&q=The Still Hunter&f=false
What's amazing to me is while the equipment he talks about is fairly dated, the commentary on hunting sounds as if it could have been written in the past few decades. The more things change, the more the stay the same.
Well, perhaps not colonial times but you can get a digital copy (free due to copyright being expired) of a book on hunting written in 1883.
The Google Books project scans in older, out-of-copyright works for preservation purposes. One is called The Still Hunter by Theodore Strong Van Dyke. It's freely available here:
https://books.google.com/books?id=N...Ch18cAi_#v=onepage&q=The Still Hunter&f=false
What's amazing to me is while the equipment he talks about is fairly dated, the commentary on hunting sounds as if it could have been written in the past few decades. The more things change, the more the stay the same.
How did people hunt back in the day
In the early 5os though the 60s i hunted with my Uncles who used the same game trails/traces and land features as our Native American Maternal Ancestors in the Cumberland Mtns and valleys from almost Ky to deep in Alabama and west in the still wooded lands near to Fayeteville and so on.
We walked up game, sat on overlooks of springs and salt licks, and grassy knolls. Not many people went there after the big timbering of the southeast in the early 1900s.
There were still and hopefully still are stands of forest not seen by an axe down to the walls of Jerico and beyond
Not many deer as the early Settlers couldn't stand to see any wild game that might eat their gardens and they needed the meat. Many many cemeteries the average age at death was in the twenties. They had to eat.
Walking in little rocky streams, crowded by Laurel and Holly etc,if you were patient would find what deer there were. Still, in the 70s and early 80s, when deer wee abundant they were not use to being hunted. They would follow you. In open knolls they would peer at you and go back to feeding.
Accounts, from the time, game was really abundant in the Elk Valley. They didn't farm because there was no need. Everything was provided except for corn, squash, and a hundred kinds of beans and some other things.
In the teens through the early thirties there were clouds of gees, so much that Dad said they had to race to get the crops in. He was a Sharecropper.
You didn't have to go to far afield unless you wanted to, for game.
As it is now to a degree many Landowners have abundant game but they are wary of noise of guns and men and machinery many times.
If you can hunt wild areas do just like Native Americans did. You will find traces of where they were. Anyplace you are likely to stop, they did. Overlooks, in the mountains of salt and springs are real nice.
Go at a slower pace. Game doesn't do a 40 hour workweek hurry up and hunt Saturday. The experience is the thing unless you need meat.
Lots of times it was just to "hunt" or more accurately be out in the real world. Ancestors were the "Indians."
Great Grand Ma, Swedish, on Grand Ma's side died Sept 1933, had her back broken and sister stomped to death when some Ancestors raided their cabin, around the time of the Trail of Tears.
In the early 5os though the 60s i hunted with my Uncles who used the same game trails/traces and land features as our Native American Maternal Ancestors in the Cumberland Mtns and valleys from almost Ky to deep in Alabama and west in the still wooded lands near to Fayeteville and so on.
We walked up game, sat on overlooks of springs and salt licks, and grassy knolls. Not many people went there after the big timbering of the southeast in the early 1900s.
There were still and hopefully still are stands of forest not seen by an axe down to the walls of Jerico and beyond
Not many deer as the early Settlers couldn't stand to see any wild game that might eat their gardens and they needed the meat. Many many cemeteries the average age at death was in the twenties. They had to eat.
Walking in little rocky streams, crowded by Laurel and Holly etc,if you were patient would find what deer there were. Still, in the 70s and early 80s, when deer wee abundant they were not use to being hunted. They would follow you. In open knolls they would peer at you and go back to feeding.
Accounts, from the time, game was really abundant in the Elk Valley. They didn't farm because there was no need. Everything was provided except for corn, squash, and a hundred kinds of beans and some other things.
In the teens through the early thirties there were clouds of gees, so much that Dad said they had to race to get the crops in. He was a Sharecropper.
You didn't have to go to far afield unless you wanted to, for game.
As it is now to a degree many Landowners have abundant game but they are wary of noise of guns and men and machinery many times.
If you can hunt wild areas do just like Native Americans did. You will find traces of where they were. Anyplace you are likely to stop, they did. Overlooks, in the mountains of salt and springs are real nice.
Go at a slower pace. Game doesn't do a 40 hour workweek hurry up and hunt Saturday. The experience is the thing unless you need meat.
Lots of times it was just to "hunt" or more accurately be out in the real world. Ancestors were the "Indians."
Great Grand Ma, Swedish, on Grand Ma's side died Sept 1933, had her back broken and sister stomped to death when some Ancestors raided their cabin, around the time of the Trail of Tears.
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During the 1700-1800 period a guy out hunting anywhere, Stateside, was as likely to run into a swarm of Indians as he was a deer. Made the guy really good at still hunting. Mostly likely with a musket and not a rifle.
Mind you, that applied mostly to the frontier, not anywhere near cities. Such as they were. If you had a firearm at all. The idea of everybody running around in buck skins and armed with a flintlock rifle is a myth.
Like FITASC says, there were no hunting seasons until the early 20th Century. No such thing as a trophy hunter except for maybe the nobility in Europe. You went hunting only if you had time from tending your crops. Assuming you were a farmer. Time off work for everybody else. Nothing has changed there.
"...We are only a couple of Generations from the 1800's..." Over 100 years is far more than a couple generations. By far most people living in the 20th Century did not hunt OR ever see a real firearm.
Mind you, that applied mostly to the frontier, not anywhere near cities. Such as they were. If you had a firearm at all. The idea of everybody running around in buck skins and armed with a flintlock rifle is a myth.
Like FITASC says, there were no hunting seasons until the early 20th Century. No such thing as a trophy hunter except for maybe the nobility in Europe. You went hunting only if you had time from tending your crops. Assuming you were a farmer. Time off work for everybody else. Nothing has changed there.
"...We are only a couple of Generations from the 1800's..." Over 100 years is far more than a couple generations. By far most people living in the 20th Century did not hunt OR ever see a real firearm.
Boogershooter
New member
Meat gathering was alot different than our hunting. They usually used smooth bore firearms that was loaded with one round ball and some small shot. They knew were all the game trails were from running their trap lines or working their land. They shot rabbit, squirrel, coon, deer, elk, or whatever game they could. They knew were the pecan trees and the pear trees or whatever they thought meat might be. Some families even made deer drives. But over all most meat came from raising cattle, hogs, chickens, and gardens.
buck460XVR
New member
The indigenous peoples around here would drive deer into water where they were forced to swim and then would club them, spear them or shoot them with arrows at close range. Folks would bait fishhooks with corn and set them near Turkey roosting sites. Snares were more common than firearms to most common folks back then. Many times folks moved on to new areas when game became scarce or smart to human ways. Deer were not always nocturnal, heavy hunting pressure made them that way. Similar to the spruce grouse in Canada that allow folks to come up and club them outta the tree. If animals have no or limited exposure to man, they have little fear.