A Manifesto for The Modern Hunter Gatherer

Surviving and Thriving in an Industrial World

I am going to start this manifesto (although I hate to call it that) with a shocking revelation. For those interested in hunting, fishing, foraging, or using nature to provide themselves with food, now is the best time in over 200 years. Across the United States, animal species are expanding their range, from black bears in Louisiana to elk in Kentucky. Conservation is at the forefront of people’s mind. There is less trash and pollution than ever before in the U.S. For all intents and purposes, the natural world is more pristine than it was 20, 50 or even 100 years ago. Forests that were cut down for timber have started to regrow. Our rivers flow cleaner and clearer. And although many environmental problems persist, the outsourcing of manufacturing and heavy industry has emptied out rural areas, allowing the outdoors the chance to flourish. What I am trying to say with all of this is that if you want to start producing your own food, now is the time to get started.

But what I want this essay to be is not an explanation for why subsistence from the natural world is still possible; I did that in my last article. What I want this essay to be is a set of principles describing what it takes to be a Modern Hunter Gatherer. See, I have spent years reading, researching and absorbing information about hunting, fishing, and foraging. What always appealed to me the most was info about producing your own food in the most efficient way possible, like the pioneers of old. But most authorities on the subject are interspersed with articles about gear reviews, 100,000-dollar hunts and celebrities I’ve never heard of. So, I have decided to take this project upon myself. My operating thesis is this; Assuming a person wanted to fish, forage, and hunt for most of their own food, how would one go about doing this? And why would they even want to? In our technological, post-industrial, consumeristic world, who is the Modern Hunter Gatherer?

The Six Precepts of the Modern Hunter Gatherer

1. The Modern Hunter Gatherer Doesn’t Waste Time

   The first step to becoming a Modern Hunter Gatherer is to change how we think about the food and products we produce from nature. Outdoorsmen today spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours chasing nonproductive pursuits. I can’t help but feel disdain when someone shows me the 10,000 dollar boat they use to chase largemouth bass or tells me how they spent all month hunting their new trophy buck. While this kind of behavior is totally fine as a hobby, the Modern Hunter Gatherer turns their nose up at trophy chasing and performative woodsmanship. For us, the name of the game is production, production, production. If you really want to produce food outdoors, you must realize that your most valuable resource is your own time, and you need to prioritize it! If you could spend 1 hours fishing for panfish and come home with 20 pounds of fish, or 1 hour fishing for bass and not catch anything, the answer is obvious.

   We need to reframe our sense of worth and focus on pursuing the opportunities that allow us to focus on bulk production. There are obviously times when it’s ok to not always pursue the most efficient route. When you want to practice your skills, it’s great to spend time developing new production strategies. It's also always great to just have fun! But the key to being a Modern Hunter Gatherer is efficiency. Being a Modern Hunter Gatherer is all about finding the best way to produce food in the shortest amount of time possible and exploit those opportunities to their fullest ability.

2. The Modern Hunter Gatherer Works With What They Have

   The Modern Hunter Gatherer uses what they have to the best of their ability. Many outdoorsman travel hundreds or even thousands of miles to hunt, fish or forage. They do this with the false impression that good hunting can only be found far away from them. And I get it. If you live in New York City, I wouldn’t expect you to be able to find a place to hunt bison near you. But I can guarantee that there is something near where you live that is abundant and can be exploited. Even in the suburbs you can find fruit and nut trees growing in people’s yards. The most important resource a modern hunter gatherer has is the land around them.

   Look, I love morel mushrooms. But in the woods near me, they simply don’t exist. I can’t find them no matter how hard I try. Now, I could spend days and days searching for them. Or I could spend the time searching for oyster mushrooms, which I know grow on the beech trees near the spring that flows about a mile down the road. It’s no use spending hours looking for things that you aren’t going to find, and it’s no use chasing game that simply isn’t there. Devote the time to finding honey holes near you and cultivate knowledge about your area. By becoming hyperlocal and finding opportunities near you, you save time and money and become a better Modern Hunter Gatherer.

If there are ducks in the park, why aren’t you taking them home?

3. The Modern Hunter Gatherer Uses the Margins

   This is where you can really up your subsistence game. Exploiting the margins is something that famed agrarian Wendell Berry talked about at length. In his mind, farming on the margins means working in the gaps between industrial society. His idea revolved around the idea that modern farming practices could not destroy the entire earth, and because of this there are opportunities left over that the discerning farmer could use to their advantage. I urge the Modern Hunter Gatherers to take this idea and apply it to hunting, fishing, and foraging. The way to do this is exploit the opportunities that others refuse to exploit or simply don’t know about. In my neck of the woods people forage morels and ramps, hunt deer, and fish for bass, perch, and walleye. But everything else is not being harvested by anyone! There are squirrels, rabbits, herbs, plants, nuts, trash fish and so many other things that are super abundant.

   One good way to identify these kinds of opportunities is the hunting and fishing regulations of your state. Most government agencies only care about the species the taxpayer care about. It’s not their fault; it’s just the nature of publicly funded conservation. But if you aren’t after the most popular species, then your options increase dramatically. Look for things with long seasons, multiple methods of take, and high bag limits. By looking through my regs, I was able to find out that you can legally harvest snapping turtles, which apparently taste like pork and go great in a stew. I also learned that suckers have no bag limit, no size limit, and can be fished all year round. There are so many new resources to exploit and use to your benefit if you take the time to look at the margins!

4. The Modern Hunter Gatherer Believes In Skills Over Gear

   One of the biggest dangers facing the outdoor industry is gear head mentality. The idea that you need the newest product to shoot that deer or catch that fish is completely counter to what the Modern Hunter Gatherer stands for. Our overdependence on gear has destroyed our outdoor ability. People buy camo because they don’t know how to hide their presence in the woods. They buy fancy new lures because they can’t fish the ones they have. They have been sold a lie that they can’t do anything outdoors without products made in China!

   My favorite fishing rod is 8 years old and had the first 3 inches chopped off by a door. It is hard to cast and has a shaky retrieve. And yet I kept fishing with it. I learned how to read the water to make up for the deficiencies of my rod. I used live bait because it was cheaper than a lure, and I learned how to be patient when I was fishing because I didn’t have multiple rods to fiddle with. I didn’t have the fanciest newest gear, but I learned skills that helped me improve my outdoor skills in spite of my tools. It is always better to focus on new skills instead of new gear. With skills you can use good gear more effectively, but without skills even the fanciest gear can’t save you.

   I do believe that there is some gear that is totally worth it. A quality knife, good clothes, sharp hooks, and OnX maps are just a few products that are totally worth the cost. When you buy gear, it is always worth it to buy quality. But it’s not the gear itself, but overdependence on it has weakened us and made us reliant on it. The Modern Hunter Gatherer avoids this trap by focusing on the fundamentals and skills they need to be successful.

   

   Do you really need a floating tent to go fishing?

   5. The Modern Hunter Gatherer Focuses on Seasonality

   Every good hunter focuses on the seasons. Seasons dictate when something eats, when it migrates, when it hibernates, where it goes, and what it does. The Modern Hunter Gather seeks to be as in tune with the seasons as possible. Some things are only available in certain seasons or are much easier to pursue in certain seasons. The seasons have a natural rhythm to them, each with their own unique opportunities.

   Where I live, salmon run in the fall, and steelhead and suckers in the spring. Morels and ramps pop in May, and oyster mushrooms grow in the summer and fall. Some people try and disobey the natural order of seasons to hilarious results. In Michigan, there are two options for catching salmon. One, you can wait for fall and use skein, spinners, flies, or spoons to catch them in the rivers. Or you can spend 50,000 dollars on a boat, 2,000 dollars on a downrigger, 1,000 dollars on rods, reels, and lures, and 200 dollars on gas to catch the same salmon in the summer! I think the choice is obvious. By focusing on the seasons, you break free of the pay to win outdoors system so entrenched in aspects of our society and become more in tune with nature.

   6. The Modern Hunter Gatherer Builds Community

   You can do a lot of hunting, fishing, and gathering by yourself. Part of the reason many people love going outside is because of the solitude. But if you really want to maximize your chances, you need to be forming a community. You only have so many hours a day to spend procuring food, and it can be hard for one person to do it all. But you can increase the number of hours in a day you have by developing a system of like-minded people. With other people, you can trade or barter goods for other goods, allowing you to develop specialties.

   For example, I am very knowledge about fishing, but less knowledge about big game hunting. I can happily fish all day, and trade my fish for venison, mushrooms, vegetables, honey, or whatever else I want. A network of like-minded people also allows you to tackle bigger projects and share the workload. Very few people have ever lived off the grid completely by themselves, and even if they could it would be very lonely. The Modern Hunter Gatherer is not a solo affair!

The idea behind the Modern Hunter Gatherer is to become more connected with nature and find freedom from the industrial food system. In my opinion, the only real way to do this is to take a hand in producing your own food. By interacting with the food chain itself, by putting yourself in into it, you tie yourself into nature in a way that others simply can’t.

We live in an increasingly modern and interconnected world. Our food system is more commercialized, capitalistic, generic, and cyan wrapped than ever before. At the same time, the food is getting more and more expensive. Can you believe it! You are paying more for shittier food, and nobody is going to stop it. If you want to eat food that is whole, that is nutritious, that isn’t poison, you are going to be forced to do it yourself. The reason I promote subsistence is because I want to counter the narrative that this isn’t possible. There are people who want you to believe that you can’t produce your own food. Maybe it’s malicious, maybe it’s not. But either way, significant amounts of people are promoting the narrative that your only choice is to submit, to eat the shitty food and to be happy about it.

The Modern Hunter Gatherer seeks to circumvent this narrative and take the power back into their own hands. By choosing to hunt, fish, and forage more simply, we reject the premise that there is no escape from the modern food system. We reject the idea that the days of living off the land are in the past. We guard the fire that has burned for tens of thousands of year, the fire that has kept men alive for as long as men have lived. We become the Modern Hunter Gatherer.

This could be you