Since I did my last post about my daughter, I figured I could slide a short one in right behind it. This is a quick little shot to be a reminder to people who may have been a little rusty on survival tactics about a little trick called the pig spear trap. This little beauty is an old school jungle trap that can be used for both hunting food and protecting a patrol base. It was notably used in “The Most Dangerous Game” by the story’s protagonist, Sanger Rainsford, against the antagonist’s assistant, Ivan. In the story, however, it is referred to as a Ugandan knife trap based on the fact that Sanger attached his knife instead of carving spikes.
As you can clearly see from my visual aid, this was pulled straight from the military field manual on survival. It’s a relatively simple design that doesn’t take too long to build. The part that will take the longest is finding the materials and carving the wooden spike(s) that you see above. This handy trap is designed to have tension held on it until the line is tripped and it allows the bent green stick or bamboo to snap back towards what ever tripped it. The FM describes using a slip ring to release the trap, however, if strung properly with the tension on the stake, and the pull string tied to the tree, a simple slip knot could easily suffice.
Now as for your spike. If you can manage it, have more than one. You’re just going to increase your lethality, and this thing is lethal to begin with. So lethal in face that the book even warns its readers to be careful not to trip this accidentally because it can kill you. Usually these warnings are there because someone fucked up, just a heads up. If possible, make them out of hollow bamboo cut at a slant. Bamboo is study, and the fact that it is hollow will allow blood to drain out. This will cause a wounded pig to become a dead pig very quickly.
Here you can see a closer example of the doctrinal slip ring being used. (This is not my photo and thanks to who ever made this if they ever read this blog) You can see where the ring holds the tension, but should slide right off the string is pulled side to side instead of directly.
In this picture an example of how to do this trap horizontally across a “game trail” is shown. As you can also see there is a warning about using this in remote areas. If you set this up on a foot path, you’re probably going to seriously injure someone. That being said, if you are trying to set a trap for people make sure you take into consideration height. Wounding someone in the leg is great, but they can still pull a trigger.
One more tool for the box.
Stay hidden; stay safe.
Arctic Specter 