Truly Primitive Hunting Without Firearms

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AKGuy

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I don't know if this is the right place to post this particular query, but here goes...

...hands (and voices and keyboards) "up" anyone--other than bowhunters, I already do/know about bowhunting enough to satisfy my needs in the string/sharp stick category--who can discuss these rumors I've heard about folks who truly hunt with spears, long blades, etc...IE truly primitive hunting...I'm extremely curious about the who, what, how, why, when and where of this stuff....

I've heard rumors in my corner of the world about a local guy who tracks bears (don't know if it's brown black or both) to their dens and swordsticks 'em in their sleep...and I know that there's a contingent of folks somewhere out there in North America that likes to stick wild pigs with blades...

I can't say that I'll ever get bored enough to do this kind of stuff myself, but I'd enjoy hearing about it from folks in-the-know.

And for the record, I don't have any problem with it...just intrigued...:cool:
 
I have stuck a few pigs with knives ranging from 4.5" to 10". We cheat and use dogs though. Although it doesn't feel like cheating when you grab the hog by the back legs to roll him on his side to stick him in the armpit. I have seen Youtube videos of spearhunting hogs without the aid of dogs. I would love to give that a try but I am afraid that it will be awhile before I am that good at tracking.
 
I worked with a guy that was a big Ben Lilly fan. He told me all about the dude, LOL. He was kind of a cave man type, himself, and had bought a place outside of Reserve to move to in retirement, might be there now, don't know. The reference reminded me of the guy, had pet raccoons. The guy was a trip.
 
There's guys that B. Bears over bait from up in a tree with spears. That would be a bit of a challenge! They generally wait for the bear to get right under them. Course you probably know that a rite of passage to manhood for the Maisi is to kill a lion with a spear. I wouldn't be a man yet!
 
My now passed away Father in law , as a young fella in the 20's use to set snares with his parents in the willows along Kobuk River during the Spring and Fall migration.

In the mornings, they would set out as a family with Joe and his mom walking, checking the snares , killing any animals caught, untill they reached the end of the "Line" and his sisters and father lining/poleing a boat upstream, starting with the furthest catch and float the skins,meat, etc. back to the house.
They were poking the snared Caribou with a lance, saving cartriges.

I think they did that from a Kayak as well, poking swimmer, just behind the ribs, in the liver.

He also mentioned how they would drive Caribou up a hill, into a ring of snare, set in places Caribou migrated between mountains.

Pretty cool way to hunt, eh?
 
Reading that link on Ben Lilly, this quote from the article....

In the cane breaks of Louisiana, he had practiced the Southern sport of bear sticking, charging among the hounds to deliver an across-the-shoulder stab to the heart. The stab was made across the bruin's shoulder to the opposite side because animals tend to lash out in the direction of the pain, in this case, away from the hunter. Of course, sanity restricted this technique to black bears.
Click to expand...

Now, I've stuck hogs before with a knife, but black bear is a little over the top.:what:
 
Some funny excerpts from Ben Lilly:

He married twice and fathered several children, but the allure of wild places tempted him from his domestic responsibilities. When he announced he was going hunting, he might not return for weeks or even months. Once when his wife asked him to shoot a chicken hawk that had been raiding their farm, Ben grabbed his rifle and took off after the bird. He returned, a little over a year later, and explained, "That hawk kept flying." To his credit, he did provide financially for his children throughout his life.

Theodore Roosevelt, whom Lilly had guided on a hunt in Louisiana, described him as a "religious fanatic." But an outdoor writer of the time summed the man up as "intelligent, using good language, fairly free of slang, entirely free of oaths; he touches no tobacco, uses no strong drink, not even coffee, and Sunday is said to be a hallowed day with him; the wildest animal is free to hudge him in camp on that day if he wants to, but is warned to leave no tracks for Monday . . . "
 
I have killed a couple of hogs with a knife over the years, live caught a couple too. It is not a sport for those w/o guts. I don't know if I would do it now. (I am not quite as fast as I used to be, or as young and dumb). Even so I really don't think I would have tried it with a bear, even back then. I might have with a good sharp spear, but not a knife.

A hog can sure make a mess of you, and I have been knocked down many times, and run up a tree more than just a few. But again a bear can climb after you, so I might have been a little more reluctant to go there.
 
"Once when his wife asked him to shoot a chicken hawk that had been raiding their farm, Ben grabbed his rifle and took off after the bird. He returned, a little over a year later, and explained, "That hawk kept flying."....I love it...;)

For other posters...the hog-sticking I can sort of understand, but the bear thing sounds a bit too nutty, :what: except for the fact that a couple of the folks who've mentioned this local guy aren't generally guilty of overstatement, exaggeration, or just flat out BS...

I suppose that PETA-types would be, um, displeased, if they got wind of shivving sleeping bears with King Arthur's sword...then again, maybe they just turn a blind eye towards such stuff because they don't care to go and "protect" the bears by sitting and holding hands with them thereby blocking hunters the same way that they love to go through the woods banging pots and pans and shooting off bottle rockets during deer season.

Another nice thing about being in Alaska...haven't seen/heard of too many PETA folks luvving nature so much that they are willing to risk getting themselves Timothy-Treadwell'd in true wildlands....
 
I know that I saw pictures when I was a kid--don't know how true the pix were--depicting Native Americans squatting down behind angled/upraised spears with the butt end in the ground, waiting/hoping for the pissed off bear to impale itself on the sharp-pointy-ends of their sticks in the same way that infantry lances and pikes used to be angle-leveled against oncoming cavalry charges. Pretty much an all-or-nothing proposition I would think...
 
...and believe it or not, the Atlatl Digest even has a poetry section. Here's a selection from their collection (no rhyme intended, though the stuff that follows is, um, a bit on the WTH? side of things)...

Bunny Quest

by Atlatls N More
4/18/2006

Bunny bunny hopping runny
Popping bunny running funny
Through the sunny meadow grass...

Leaping leaping never creeping
Ever keeping rarely sleeping
In the sweeping meadow grass...

Swinging flinging darts are springing
Hearts are singing wild winging
Through the clinging meadow grass...

Rabbit rabbit trying to stab it
Dying to nab it human habit
To grab it in the meadow grass...

Scared it spared it nearly skewered it
Clearly dared it could’ve snared it
In the fairlit meadow grass...

Beaming gleaming summer steaming
Bummer seeming now I’m dreaming
In the streaming meadow grass...

Resting resting finished questing
Finished testing killer besting
In the nesting meadow grass...

Editor’s Note: The line between brilliant poetry and terrible poetry is often blurred.
 
Another nice thing about being in Alaska...haven't seen/heard of too many PETA folks luvving nature so much that they are willing to risk getting themselves Timothy-Treadwell'd in true wildlands....
Click to expand...

I don't see 'em here in Texas, either, have never run into 'em. I think they're constrained to the blue states for the most part. One year, about a half dozen of 'em showed up at a boat ramp somewhere east of Houston, Annuac or some such, opening day of duck season and protested thinking they were going to shut the hunt down there, I guess. Hunters showed up, put in their boats, ignored 'em, and took off into the marsh. They had hired a boat, went out into the marsh in their Sketchers and 80 dollar jeans. They got out there, found out they'd be arse deep in mud, decided they'd done enough, and adjourned the meeting to the nearest Starbucks. ROFLMAO! Yep, nature is a little harsh sometimes, might get your Sketchers muddy. :rolleyes: All this was on the evening news and had me rollin' in the floor LMAO.

It's pretty rural down here away from Sodom. A PETA member wouldn't have a chance. :D Most of such idiots and vegan types are concentrated around Austin. Austin is the San Fransisco of the south. There are some in the bigger cities, but Austin is the land of lunacy.
 
I've met some guys around here who hunt hogs with knives only, along with dogs of course.

Ya gotta know exactly where to stick 'em, and then do it perfectly and decisively under stress, or it can be quite dangerous.

Typically bloody and not for the faint of heart . . . or for he who hesitates . . . for it can get that person, or a buddy hurt.
 
AKGUY,

As a life long SE boy, well connected in the hunting and fishing circles, I am pretty sure (as certain as can be) that no one is sneaking up on brown bears with a broad sword and stabbing them.

I would wager quite a bit that the story/rumor is a big lie (one of many lies) told to green horn new comers from the lower 48.
 
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