Oregon Trail teaches two significant lessons about hunting. First you might, for whatever reason, not be able to do it very often so planning on it as a primary food source is foolish. Second and probably more significantly there is no point in shooting it unless you can eat it. We've all shot 10 buffalo's, an elk and 5 deer and been able to carry a half a deer back to the wagon. In real life there is no point in shooting a deer if all you can use (before it spoils) is a rabbit or a chicken.
If you plan to shoot big game then plan to preserve it without a freezer. In the far north maybe shooting an animal just after the first freeze and eating it over the winter will work. Everywhere and every other time you will need salt and or a dehydrator or the ability to can the meat. Might be that you have big game desires and small game capabilities.
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Or a smokehouse that you don't mind letting smells waft through the air telling strangers "Someone's just over the Hill, and they got meat!"
In Elmer Keith's book HELL, I WAS THERE, he reminisced that in the fall, elk quarters would be left to freeze outside solid. They would then be brought in one at a time, one end pointing towards their fireplace and cut out the meat that was thawed out enough. Sounded like making do with what they had.
Good point about that - that is what is good about cage traps, you can remove what you want, killing or releasing it as needed. Years ago, I knew some folks who had a live well on their dock, a steel galvanized fence caged enclosure with hatch top. They left their fish alive in the cage and removed as needed.
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