Wild Food Foraging: Fish, Rabbit, Plants and More

Enlarge Image Image Gallery Eating free good can be as simple as gathering what's available seasonally in your area. ILLUSTRATION: MOTHER EARTH NEWS STAFF

Winter is here again and, on our homestead, we welcome it with open arms. This is the time of the year when we can breathe easy and catch up on some of the writing and reading that we've put off for far too long. It's also one of the best seasons to be outside. There's nothing as restfully beautiful, to my mind, as fresh snow on evergreen trees. And, contrary to what many folks believe, winter can be a most productive time of the year thanks to wild food foraging.

Fishing, in particular, takes on a new dimension when an angler can stride quickly out onto a frozen lake instead of putting in a boat and paddling to that "secret spot." Once over his choice "fishin' hole," the winter angler can then erect a simple shelter, cut a hole in the ice and fish for hours in perfect comfort . . . especially if the shelter is equipped with a little twig-burning stove.

It's also great fun to track rabbits in the snow during the cold months and cottontails usually furnish us with many good meals every winter.

Zero weather doesn't necessarily limit our gathering of wild plants either. Down in a huge marsh that I know about, there are still plenty of wampee plants sticking through the snow. Wind-blasted and snow-crusted, they nevertheless would furnish gallons of grain for coffee and biscuits if we gathered them all. Bur reed, another marsh plant that yields grain which looks almost exactly like kernels of corn, grows near the wampee.

Tasty beans, concealed in what look like flat leather pods, still cling to the black locust trees. They can be used like any other bean but, since the locust variety is uncultivated, they're much more satisfying to eat.

Of course we forage a number of other wild foods during the winter but if you only know where to find and how to harvest the few I've just mentioned, you'll put many a satisfying January meal under your belt.

How to Ice Fish: Tackle, Poles and Bate

Since fish of some kind are found in almost all lakes and streams year-round, ice fishing—like summer fishing—is one of the more important skills a food forager can develop.

Ice fishing tackle is quite simple to make. My gear consists only of a very short pole (about two feet long) and enough line to reach from the surface of the ice to the bottom of the body of water I'm fishing. I prefer hickory branch fishing poles that taper from one inch on the large end to about 1/2-inch on the other. I cut these sticks in the spring, peel 'em and leave them to cure under the eaves of the chicken shed. The following winter, when the ice on my favorite lake has frozen to the necessary safe thickness of at least six inches, I take the poles down and tie about 15 feet of two pound-test monofilament line to two pegs set at angles to each other and three inches apart in the butt end of each stick. When a pole isn't being used, its line is stored by wrapping the monofilament around these two pegs.