Preppers, Filling the Gaps
Kevin Felts 08.01.17
Preppers, let’s take a few minutes and talk about filling the gaps. This could be in gear, experience, training, and plans. Not sure what gaps need to be filled?
In this example, we are going to talking about gaps in gear.
Backpacks
In the early 1990s, my two main backpacks were a Jansport book bag and a medium ALICE.
Jansport book bag was for hiking and warm weather hammock camping. Only the basic essentials were carried:
- Poncho.
- Poncho liner.
- Hammock.
- MRE main entree.
- Breakfast bars.
- No stove.
- Spare socks
- Water bottle or canteen.
- Water filter.
- Mosquito repellent.
The gear listed above barely fit inside the Jansport bag.
Medium ALICE was when I took a sleeping bag, stove, tent and gear listed above.
The problem was, the medium ALICE did not large enough for multi-day trips. In cold weather and I needed a coat, spare clothing, big sleeping bag. The medium ALICE just was not large enough.
The gaps were:
- The Jansport bag was not large enough for a comfortable overnight trip.
- The medium ALICE was not large enough for certain conditions.
So, a large ALICE was added to the collection. This expanded how much gear I could take, which increased the time spent camping comfortably.
Fishing Gear
I have all kinds of fishing gear; everything from top water to trotlines.
However, one day I was planning to hike to a pond a few miles from my house with the hopes of doing some perch fishing. While packing the gear, I realized there were very few perch lures in the tackle box.
When I go perch fishing, I usually stop by the local corner store and buy a box of worms. In this case, I wanted to use artificial lures because the worms die in the summer heat.
So, off to Amazon I went to buy some perch lures.
Fill The Gaps
One of the best ways to find the gaps, and then fill them, is by hands on experience.
Go hunting, fishing, hiking, maybe do some gardening, and you should find gaps in your gear. Then use that hands on experience to fill the gaps.
Once one gap has been filled, start working on something else. If you do the same thing over and over, you learn nothing new. So, try new and different things.
