Blowguns for small game

golok

golok

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I wonder if the blowgun (better known as blowpipes in the East) is used in bagging small game over in countries with colder climes.

In the tropics, especially Southeast Asia, where jungles abound, natives use blowguns to bring down monkeys from tall trees and other small animals that succumb to poison darts from the blowguns.

Blowguns are actually quite practical and effective because the device is light, durable and practically maintenance-free.

Blowguns have been used for centuries in the East, and the fact that the weapon continues to be used testifies to its usefulness in a jungle environment.
 
I am sure there may be others that have been successful hunting with a blowgun like the one you display but I have shot two squirrels and hit both in the head only to have them run off. I didn't use those add on tips as I found they didn't penetrate very well.

I did put a 6' blowgun to good use collecting bullfrogs in the local ditches around the place. This was 15 years ago before the neighborhood developed much. I made extra long darts and attached a straightened hook to the end to have a barb. It worked pretty well hunting at night with a headlight but I did have problems with some of the frogs going into culverts. Can't really believe I would stick my arm up into the culverts feeling for those darts to find my frog. I was lucky and never got bitten by anything. Normally, the extra long dart, 9" or so was easy to follow when the frog tried to escape under grass in water filled ditches.

To solve the escape into culvert problem I put an eye above the bead and attached two pound test monofiliment line to it. I taped a tiny spinnin reel under the front of the blowgun near the end. It worked well and seldom got tangled. After that, I could shoot them, let them attempt to swim away in the ditch and simply reel them back.

My son and I had many a good night chasing frogs around. Stopped when too many houses were built in the area and the neighbor dogs would disturb the neighbors when they barked at us walking down the neighborhood streets at night. Also had a scare one night when I was hunting past one house and looked up from the ditch toward the house to see the lady of the house through a window standing in her bathroom in a nightgown brushing her hair. Turned off my light and got out of the area. Wouldn't want to scare her and answer to the police, even though I wasn't doing anything illegal.
 
When I was in Idaho, a couple friends and I bought five foot aluminum models with the teflon lining. One of the guys got good enough to nail mice in his cabin. However, I can imagine that the lethality of the small darts might be inadequate on larger varmints. Probably why some cultures used poison to make them more fast acting.
 
I have heard, (but not tried myself) that putting anbesol or some other tooth-ache cream (local anaesthetic, usually benzocaine) on the dart will increase the odds of bringing down the game. It makes sense, whether the drug merely "knocks out" the critter, or actually constitutes a lethal dose. I don't think it would affect the edibility any.

I have taken one small squirrel, from very close range, and a whole bunch of cicadas with a blowgun.
 
Some North American Indian tribes used to employ blowguns as hunting weapons. They even took deer with them (according to anecdotal evidence, anyway) by using a long dart and shooting the deer in the eye.

The wire darts that come standard with modern blowguns aren't worth hunting with; too short, no real "head" to them to cause bleeding, and generally really light. I made up some hunting darts using 14" bamboo skewers for the dart, paper cones for fletching, and exacto blades for broadheads. It took a bit of work to make them, but when done I had a lethal little dart that still had good range. The only thing that wire darts are good for is indoor practice.
 
I actually own an authentic traditional South American blowgun made by the Auca tribe of the Edcuadorian Amazon. It's 31.5" long. The darts are essentially shish-ka-bob swewers, and would do nothing but irritate anything they hit.

The reason they work so well is that the natives poison the tips with the scum off of some kind of frog, or something like that. The poison is so powerful a drop would kill one of us pretty quick, let alone a monkey.

The only way I could forsee using one to kill without poison is to use those huge 6' suckers I think they use in Madagascar. The power behind one of those darts would drop anything smaller pretty quickly. But then they are so big you'd be better off with something else.

Do a search online though; I've seen some fancy schmancy modern inventions (if I recall, ones that telescope and so on) which might work.
 
I've taken sitting birds with a homemade blowgun using home made darts. The blowgun was a piece of aluminum tubing with around .5 inch inner diameter. The shaft was essentially a tube of rolled paper and glue. The head of the dart was about a 3 inch piece of coat hanger wire that I hammered flat on one end and ground into a small broadhead shape. I used cotton fluff on the back end. The dart was a bit heavy and nose-heavy. It would make about a 3/8 inch wide hole through a bird and pin its wings. It worked best in twilight when the bird wouldn't notice it coming.
 
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