The Bushcraft Thread

[ez bake]

I hate this word almost as much as "tactical", "survival", "Zombie", or the acronym "SHTF" - but it seems to describe the outdoorsy survival stuff as a whole pretty well. I had planned on getting more into this a year and a half ago, but had some life-changes hit me (and ended up moving), so here I am trying again. My two sons are old enough now that I don't have to worry about them keeping up with us (and I just ordered a couple of decent fixed-blades for them), so I think it's time to try and get into it again.

I'm basically trying to learn the basics of bushcrafting, go out and practice them one at a time until I'm proficient at that particular aspect of survival and then ultimately go on one long trip where I had to navigate around, build a shelter, build a fire, get clean water, and catch/cook my food all while carrying minimal supplies on me (like only if something goes horribly wrong do I break them out).

I've been doing a bit of reading/Youtubing and the rule of 3s and the 5 Cs seem to be semi-constant with all of the interwebz Bushcraft experts out there - I thought I'd bounce a few things off of everyone and see who had any input or better ideas.

Rule of 3s - You can survive approximately:
3 minutes without air
3 hours without shelter/clothing (in extreme elements)
3 days without water
3 weeks without food

The 5 Cs you have to have for survival in the wilderness (else, you basically have to build your own while in the wild):
1. Cutter
2. Combustion
3. Cordage
4. Container
5. Cover


Here's what I basically want to do (feel free to correct or add to any of this if you know of anything I'm missing):


1. Build several different kinds of shelters (everything from bringing along a space-blanket or trash-bag/tarp, to completely from scratch with just stuff from the woods)

2. Build a fire with every method available (Fire-Steel, magnesium, Flint/steel, Bow-Drill, Pepsi-can, etc.)

3. Use and field-sharpen a small fixed blade knife for all tasks needed to do anything on this list

4. Build a trap to catch both a variety of smaller land animals and fish (as well as learn to use any other method aside from trapping to do the same)

5. Navigate with/without a compass (first using a map in an area I'm unfamiliar with, then without a map, and finally just using landmarks and tracking the sun/moon/stars)

6. Learn to effectively identify (safely) various kinds of usable/edible plants, berries, bugs, stones, etc.

7. Learn Field First Aid (thanks subprep)


There are a few things that I don't think I'll be able to do without (especially with my kids) like filtering/boiling water every time we need it - this has always stumped me and I assume that if I had access to a running creek, I'd just have to drink from it in a survival situation and not worry about upstream bacteria or viruses (which especially around livestock always worries me when backpacking even if I have a filter).

What am I missing and does anyone know a ton about this stuff that would like to contribute?

 

[Lurker66]

Theres a "bug out" weekend getting planned in the Prepping forum.

Only thing I can tell ya is get out n practice. Then youll find what works.

I guess it mostly depends on what your trying to survive vs just going primitive camping or "prepping" for just Iin case.
Im pretty confident I could "survive" with just a bic lighter and a pocket knife. Theres lotsa junk that can be scavenged to boil water, build a shelter and use for cordage. A knife n bic just makes it way easier.

As for the rule of 3s.....this is Oklahoma....not many places they all apply.

 

[subprep]

I think you need to add field first aid.
I've gotten pretty good at making fire with a mag fire starter.
I can make fire starters for my fireplace or firepit like nobodies business those babies work great!
I know quite a few useful wild plants I'm not claiming at all to be an expert but I am no slouch and prob know more than my neighbors ;-) you should participate in the prepper forum more.
There is a group in Tulsa if you are in the area that does wild foraging walks if you are interested in that sort of thing. Or Jackie Dill is in the coyle area. She is fantastic with wild edibles.

 

[excat]

I personally prefer to build my own shelter. A friend and I are going on a primitive camp/hunt in March, and I am planning on either building a tee-pee or lean to for shelter for the 2 nights we will be out there. I will be making a fire with a fire rod and Vaseline/dryer lint. It will depend on the weather on which I build more than likely. If I build the tee-pee I will dig a fire pit in the middle for my fire to keep me warm all night. I've never been to the area we are going to, so I'm not exactly sure the resources I'm going to have available. I'm taking very limited supplies, and going to have to wing it from there. For a knife, I will be carrying a K-Bar, Mora, and a custom skinning knife made by Dale @ Slaughterville Knives. I'll also be carrying everything I need for water purification, we will be near a river, that hopefully has water.

I always carry a map compass and a standard compass, and try to have whatever map I can have for the region I'm going to. Prefer a topo map, but not always available without having to pay.

As far as useful stones, don't use a very porous rock in a fire ring, or to cook food on. Water gets in the pores of the rock, and once the water heats, the rock will explode, and it's not pretty when they do.

I have a military survival field guide I keep in my bag to help with edible plant ID. I'm still paranoid to chow down on some though, unless it's inner bark from a tree to make a tea.

I keep a 4W handheld UHF radio, some may call it a HAM radio due to wattage. But it will receive and broadcast on all standard UHF channels, and all of our local and state police channels, if you know their channel and sub channel. Which I keep them programmed into mine,(**DISCLAIMER**) but if you do that, and you act like a jackass with it, you WILL get in trouble. I keep them in case of emergency, but will hopefully never need them.

Bushcraft is a lot of finding your own style. It's all making things work when you take little to no resources, but it is a planned trip, and you take only select items. Survival is exactly that. You have exactly what you have on your person at that exact time, so that in turn makes you look at what you have on your person on a daily basis, and that is what you have for "survival". BOB's are a great start to staying prepared for something to happen, but you never know where you will be IF/WHEN fit hits the shan, or if you will be able to even get to your bag. So to me, bushcraft and survival are two completely different animals, especially on a psychological aspect, and in the true survival game, most of the time you live or die from the mental aspect of it.

Also, to me, there's 2 types of survival. There's the "end of the world" survival, where you are trying to live, and will live out an unknown amount of time this way, and there may never be civilization again, then there is the surviving a catastrophic event like getting lost in the woods and finding your way out or surviving until rescue makes it to you. The type of survival changes what you have on hand as well, or at least what I would have been preparing for. One you build a long term shelter, the other, you build a short term shelter, as most rescues happen within 72 hrs if you did your pre-trip like should be done (leaving detailed travel plan with a trusted loved one or friend, and a final check in time to notify emergency personnel to initiate a search if you haven't checked in)

 

[ez bake]

Alright, weather is getting a little nicer this weekend, so the boys and I are headed out to build a fire and a shelter in sort of a trial run.

Couple of questions:

1. Does anyone have or know of a good guide on local vegetation in Oklahoma? This is probably my weakest area of knowledge, so I'd like to learn more and if possible have a guide or book of some sort during these first few trial runs.

2. Does anyone have any suggestions as to where I can go that is less than an hour from South Tulsa that gets me out in the woods and away from people, but allows me the freedom to free-hike around and build a fire (we are responsible campers and always make sure the fire is out and obviously, we know better than to build a fire in the wild during a burn-ban)? I'm mainly looking at WMA, public use, wildlife areas that allow for camping (or that have dedicated areas where you are allowed to camp/build a fire). If no fires are allowed, that's cool too - most places with a dedicated fire-pit area allow fires even during burn-bans and we've spoken to park rangers who are way on board with us learning how to build primitive fires as long as we keep it in the camp-sites or fire-pits, so that part isn't really as critical.

I know of a few spots nearby, but I really just want to be able to head out after work or something and try a few things out in preparation for our big trip coming up this spring.

 

[caojyn]

These guys offer "classes" on foraging in oklahoma, I've gone to a few of their hikes. Good stuff.
http://www.oklahomawildcrafting.com/#!farm-to-table-dinnerforaging/c4x3

 

[ez bake]

Very much appreciated man.

Has anyone been to the Heyburn state park area? It looks like it might have exactly what I'm looking for.

 

[Old Fart]

These guys offer "classes" on foraging in oklahoma, I've gone to a few of their hikes. Good stuff.
http://www.oklahomawildcrafting.com/#!farm-to-table-dinnerforaging/c4x3

Be sure and look under the edibles tab here EZ, decent selection of Okie grub.

 

[ez bake]

I've become a big fan of these two Youtube channels. In the Youtube world, it seems like once something becomes even remotely popular there are tons of "experts" that show up and give howto videos on everything under the sun (with some getting maybe 10% of their info right), but Ray Mears seems to be respected in the outdoor/survival/bushcraft community and here are a ton of his videos:

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtTgSa-JPWx4WhpDMsJvRjw



This guy is sort of a Canadian Redneck and he's probably got some of the best howto videos out there (he's a bit long-winded but he does do a lot of what he talks about so you get to see it in action). His most famous videos involve making fire in adverse (snow/rain) conditions:

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN0aJif3vZnotruhZ14rPhQ

 

[subprep]

Jackie dill just published an e book with loads of wild edible information she is the woman that runs Ok wildcrafting.
I would suggest getting a good wild foraging book, what specifically are you looking for? Edibles? medicinals? we really are blessed here in Oklahoma, if you don't weed and feed your yard chances are you have a small buffet growing.