60+ Bushcraft Skills & Survival Tips

The best thing about small axes over large axes is that they are portable; You can often carry some of the smaller ones on your belt. The problem I found with having them tucked into your belt is that they can really restrict movement. You can eliminate this by using a simple piece of paracord, take a piece of cord, bring the ends together and tie them in a knot, this creates a loop, now pass this loop through your belt and then pass the knot through the loop as would do with a PRC knot to tie. The ridge line of a tarp tightens the knot and you will have a small loop hanging from your belt.

Now you can put the handle of your Hatchet through this loop and it will be close to your hip, but not too tight that it restricts your movement. Every time you kneel the ax moves freely, it's also very easy to deploy when you need to use it once you're done, just loosen the loop and take it off your belt. You can keep this piece of rope in your ready kit. to deploy when necessary to use it, it is not necessary to use it only for axes. I've also used it to carry a water bottle despite being dead for years.

The roots of a pine tree are one of the last things. to decompose when a pine tree has broken branches it tends to send this resin to these affected areas to prevent insects and bacteria from causing disease to the tree when a tree is blown down by a storm it sends the resin to the root system this provides a resource valuable for starting a fire cut a route as close to the base of the stump as possible. You'll know you've struck gold when you see the dark red resinous area at the open end of the cut.

These natural oils are what make If it is that color and very flammable, take your knife and remove the outer bark of the root while it can still burn. It's the resinous layer underneath that you really need. Use the back of your knife to scrape away the fine shavings of the resin. wood, if your knife does not have a sharp spine you can use the blade, but over time you will want to sharpen the edge of your knife as doing this will often begin to dull your blade. Now use your refractory steel to scrape up some sparks. in the thin resin chips and they will light easily, they burn for a considerable amount of time, allowing you a little more freedom to place thin twigs on top and start growing your fire.

The best thing about using this resin to start a fire is that it burns well even in humid weather, you will notice black smoke coming out of the flame and these are the flammable oils that burn from the resin. You can keep the stick in your spruce lighting kit ready to use again in the future, since you only need a small amount of shavings to light a flame, it should last a considerable amount of time as a result of spending a lot of time outdoors in humid climates. I have adapted my bush grafting kit to help me give myself the best chance of starting a fire.

In any condition lately I have kept a simple 1M square piece of waxed canvas in my kit. The first and possibly most important part of starting a fire in wet weather is to try to find the driest wood to look for dead branches that are tall. Branches raised off the ground like these Scots pine are ideal as there is a lot of resin that accumulates at the joint where the branch joins the tree. Picking up sticks that are directly on the ground is not really ideal as a lot of the moisture from the ground The soil will seep into the wood and take longer to dry, that doesn't mean you can't start a fire with it, it just means that You will need to spend more time processing it to make a viable piece of firewood as this particular branch looks like it has twigs ideal for lighting, they will have absorbed moisture from the forest floor and will remain moist for a few days.

It is best to choose twigs that are tall, dry and about the thickness of a pencil to check. If your stick is dry enough it should snap cleanly as it snaps, if it snaps but the pieces of bark still remain then this wood is still green i.e. it hasn't been dead long enough for all the moisture to escape. has left wood of this type. wood will still catch fire in a fire but only when the fire has been burning for a long time and for long enough for it to do so, not ideal for the initial stage of fire lighting as I know the weather changes quickly here in the UK. where the waxed canvas comes in handy, I place my twigs and firewood on top of the mat and this prevents moisture from the ground from seeping into the wood while I go to collect more material, the best natural resource for starting fires that I have available in this area is, by far the bark of the silver birch.

Here's a small piece I picked up earlier that day, and to show you how flammable it is, I'm going to dip it in this small mass of water and light it after shaking it. With excess water, you can see that the crust is still completely saturated and if I hold a lighter to it, notice how quickly it lights up once the initial surface layer of water has evaporated. The reason it burns so well is because the outer bark contains betulin, which is what makes the bark white but also protects the tree from insect pests and diseases, betulin is highly flammable and often , produces black smoke as the oils burn when you first light it.

Every time I see Silver Birch when I'm camping or in the woods. I'll always try to keep a small piece in my backpack to keep me dry for the next time I need it to light spruce trees, but what if you don't have birch bark nearby? You can still get one. To light the fire, you just need to use a different method. Remember when I talked about not using wet sticks from the forest floor. Well, sometimes you may not have a choice. In this case, look for the driest part of the wood and cut a small section that is free. of any nodes or lateral branches, ideally it should be as straight as possible.

Here you can clearly see that these two pieces of wood that I cut are wet on the outside but on the inside they are relatively dry. If we can expose this dry wood, then we will have a much better chance of success for our fire. I split the wood in half using my knife. I added another stick like Batton. Once opened, the wood is nice and white, which means it is dry, so even though the wood shows through. Wet on the outside, the bark is actually what keeps the interior wood dry, all that is needed is to expose the dry interior wood.

Now using my knife I make thin curls towards the bottom of the stick, these should be as thin as possible but not too thin that they fall off the stick. By doing this I get to the innermost part of the wood, which will be the driest once I have made a large enough feather. I tend to make a lot of very small, fine chips with the tip of my knife, you don't have to do this step, but again, since the wood is wet, it offers the best possible opportunity to get the fire going. I don't usually cut any corners when I build the fire with wet wood, then I place a few sticks down to act as a raft and keep my fire off the ground.

Fire needs heat to continue burning. If I try to light the feather sticks directly on the ground, the cold of the saturated moss will sap the heat of the fire and probably prevent it from burning well. I keep a small Fire Steel in my kit at all times. I place my Fire Steel on the stick so that it is directly in front of those thin chips I just made. Then I bathe it with some sprinkles on the fine curls. I light it first and then tilt the feather stick vertically so that the fire rises through the curls.

You don't have much time before the fire starts burning through the wood, so I place a second feather stick on top to make the flame grow, ideally a third feather stick will give you a more efficient burn, so it's just It's a matter of placing the feather stick on top of the layer of sticks and slowly adding small pieces of firewood on top and gently increasing the heat as it burns. The Polish Lau is one of my favorite pieces of gear; it is essentially two military ponchos that are buttoned up and can be quickly deployed into a two-person tent by simply adding a center pole.

They are made from canvas which means they are really durable but also heavy. Plus, the ability to use them as a poncho to protect you from the elements and then quickly convert them into a tent makes them a versatile piece of kit. I've used mine in all types of conditions, including several days of winter snow. camping trip, the armholes allow you to pass a stovepipe through them, and if you have a folding stove, this adds to the compactness of this entire setup. I find canvas to be an excellent material for a tent, despite being heavy it keeps you warm in the winter and cool in the summer, however I would advise you to get some protective spruce material to surround the sleeves of arms if you are using a wood stove.

Fire and canvas don't mix well. One of the most underrated items in my kit is a tube of Porter Wipes, this little tube contains 10 compressed tissues and by compressed I mean very compressed, each tissue is about the diameter of a 1B coin. All you need to do is add water to them and watch them expand into a pretty durable wipe that you can use. It can be used to clean your hands, wash your face, or even to help clean excess blood from superficial wounds by providing you with sterile water. Of course, they do not break down like normal tissues.

They would be more of a wet wipe. It says they are biodegradable, but I still take them home to throw them away. They are an amazing piece of kit, even if you only like camping and hiking and not the harder Bushcraft and

survival

stuff. I find them really useful. I am not sponsored by them, in fact, yes. A subscriber sent them years ago. I actually use them regularly. Another small item I keep in my backpack at all times is a lightweight tarp. This is 3X3 m DD. I'll link it below, but any tarp can be used to make shelter.

I just opt ​​for one that is very compact and small. If I know conditions are going to be wet, I often store my tarp in one of the side pockets of my backpack. This is where having a thin, lightweight upper comes in handy. At one end of the top I will have some string tied and this will be the last part that I will put in the pocket of the backpack. This side bag has just over a liter and the 3X3 M tarp fits perfectly and the zipper can end and now we wait for the rain many times I have been in the forest and the weather caught me off guard the forecast said it wouldn't rain but suddenly I was hit by a downpour and had little time to get to Undercover, which is why I've perfected some of my equipment to be fully prepared for this.

If you haven't checked the weather before leaving on your trip, you can often tell when bad weather is about to arrive by signs. The thing to watch out for is a sudden drop in temperature, the air feels cool and crisp and the wind will start to pick up and while this may feel good when you've been chopping wood, be prepared as it won't be long before for the rain to come. This is a weather front and depending on the strength of the wind you should be ready to deploy a shelter quickly and this is where my favorite top shelter comes into play.

Find a tree. Any tree will do, but preferably one that is sturdy. I pull the cord. I take it out of my pocket and tie this corner of the crown to the tree. I try to tie it as high as I can as 3m will offer plenty of shelter and the higher I tie this corner of the canopy the steeper the angle will be. to shed water, however, if you want more space under your shelter then tie it around head height. Now I just use the weight of the pack to get the rest of the top out keeping it inside the pocket, this not only allows for quick deployment but also means the tarp doesn't fly around and flap around in high winds.

Now it's just a case of securing each tarp tie down point trying to keep the material as tight as possible. I can set up this tarp shelter. in less than 3 minutes and I have all my equipment dry to prevent the firewood I collected earlier from getting wet again. I simply roll the sheet of waxed canvas over it and it keeps out the rain. Alternatively, I could put the firewood under my TP. but then the ground under the TP is already wet with the prepared and sorted firewood and the dry equipment. Then I make some final adjustments to the TP.

You can see that even in this heavy rain the water just runs off this waxed canvas. I decided to leave it out to see how dry it would keep the wood, as I said before, the best natural material for starting a fire. The highlight in this area is the silver birch bar, so I use my knife to scrape the outer bark into a fine pile of dust just below the outer white layer is where the flammable oils in the bark are. Now I'm below the top.I can take my time preparing the final fire preparations. The soil in this particular area is saturated year-round.

Basically it is an insect, which is another. For this reason I chose it for this episode even though I don't really need to clear an area for a fire because the ground is so wet. I still think it's good practice to do this because I don't want to leave a trail of fire. Once I pack up the chamber, as I demonstrated above, I create a raft using small sticks, if you want to increase the chances of a fire, you can split slightly larger sticks in half to create a flat, dry area to start the fire. Now I use that waxed canvas.

To protect the birch bark from rain it is imperative that the birch bark powder be kept as dry as possible; It will still light when wet, but will take longer to burn the more saturated it is. Once the pile of powder lights, you have a few seconds to keep the fire going. To do this, I remove several thin strips of birch bark and light it with the first flame. It may take a while, but relying on the dust pile alone to light the twigs is not enough. you need to keep that flame burning for an extended period of time and to do that I take it to small strips of bark, once these small strips have a more established flame I place the twigs on top, you will notice that I place the horizontal stick under the Twigs before This is so you can raise and lower the twigs to allow more oxygen to help the flame ignite them during the early stages of the fire.

I keep my body hunched over it to try to avoid the rain since the rain is so big. heavy, could easily light the flame and here is an important tip. I will not put in the next layer of sticks until the flame rises above the previous layer of sticks and I apply this to all my fires Lighting in both dry and wet conditions. Many times over the years I have put out a fire by putting in too much fuel too soon and smothering it when the fire is just starting. I find it best to let the flame trail over the first layer of sticks before adding the next. layer, this allows the heat to build up at the base of the fire and allows more oxygen to come in once the flame is well established, then I no longer have to hunch over as the heat at the base of the fire is enough to If I keep adding fuel, it won't go out if the fire is still struggling at this point, so it doesn't hurt to add more oxygen by blowing onto the fire.

You only need to do this in the initial stages or at the end. at least until you have enough roaring flame and can now relax and enjoy some time in the forest, this particular forest is wet all year round, this is evident by the dense patches of moss that have spread everywhere trying to find dry tinder in environments like This can often be quite tricky, however, even though the ground is soggy, there is still a natural material growing amongst it which can be turned into a usable tinder once it has been prepared. well enough, you will notice the white blades of grass growing through the soil.

Moss, if you focus on collecting the thin, wide blades of grass, these are usually the driest. Pick up a good handful of grass and rub it between your hands after a few minutes, the heat that builds up between your hands will begin to dry out the grass if you do this. Continue ripping and breaking the fibers as you polish it between your hands, this will help make the Tinder spongier, which is what you need to catch a spark from a fire steel or an ember from a bow drill. Continue collecting the grass. since most of the time you need double the amount you think you need, here is a quick Tinder package done in about 5 minutes from picking up the wet grass, you will see that it is compact and looks like a small bird's nest and now just A few sparks from a Ferro Rod will help the Tinder packet ignite, since the grass is quite wet, you will need to add oxygen to help stimulate a stronger flame.

Maintaining a campfire can sometimes be a tedious task, especially during the early stages when you need to constantly keep feeding sticks into the fire until it gets hot enough to create coals. One of the ways to create a low-maintenance fire is to light it upside down. That is, start by lifting some pieces of large dry logs, the thicker they are. and the longer the log you cut, the bigger the fire will be. For this example, I'm cutting a length of around 40cm and about 10cm in diameter in simple terms, that's basically a log the length of my forearm, the species of wood that What I'm using here is ash, which burns well. in a campfire.

The important thing to remember is to choose the driest wood possible. I then cut a load of smaller logs to the same length. I then use my ax to split some of these smaller logs in half. to expose the dry interior wood and now, for the fun part, I start by lighting the fire upside down, first I place the thickest logs and then I place the thinner ones perpendicular to the ones below, on top of them I place the split logs with the exposed ones . wood side up I continue building the fire until all the split logs are used.

It's like making a jenger tower on top of the fire. I place small dry twigs now all you need to do is light a fire on top and watch the magic happen this time. I decided to light the fire with a traditional flint and steel method. I strike the steel against the sharp piece of flint, causing the sparks to catch on the charred cloth. I then place the charred cloth in the Tinder package. which is the bark of the honeysuckle vine. I blow some air into the Tinder package to force oxygen in and then the fire is lit.

I add a few thin strips of silver birch bark which will help spread the flame and then I just add a few twigs to light the initial flame and I can sit back and let the fire burn. There is no need to go get more firewood to keep adding each layer to the fire. It burns and then the embers fall onto the layer below, allowing the fire to continue. burning here is what the fire looks like after 30 minutes it is burning with a clean hot flame and this is what it looks like after 1 hour and finally here is the fire after an hour and a half I have not had to add any sticks to the Right now these coals would be great for cooking, so while the initial part of gathering the firewood takes a little time, once the fire is lit it requires very little maintenance, the fire would probably have burned down for longer if it were not so.

On a windy day while this fire is burning, let's take a look at a method you can use to boil some water over it. I cut three sticks to the same length, then place the sticks side by side and secure them with some bench twine. What I use to secure them is an arbor knot, once the Arbon nut is tight I make several turns of the cordage around the sticks, usually three turns are enough and then I make a few vertical turns that weave between the sticks and on the horizontal cordage. They are known as fraps and help tighten the entire mooring again.

I do this about three times between each space with the knot secured. I can lift the sticks up and form a tripod, the tie down will tighten as I extend the legs, you will notice. I have deliberately left a piece of Bank line at the end of this line. I'm going to tie a Marlin Spike knot. It is a very easy knot. Apologies for the out of focus shot here, but you can still see how it is tied first. I make a loop at the end of the line and then bring that loop up to the center line above to form another loop.

I then pass a stick through the loop and behind the center line, then I tighten the knot against the stick now I can pass this. I stick to the bail alarm from a Billy can and it allows me to hang the Billy can directly above the fire. The cable will spin for a few minutes as it twists around where it was stored in my backpack to bring the Billy can closer. the heat of the fire simply widened the legs of the tripod. A benefit of this type of fire lighting is that it is reusable, like a fire steel, which can be reused over and over again.

The Steel Striker will give you thousands of sparks before it starts to fail you. Flint, on the other hand, will begin to lose its edge after just a few uses. You can make your own flint shard quite easily. Here's a piece of flint I found in the woods. It already has a pretty sharp edge where it separates from another. larger piece and may still throw some sparks; However, if you use a larger stone and strike the flint in a downward motion, you can often break off smaller fragments of flint that are much sharper. The internal pieces of the flint have sharp edges that will throw off good amounts of sparks before they go out and now that a large piece of flint has been broken into multiple usable pieces you can store in your spruce lighting kit for later use, A more modern fire emergency lighting backup technique is the inner tube of a bicycle tire, this little piece keeps the cap secure on my flint and steel kit.

If I really need to get a fire going quickly, especially in adverse conditions like high winds and rain, I can cut a thin strip of the inner tube and then tie it off. in a knot and hold a lighter for a few seconds, being rubber it burns very well and leaves enough time to burn through wet wood, as it burns for a while you only need a small amount to start the fire, the smoke it produces. The shutdown is toxic, so I would only use this ignition method in an emergency, but it is a great backup option to have some knives that do not have a sharp 90° tip, for example this Halter Force knife here was not made with a 90° tip.

° spine, which means that when I go to use it on a fire resistant steel, it really has a hard time getting sparks and I have to apply a lot of pressure and effort to generate these sparks. If your knife does not have a 90° spine, it is OK, as with any bush grafting knife, there is an area at the tip of the blade where the two sides of the grind meet. This will usually have an acute 90° angle which you can then use to get sparks from the Ferro Rod. You have plenty of room to maneuver as you would when you can use the full length of the knife's spine, but if you get the angle right, you can generate a lot of sparks in a concentrated area if you're worried about using your knife on a fire. steel and your fire steel does not come with a firing pin attached, so you have another option.

The spine of many saw blades will have a 90° angle, for example this folding hand saw here has a sharp edge on the back of the blade. This can be used exactly like a striker and in my opinion you can produce more sparks using the back of the SW blade than with the small flat strikers. Most fire robberies come with a hole in the handle or The Rock rod so you can tie on. a bit of cord, so why not tie something shiny to it that way? If you end up dropping it on the forest floor, the cord stands out against the leaves and debris, making it much easier to catch your attention.

Alternatively, you can add some spruce lighting paracord. The handle of this paracord has a waterproof linen cord inside that is flammable that way. If you need to start a fire and don't have much tinder available, you can undo the Paracord from your fire steel and take out a piece of the flax fire cord, then crumple this into a ball and throw some sparks with the fire steel, it lights fairly fast and burns long enough for you to add some thin twigs and kindling and get the fire going, most tarps will generally have at least four tie down points the first tip is that I always make sure I have guy lines tied to the minus four corners of my shirt.

These will stay on my shirt all year long. Most of my shelter setups can be done with just these. four tie-down points, but sometimes I need to add an extra guide or two. The tarp I use is a normally 3x3M square tarp, but with this ultra lightweight it's actually 2.9x3m, so it's pretty close to a square shape before I show you the shelters. It's worth mentioning that I now tend to store my tarps in the side pocket of my backpack rather than a dry bag, that way I can quickly deploy the tarp in high winds as the backpack prevents the tarp from moving when I try to take it out. or hang it from a tree.

I usually tie the last tie-down point to the zipper of my bag so it never gets blown away by the wind and makes it easier for them to see. I'm going to install shelter F by placing it in a square. I usually have about 2 and 1/2 to 3 m of rigging in my guides on this particular top. I have used Bank line but I also use 550 paracord if you want to set up your tarp as quickly as possible then it is better. However, to save weight and backpack space, I tend to make my ownown, unless I am heading to an area of ​​open terrain where there are very few trees.

I look for thin sticks that have a number on them. of broken branches and knots coming out of them, this particular forest is dense, Scots pine being the predominant species, as it is dense, the trees grow very close together and as a result they grow very straight, making it ideal for Quickly carve some fillets or saws. branches just above the nodes, this small stick produced seven stakes. These protruding branches act as a hook to prevent the gu lines from falling off the stakes when you stab them with a knife. Then I put some spikes on the ends of the stakes for first shelter.

Nail the four corners of the tarp once all the corners are nailed, secure the top to the ground and the wind should not lift it from there. Next, nail the two tie points that are right next to the corner ties as each peg goes in. I pull the top diagonally so there is tension between each peg. I do this on the two corners farthest from the top. This will be the back of the shelter, so having the back facing the wind is ideal. That way, the wind will blow up and over the shelter and not directly into it, where you are likely sleeping.

I unclip the two back corners from the top and tuck them under. The eagle eyes among you may notice that I also have a guide line. tied to the top center tie down point, this is used in a different shelter which I will show you later in the video. Now I come to the front of the TP. I take the corner that was staked out and peel it off. I find the next tie down point along it and add about 6 inches, then I turn the corner tie down point up to here and insert it. I do the exact same thing on the other side, find the next tie down point from the corner, add a few inches and then turn the corner in and secure it.

This will be the front of the shelter. The next cut is a branch the thickness of my wrist. I use my bush grafting knife to bevel one end of the stick that this end is going to push against. the top, so it's best to make the end as smooth as possible. I leave the other end flat, then take my stick and place it under the center of the top making sure it is as straight as possible. This is where the beveled end of the stick is. It should be facing the tar material, you can add a Shamar or spare sock to the tip of the stick to prevent it from piercing the top if you want, but I've never had a problem with just beveling it, now you don't have to do the next step I think it helps the canvas have more tension.

Take a piece of twine and tie it to the next IT exit point from the center front. Tie, fold this piece of loose TP over itself and tie it off. in the back corner Peg. I use an adjustable guide hitch to do this, which you can see in more detail in my tarp setup video in the description box below, do the exact same thing on the opposite side, finally you can add a guide in the front center of the top to tie down the entrance and help keep rain away from the entrance of your shelter. Now you have a low profile top tent that works well in high winds as it has multiple angles.

I think it tends to deflect the wind away from the shelter instead of acting like a sail and catching the wind. The entrance at the front is narrow but leaves a large enough space. room for airflow but small enough that you will be well protected from high winds than you would be with an open TP, there is a surprising amount of space inside the shelter, the best thing about this is that if you are camping in a field open and If you prefer to carry a tarp in your gear instead of a tent, you can use an adjustable hiking pole to keep the tension of the tent and adjust it to the height you prefer the lower the roof.

The larger the interior space, the higher the ceiling. The narrower the interior space, some people might wonder why not just take a tent for shelter instead of a top. Well, the answer is personal preference. The top is much smaller when packed. You don't need tent poles that can fail you and you can make a variety of different shelters from a single top, while in a tent you have the same space, regardless of whether they both have their place. The next shelter is for hammock camping. ERS. You only need to use the four tie-down points on the corners. of the square crown, first find two trees that are a little wider than the width of your crown, tie one corner of the crown to the tree.

Now there are several knots you can use to tie a canopy to a tree. I tend to use a Siberian hitch if you want to learn how to tie it. I recommend you watch my setup video above in the description box below. Once you've tied the knot, take the other corner from the top and tie this to the opposite tree. Note that I am tying opposite ends of my top so that it lays in a diagonal pattern once the top is secured between the trees there should only be two guy lines left, grab them and tack the tarp tight again .

I use an adjustable one. guy rope hitch so you can adjust the tension of the tarp if wind and rain cause the tarp to sag over time, then go to the opposite side and do the same there if the winds are strong then don't use too much guy rope , just Nail the canopy as low as possible so that you are well protected from the wind and that's it, with the two guidelines chosen, you install a diamond fly tarp, all you need to do now is hang your hammock between the trees, which better. The great thing about this setup is not only that it's great in high winds, but you can also adapt it to be much more spacious when the weather calms down.

All you need to do is undo one of the side guides and this time take it further to the side and tie it to a tree at head height, the other side should be the one that protects you from the wind in the meantime, now you have a open view of the forest as well as the opportunity to have a fire under the tarp as long as you have hung it high enough so the sparks don't burn holes in it if the storm has passed and there is little to no wind then you can Unclip the other side and open it to have a much larger area protected from above and allows you to have a 360° view of the surrounding forest.

If the wind picks up again, you can simply take the guides and tie them as close to the center of the shelter as possible to give you that extra protection from the sides again. I will note that with this shelter setup I don't have a specific ridge line running through the loops of my tarp with PRC Loops. This is because usually all I need are four guides on each corner of a tarp and I have much more versatility. To set up the tarp faster than you would with a pre-tied trestle line, a simple cheap monocular can help you identify good camping areas much later, you can clip them to your backpack so you can use it on the go, and it's so compact that it wouldn't take up much space.

Plenty of room in your backpack using some greenery as a backdrop, you can explore the area later to look for ideal spots for stealth camping or checking on the movements of people nearby. This particular one comes with a carrying case so you can attach it. Carry it on your belt if you prefer to set up a shelter, whether it's a tent tarp or even a natural shelter, ideally low profile and quick to set up a small, lightweight tarp like this 2.9 x 3 tarp m, ideal for In most situations, a tarp is much more versatile than a tent and can often be quicker to set up.

One of the best low profile TP setups is to place your TP on the ground, preferably with bushes and small vegetation nearby. Nail the top four corners together so it's pretty tight, then cut a small stick and place it under the front of the TP center. It now has a low profile shelter but is still quite visible. Add camouflage netting over the top to help blur the sharpness. edges and make it blend more with the surrounding forest. Take this a step further by adding nearby debris, whether it be leaves or branches of dead vegetation. Camouflage netting catches leaves and prevents them from falling, allowing you to cover your entire shelter, although you are generally more exposed when hammock camping as you will likely have a tab over your head, you can still take steps to help you when camp stealthily.

Using a hammock cover like this means you can quickly deploy or stow your hammock at speed if necessary. Attach and return to your vehicle simply slide the cover back over the hammock, detach it from the tree and it will save you a lot of time when packing. This particular hammock has a mosquito net attached which means I can set up my hammock. Place it between two trees as usual, but this time use it as a ground shelter by placing the hammock on the ground and then lifting the mosquito net and tying it to a tree a few feet off the ground so the shelter blends in better.

I throw in some camo netting and leaves like the previous shelter and suddenly I have a quick deployable ground shelter as well as a hammock. Sure, I'd still need a tarp over my head if it rained, but something small and compact like the TP used above would be easy enough to set up if I wanted to be bold and build a shelter out of natural materials. I often look for areas of Woodland where there is likely to be a downed tree already or a lot of materials to build with. In half the construction time needed to make a shelter, for example, this tree route here offers full protection from one side.

I just need to build two walls on each side and make a raised bed so that if it rains I won't be sitting in the water. and then build a roof on top and cover a bit with nearby leaves or debris. Be careful of tree roots that appear unstable, as some could collapse onto your shelter. As with any shelter when stealth camping, it's good to keep it low and minimal. Here's one I built by attaching some trash bags to some sticks I bent to form a tunnel. I then broke up the outline of the shelter using some leaves from a nearby bush.

You will notice that although the shelter integrates well. The ends of the cut wood are quite white and still stand out, you can mask them by simply rubbing some mud over the cut ends like in this example here if you need to go further away from the camp to collect water or collect more resources and you are worried that If someone finds your gear, you can place your backpack in a bush and cover it with camouflage netting to keep it well hidden. The most efficient way to boil and cook food when camping is probably a gas stove, as efficient as they are.

Boiling water tends to be quite noisy the most discreet way to boil water would be an MTH stove or an alcohol burner. I keep a complete kitchen kit in this camouflage case that houses my stove, a cooking mug, and a drinking mug, all in a compact carrying bag. which has a molly ribbon on the back to attach it to the outside of my bag in case I need it. I pour the methylated spirit into the trangia burner and light it. You can see that it burns with an almost invisible flame. I fold the pot stand and put my pot with water on top and put the lid on it now I let it boil while I finish setting up camp the best thing about this type of fuel burner is that it doesn't make any noise while the water is boiling and it doesn't release any campfire smell would take a few minutes longer to boil water than a gas stove, but it is much quieter and ideal for stealth camping.

Another more compact stealth cooker is a folding hexi stove. They often come in military ration M. The packets are essentially a flat piece of metal that you fold onto a small stove, then you turn on the hexamine heating tablets that come with the stove and place the pot on top. This is another really compact way of cooking food and boiling water, as well as giving very little smoke and noise if you find that you need to make a fire to keep warm then the best option would be to dig a fire pit, this is essentially a pit of approx. 12 inches deep and then another smaller hole next to it about the same depth then use a stick to create a hole or tunnel between these two holes now make your fire in the larger hole and the smaller hole act as a wind tunnel To keep air and oxygen supplying your fire you now have a discreet fire that hides the flames well and allows you to cook food or boil water, however this does not prevent the fact that your fire can produce a lot of smoke which could be a great hint when stealth camping.

To avoid this, it is important that you only burn dry, dead wood the drier it is. Better here there are two fires, the one on the left has dry wood and the one on the right has damp and wet wood.They both burn pretty well to start because I lit them both with a strong fire lighter, however after a few minutes the fire on the right is struggling to produce enough heat to burn efficiently. If I add small twigs that are still green and wet, you will see that it instantly starts to smoke even if the fire on the left is burning well if I add wet wood.

It will also start to smoke and now you can see that after a few seconds of adding wet wood, there is smoke coming out of the fire. This is now a big reveal of my location and would be visible even from many miles away, so ideally I would try. and find dead, dry wood hanging on tree branches and off the ground, if comfort is your thing and you don't want to be cramped inside a small bivouac or TP bag then a standard two person tent works just as well as long as I don't install it in open ground that is easily visible.

I usually opt for a tent that has a dark inner tent and a dark olive green or brown outer flysheet. The reason is that some light white tents have a brighter inner tent and a light fly. sheet, these are usually made with a thin material so that they are lightweight, however the cost of having this lighter material means that at night when you are inside your tent with a headlamp or a light in your tent, it will will illuminate much brighter and therefore be more visible in the dark, tents that have thick interior linings and exterior awnings reduce the light emitted by the headlamp when inside and reduce the chance of your tent being seen in the distance if you need to make a quick getaway and break.

Camping fast, the large dry bag is an ideal kit to have inside your backpack when it is rolled up, it takes up very little space, but when you need to quickly pack a wet tent or a tart, you can simply put it inside your dry bag and this Saves a lot of time and effort trying to roll it up inside its own carrying bag. A simple glow stick can be very useful at night, it doesn't put out as much light as an LED headlamp would and if the battery in your headlamp runs out, you have a backup light source if needed, they can be Useful when trying to navigate without a light source.

Another backup navigation option is to have a GPS watch. Many modern GPS watches have a tracking option and you can set this to track you as you head into the woods to find camp. Then, if you need to return to your vehicle in the dark, you can use your watch's GPS tracker to find your way back. I wouldn't trust him alone. This is for navigation, but it is a great backup option, instead of pushing the knife down onto the wood, it is really just using the wood itself, so be careful not to slide your fingers down the blade to have thumb on top. of the blade just put it on a log like that bury it and then hold it adjust this piece in half so it's a little bit easier and this time instead of using my knife I'm actually just going to use the stick and pull . place it against the bevel and this is a much more controlled method, it's much safer because the blade is in front of my hand so it's well out of the way and you're just making fine movements to find the right depth of the bevel of your knife and make Al Do it slowly at first because you want to be able to find what works with your knife and then you can always make it finer as you go, but you barely need to touch the tip of your knife to get these curls so try to keep the wood. as flush and flat with the blade as possible and then just barely tilt the blade in and you'll get some really nice long, thin curls doing it this way.

Now the Bushcraft knife is not necessarily the only tool you will have with you in your Pack many of you, including me, will carry a small ax or a hatchet that also has a sharp bevel and can be used in a similar way to make sticks of feathers. Make sure the heel part sticks out. so here's my log, I buried it in the ground on the log, sorry, and I left part of the bit exposed right here and similar to the knife, you're just pulling this stick against the bevel of your ax and I . I found that it's almost easier to make a quill out of an ax than the sharper bevel of a knife just because of the Grind, so let's try it.

I'm also holding my ax higher here just to have a little support. Again it takes a while to find the bevel, but once you do you will be able to make some really pretty curls. I prefer to make curls with an axe. Sorry, there's a plane flying just because of that kind of convex polish, but with a nice big bevel on its big cheeks, so again I'll do it. change the camera angle in a minute, but I'm just going up and back, up and back, okay, these curls are just with an axe, you know, these are fine curls really good for lighting the fire and exposing the dry in the wood so you can I can see the principle of how I move the wood and just turn it when I want to put some feathers on the other side of the wood, where it's getting too bunched up and thick on one side, white shape sticking all over.

What I'm going to do, I've removed it from the main branch here and all I'm going to do is where this main trunk comes and meets the fork of the Y. I'm just going to cut there like this, so now the trunk the stick, the main branch is gone and I'm just left with this shape of y which is now a v, so about 3 inches from the main stick I'm going to cut something off a little bit here like this and then I'm going to go down probably 12 inches or so and just cut it there, suddenly that stick in the shape of and now it looks like this, the stick up like this so that the tip is facing up.

I'm going to rotate this so you can I can see and then right here I'm going to make an diagonal and I'm going to make another diagonal cut, so I made a line there and a line there with the smaller tip of the stick facing me and then I'm going to move the material diagonally on the X, so I'm going to zoom in a little bit so there's one. Cut at that angle. Now I'm going to match that angle, go back about an inch and just cut some wood like this a couple of times and now I can see where my butt cut was, which is this, it's called a butt cut. and then this is a slice cut, so I'm just moving some of that material away and then I go in here where I made the original X for the Stop cut and moving that material, now I'm going to do the same thing on the other side. so rotate it, go up and find the diagonal point that I originally made for that It's going to be pretty weak, so that should be enough and now, with just that Y-shaped stick, I've made myself a pot hanger that can hang over the fire.

Imagine, this is a spit hanging over the fire, here's my Y-shaped stick, okay? I can. hook it hook it this way over the fire you want but the most important thing is that Notch can hook my kettle now it can hook to that notch like this it's a little precarious at the moment but it hooks to that notch and now I can hang my teapot over the fire now obviously this is a little bit short so it would hang like this and this is how it would work. Try not to waste these hangers because what you could do, they are multi-purpose.

You could tie some cordage to a tree, tighten it, so place the cord around the notch. Throw it very, very hard. I just tied an arbor knot here because they don't tend to slide. I can fold it over the Go Round The Notch tie. It comes off at the back and then with that latch, it can hold a lot of weight, this fork and now, even with this big backpack that's loaded with gear, you just hang it from that notch. My backpack is dry, it doesn't touch the ground, it's easy to get to. things in and out of the backpack without having to bend over to crouch on the ground nothing gets wet really simple multiple use that's what you can do with a small Y shaped stick but if you get bigger Y shaped sticks like this one is slightly different and I'm making sure the Y comes out evenly towards the main trunk, but they are thicker, they're about the thickness of my wrist, really a little bit thicker and then if I put some points on the I finish with an ax , so now two sticks and some stakes just hit them into the ground and you can hit them between the Y.

It's very strong here in general, it's very difficult if it's not too rotten, but just hit them, so now with my two and. Y-shaped sticks on the ground and a straight stick on top. I have made a spit for the fire and then I can use my second Y-shaped stick to hang it from the horizontal beam, build my fire at the bottom and then hang my teapot. and in about 15 minutes I have a hole to show you close up with the first two. I'll just weave them together like this and support them together. The third will hook under those two to form a tripod. that's going to hold itself up, that's going to hold itself up, they don't have to be straight and then the third one holds both of them up and then what you want to do is just push down in the middle to check that it's rigid and now it's not moving.

Anywhere I have a tripod, now all I do is just wrap a piece of string around, so keep it simple, I can let it wrap around so it actually goes down the middle of the tripod, so what I do is make a loop . over itself like this, I hope you can see that, then I fold that loop up, I pinch and pull so it's like a loop through a loop, I grab a little stick, I move it and then I squeeze it and now that won't move nowhere when I throw it from here. I can take my teapot and just push the stick in, push it over there, make sure it's in the center and that stick is now holding my teapot, so there you can see three fork sticks or white shaped sticks, a little twine go down to a kettle and then adjust the tripod, the height of the kettle, all I do is just widen the legs of the tripod.

You can make an adjustable Marin Spike, but I simply widen the tripod or move the legs closer together to raise it. fire, so another thing you could do is tie a loop on your rigging and that stick that you were using on the type of rotisserie that you get, the pot hanger, you can actually just put this through the loop like that and it will It will swing with the weight of the teapot on the bottom it will not swing like that and it will swing very well. There is the notch I made earlier and the teapot hangs absolutely fine from the stick.

The benefit of this method using the pot hanger is that the heat from the fire won't burn your string as much, you don't run the risk of your string or the string you are using breaking because there is too much heat from the fire if you are using the wrong type. of rope or just Paracord or anything in general will eventually start to weaken with the heat and create a weak snap point, whereas with a stick like this you hold that rope much higher from the heat of the fire when you try to hold it. If you are looking for Tinder material to make a Tinder package or something like a bird's nest to start a fire, when you open your eyes and see natural materials that are very dry and can be made spongy or puffed up into a bird's nest, You will suddenly realize that there are actually a wide variety of natural materials that you can use to start a fire, for example, here behind me there are many green ferns and although a green color like this, this fern is useless for lighting. a fire, it will just smoke, but when it goes out.

Dead and dead like this here, you just have to tear off some of these dry branches, so just a little bit of Brack in there and then bunch it up into a ball, make it into a little bird's nest and I could put it. an ember there or I could do this there, you go very close, but it can get you a fire set and it's not just fern or dead material like that, it could be grass on a cedar bark that can be peeled and polished. in your hands and turned it into a Tinder package and that can also create a spark, also got the honeysuckle vine, the bark of the honeysuckle vine again, you can peel it, fluff it with your fingers, rub it on your hands, keep it dry . even in your pocket and then throw some sparks at it with a Ferro rod and that can ignite it too.

You'd be surprised at the type of materials you can use to start fires. Another thing I found really helpful to me is courage. of green, so with the leaves on flexible sticks, twigs, small saplings that Bushcraft uses, you can get them from small thin flexible sticks, it's just amazing, you have things like a spring pulse trap that I showed in a previous episode, You know, using the flexibility of a growing sapling by making multiple trap components from the same sapling by setting up a trap witha trigger system that can then be launched when the mammal or bird takes the bait and it's amazing that only a small El palo verde can do something like that, the other thing you can do is things like I did recently where, uh, i made a fish trap and you wove it, it could be Hazel or Willow or any little thin shoots inside and outside some uprights and you can create a fish trap around that, you can also weave baskets.

I have made some baskets with the chatus vine, simply pulling the vine down the tree and making a small spider-shaped structure and then weaving smaller. vines in and out of the spokes of the basket itself it's a bit rudimentary it's a bit rough but it works and it's practical and I have felt that over the years I have gained a lot of experience in Bushcraft working with fine green M sapplings Vines you know , anything that is flexible, flexible and thin is pretty amazing what you can actually do in the Bushcraft type of world.