Competition Time!

[sargey]

here's an oppertunity to win a superb BRK&T mikro.

i bought this one from www.treemanknives.com

it's a tiny pocket whittler, pencil sharpener, string cutter, rabbit skinner, box opener, anything you like.

now, you can enter three times, but only once a day. the competition will run for a week, maybe longer.

all we want is a little nugget of something vaguely bushcrafty, a quick story of how you fell down a rabbit hole, or had a great cup of tea, with bannock, or saw an owl catch it's prey at dusk, or even a simple helpful hint. anything will do, don't be shy! if you can't think of anything bushcrafty, tell us a joke :-D but keep 'em reasonably clean please.

you also need to pick a number between one and 5000. if we can't decide on the best nugget of info, the winner will be the closest to the number i first thought of

cheers, and.

 

[Doc]

The Golden Rule of Winter Bushcraft:

Don't eat yellow snow.

2645

 

[jakunen]

How about hand feeding a dog otter when fishing one day? Think it was probably a released one, but its got to be the best outdoors things I've done. (lost me hat to an owl that night too!).
Oh yeah, that and watching my first ever golden eagle in the Julian Alps from the top of Mount Triglav.

Erm, 1968.

 

[Buckshot]

Whilst out stalking one summers morning I was in a field working my way round to a group of Roe deer a few hundred yards away. As some poeple sometimes do, I felt someone/ something was watching me, slowly I turned round and saw what my sixth sense had warned me of.
Fifty yards behind me, next to the copse I'd just walked round stood a Roe kid watching me. It must have been born a few weeks earlier becuase when they're strong enough they start running with thier Mum.
Anyway, the young deer started walking towards me, gradually , nearer and nearer. I crouched down and the kid walked right up to me, I held out my hand and it sniffed it :-D :-D !
Well, I couldn't have washed that day because it didn't like what it smealt and trotted back whence it came and to the safety of the wood.

I was in heaven. What a great thing to happen. I packed in and went home to tell my wife.
She said 'That's nice. Make me a cup of tea please' Well it was about 7am on a Sunday morning !

I have another one about Otters but I wont bore you with that one now...

3896

Cheers

Mark

 

[grumit]

the most obvius tip of all keep your tinder dry or there is the first time we ever spotted perigrin falkons in guernsey that was a special moment


2000

 

[jamesdevine]

Well one of the best stories I have heard is from my brother Brian.

He was attempting a solo hike of the Wicklow way about year or so ago but from the very start everything seemed to be against him. He was soaked by rain, Chilled by wind and snow and his tent blow down on the first night breaking two of the poles.

He woke up tired wet and misrable but he was determend to carry on by the second night he was starting to feel a cold coming on and his feet had started to blister. But still the next morning dispite all the signs he carred on.

About lunch time he crested a hill the sun suddenly came out and a stag walked on to the trail 100 or so yards in front of him. Brain stopped and it stopped. He waited it didn't move 20mins went by so he thought he would go around it. It walked in front of him. He turn to go the other way it did the same.

Finally Brian took the hint he turned back took an escape route down to one of the villages and got transport home. He said the stag was visible for awhile behind him on the hill.

Next year we hope to do it together but we will be listening to mother nature alot more carefully this time.

James

4012

 

[PC2K]

don't walk through a area covered with stinging nettles, the piece of cloth called your trousers will not protect you ! i'm never going to do that again !


# 2222

 

[Tony]

Always take someone that knows more than you do

 

[Schwert]

Best Bushy tip I think I may have is to wear a light weight pair of gaiters in the dry months.

http://********.free.fr/guest/LimmerWalk.jpg

I seldom see folks wear gaiters in the dry parts of the year, and always wonder how they keep the small stones and dirt out of their boots.

Part of the whole styling look eh?

http://********.free.fr/guest/LakeForkSP.jpg

Most of the places I go in the spring to fall months are fairly dry and dusty, and if I fail to add the gaiters I find I pick up a small stone right away.


1983

 

[JakeR]

I was returning from a 3-day walk in South Africa and we were driving down the west coast. We decided to stop about four hours from Cape Town in a game lodge. Through-out the trip i had escaped all animal threats from Rottweilers, Wildebeest, and even Giraffe.
So i lost my guard naturally as i walked through the door of the lodge, only to be attacked by an enormous Parrot . It jumped at me from behind as i walked in, leaving me with a cut on my neck!

1914

Cheers,

Jake

ps...Sargey, this is very generous of you, thanks.

 

[ChrisKavanaugh]

I had to look at this tiny new knife twice before I recognised it. It's Oetsi's! Just think, while the present location of the pyramids still felt the signature of snakes he lay sleeping with it in his hand. What forgotten and meaningless dispute led to his killing, and being killed by men not unlike himself, probably not far removed from a common ancestor? Have we really made any progress? Do we have any more, or less right to walk in our homelands gathering herbs, carrying a simple kit of firemaking, an axe, backpack and SAS smock? The bushcrafter who wins this knife will cut many times with it. Lets hope that person, and all of us when meeting strangers in the wilds uses it to also cut through fear and the inability to share.

 

[BorderReiver]

While I was walking along a hedge on a miserable spring day,a fledgling flew out of the hedge and landed on my chest and hung onto my jumper.It stayed there for two or three minutes and then flew back into the hedge.

That really made my day and I will never forget that two or three minutes.

Number 2520

 

[ditchfield]

Walking 20 miles home barefoot the morning after a night out with nothing but a pocket full of mixed nuts to keep me going. :-D

2798

 

[MagiKelly]

Sort of a bushcraft story but not as cute as the rest.

At the weekend my eldest daughter, Eleanor, managed to ride a bike without stabalisers. As a reward I was carving her a wooden star (cause she is a star). This was the first outing with my frosts carving knife. I had got it as I figured it would be safer than my bushcrafter for whittling. The shorter lenth should make it more controlled. You will be well ahead of me now. The wood popped out of my hand and the knife blade popped in. I am typing this with four stitches in my left hand. This is the first time I have had stitches, sad but I feal like a real man now.

As they say you pay for your learning and not always with money.

1967

 

[Andy]

my first girlfriend getting us lost in some woods with a 12mile walk to get back to my house if we couldn't find where we were going. knowing that I had a knife and a fire steel with me and would be able to keep us warm for the night if we had to stay.

I now intend to carve a love spoon when I get a chance

1985 (the year of my birth)

 

[bushwacker bob]

On the first of many Visits to hay-on-Wye pony sales,about 10 years ago,my missus let me choose the route as she has no navigation skills.The kids were all between 9 and 16 years old (and had been given my spirit of adventure)The kids and I carefully studied the O.S. map and decided the ONLY route went through the black mountains and over Gospel Pass, a place I'm sure many of you are familiar with. I must add at this point that my wife hates heights with a vengance. We were heading North, up the hill. All went well for the 11 or so miles uphill drive, we even stopped about 8 miles up to brew up the KK and exercise or nearly numb legs. AS we reached the top of the watershed the vista opened up to show us half of Wales laid before us. This was accompanied by the loudest ear splitting scream I have ever heard and rapidly followed by a string of hard core expleetives that I didn't know she knew. had the kids wetting themselves and tears running down their faces. The first one to speak said 'bet we're not allowed to go back this way' She now can map read and checks all routes.

3791

 

[martin]

I was out one summer evening photographing Black-Headed Gulls picking St Marks Flies from surface of a pond in the middle of a wood. I had used up the film in two cameras I set off back to my car. I didn't bother putting any more film in them as I was using Kodachrome 64 and the light was starting to fade. As I came out of the wood a Short-eared Owl (my favourite bird) flew past me at head height at around 12ft from me. He turned his head and looked me in the eye, turned it back again and carried on his merry way.
He didn't swerve or miss a wing beat just floated away. There's me jaw on the floor, two cameras round my neck and no film in either of them.
Have you ever been exhilarated and totally p***ed off at the same time?
I have!
488

 

[Kath]

on the floor, two cameras round my neck and no film in either of them.
Have you ever been exhilarated and totally p***ed off at the same time?
I have!

Yeah! It's a special clause in Sod's Law, just for photographers! So many times the opportunity of the perfect shot has been a split second out of my reach. The worst one ever was in the Llanberis pass in Snowdonia a while back, photographing an amazing purple-pink sunset. I put the lens cap back on to pack up and suddenly two apache gunships out of nowhere, fly down until they're practically on top of us, beautifully framed between the mountains against this 100% perfect sky! By the time I close the shutter, all I get is a couple of blades of tail rotor. I can still see that perfect picture in my head ... :roll:

And I was lying in my bivvy the other evening waiting to see some baby wrens that my dad had seen earlier in the day. I had my camera set up on a tri-pod pointing towards a bush - hoping to get a photo, but not really expecting to be able to catch one of them as they are so small and very fast. I'd laid still for ages and ages resting on my elbows and just as I stretched to give my arms a break, one of the babies popped right into the viewfinder! Then it flew off again before I could take the photo. Gutted! Don't know how wildlife photographers do it!

It was a nice evening though...

329

 

[BorderReiver]

Simple pleasures II.

Sitting on the banks of an ice cold stream on a blistering hot day with your feet dangling in the water.

You're ready for many more miles after that.

1745.

 

[PC2K]

After a long hill up thru the mud, with tired legs, to stand still, enjoy the view and have a leak. That was the best view i ever had, while doing that ! :-D

# 1234