Things you wish you'd never said!

[mick91]

So after a few (okay more than a few) pints of plumb porter with my bushcrafting buddy, our respective other halves, and a friend in the local. The subject of bushcraft and survival skills came up. After some time and my old addage of "the most important thing you can carry is knowledge" we may have agreed to a no kit weekend!
The stipulations of the trip are. We take nothing we would not carry day to day, and are not allowed even our EDCs IE knives fire kits etc. We are not allowed "specialist" or adapted clothing, as SWMBO pointed out my boots are laced with paracord and zip pulls on my outdoor cloting are generally are made from ferrocium.
It's going to be done locally, in the small area of woodland on a farm I shoot on nearby, who has agreed to allow us to build shelters,light fires, forage and hunt/trap.
I'm sort of wishing that we had negotiated a machete between us, but this is the situation at hand!
Anyone who knows me knows I love a challenge, and Damien and I are both fairly experienced, but this is quite the challenge!
One of my main problems is going to be boiling water, we're no strangers to natural shelters lighting friction fires or finding food. But as an added challenge we are looking to avoid just scavenging for a tin can to cook and boil up in.
Obviously everything will be kept legal, so even as 2 competent archers, no shooting at crows with improvised bows! Any animals we manage to trap will be dispatched humanely and will not set traps that are none selective (risking catching none quarry animals)
We will have a lighter between us as we are both unfortunately smokers but it will NOT be used in any way to light a fire. We will both have mobiles in case of emergency and there's full network cover in the area, and the farm house is a mere 200yds from the chosen spot, the farmer has very kindly left me a key as a just in case so safety is not an issue.
So guys and girls answers on a postcard please any suggestions for wood cutting and water boiling, for all I know that stream is pottable (have drank from it more than once while shooting in the heat) we are treating it as contaminated.
So to recap, equipment is: t-shirts, jeans, trainers (god I'll miss my decent boots fast) and our wits and accumulated skills.
Anyone else here done something similar?

 

[mick91]

NB. Due to legal restrictions instead of making and setting traps from natural materials or setting deadfalls etc. we will be cheating a little by using standard store bought none locking wire snares. Admittedly in a survival situation, I would gladly make a snare or trap and have learned to do so. But like I said we are keeping it legal.

Sent from my LG-D855 using Tapatalk

 

[sunndog]

Suggestions for cutting wood? Its gonna be the old drag and draught mate

 

[mick91]

Suggestions for cutting wood? Its gonna be the old drag and draught mate

Dare I even ask? Lol. I've even looked into stone axe and wedge making. But that looks like savage amusement for little return!

 

[sunndog]

You drag over whatever wood you can find for a shelter and fire, then sit in a draught all night.....at least you've got body heat to share


Any chance of making containers so you can boil with hot rocks?

you could always sneak a nice big lump of dead birch tree and some flint on to the site to "find" during the challenge

 

[mick91]

You drag over whatever wood you can find for a shelter and fire, then sit in a draught all night.....at least you've got body heat to share


Any chance of making containers so you can boil with hot rocks?

you could always sneak a nice big lump of dead birch tree and some flint on to the site to "find" during the challenge

That did make me laugh I have to admit!
Never thought of dropping hot rocks into the water actually that's very probably becoming my method!
There's plenty of birch in the little wood and I would wager some flint containing rocks in the stream bed.
If only I can convince people that I usually make my shirts out of tin foil and bacon then I'm sorted. Or better still that the little .410 is actually a watch!

 

[mick91]

After a short preliminary look at the spot that's been chosen for my no kit weekend there looks to be a half reasonable crop of gooseberries and cherries kicking around. As well as a few rabbit runs that look well used. The stream seems to have plenty of suitable rocks to improvise something sharp. Might just be ok! And I've resisted the temptation to stash an axe!

 

[jmagee]

I think not allowing your EDC is harsh.

 

[mick91]

I think not allowing your EDC is harsh.

Not allowing my EDC is harsh, not allowing me waterproofs is plain old sadistic!

 

[mick91]

Had a practice of friction fire making without home made tinder again today, I'm a little rusty but managed quite nicely. Now the decision is to sacrifice a shoe lace to make a now drill or do I brush up on the fire plough! And my stone/flint knapping skills leave a lot to be desired. 2 weeks to go so some time to practice

 

[Fraxinus]

If the birch bark is not good enough for container making you could hollow out a log using coals from your fire to make a bowl.
"How do I cut the log? " burn it through on said fire ;-)
(someone is bound to ask )
Rob.

 

[Dave]

I think Im getting to old to be a Glutton for punishment. But good luck Mick!

 

[mick91]

If the birch bark is not good enough for container making you could hollow out a log using coals from your fire to make a bowl.
"How do I cut the log? " burn it through on said fire ;-)
(someone is bound to ask )
Rob.

Indeed that's an option! It's the little things that are going to be difficult, like splitting a hearth board with no blades etc. Should be fun though in a weird way I'm looking forward to it

 

[mick91]

I think Im getting to old to be a Glutton for punishment. But good luck Mick!

Cheers Dave. Never know man might find that it's not too bad. Failing that it's going to give me a new found appreciation for nylon hammocks and PU tarps!