your first bit of bushcraft

[monkey boy]

hi every one, i was just interested in what was your 1st skill that you did in bushcraft and when you did it?
as someone who is new to bushcrafts, i am sitting hear looking for inspiration on the basic skills i would like to learn . then i thought to myself " I wonder what other people did when they first started".

iv managed to make my own custom stove as my 1st skill, its 3 stove in one ( wood burner, meths, hexi block) and it has a built in billy can and cup, and it the size of an average mug. its my first and proudest project if i knew how to put pics on the forum i would show you it.

anyway the Qs is, what was your first bushcraft skill that you learned and how long ago did you learn it?

 

[Wilderbeast]

when I first started when I was 13 I received a survival tin with a flint and striker, instead of just playing with it like most I deceided I was gonna try and get some stuff lit! That's a good place to start cos it's fun! Experiment with natural and man made tinders, I always use cotten wool for example!

 

[gzornenplat]

I suppose the first thing I did was firebuilding - making bonfires in the garden when my father had got some gardening rubbish that needed burning. If I was 7 or 8, then that's over 40 years ago!

Maybe even before that, I'd have been making 'camps' in the garden - very basic shelter-building.

Ian

 

[novembeRain]

it's a difficult one to answer mate because (and I expect you're just the same) you learn bits through life regardless;

for example, we all know blackberrys are edible and everyone can identify at least one tree.

Or do you mean; When you decided to "be a bushcrafter", what was your first project?

 

[monkey boy]

thats a better way to word the Qs
when you 1st decided to be a bushcrafter what was your 1st project?

 

[novembeRain]

Well, about the first thing I did was to buy a firesteel and learn to use it. Then I made myself a decent knife and got a hammock and tarp - which reminds me, I wanna get out in it again soon!

 

[durulz]

As NovemberRain says, you tend to learn stuff over the years, so it's hard to say.
However, since it's been honed down to 'first thing you learnt when you decided you were a bushcrafter' it was...er...I think it was probably how to rig a tarp/shelter properly. It's the most practical skill. In fact, I think it was probably 'comfort' type skills - keeping warm and comfy at night to get a good night's sleep. Grotty night's sleep after grotty night's sleep is a pretty good way to put yourself off any pasttime.

 

[Graywolf]

It would have to be getting a fire going and keeping it going,to stay warm and to be able to cook on,this was at the age of 13,

 

[Mike Ameling]

thats a better way to word the Qs
when you 1st decided to be a bushcrafter what was your 1st project?

You mean I have to ... decide ... to be one ... before ... I are one?


Growing up on a small farm, so much of what we did most every day as a kid would now be considered "bushcraft" stuff. So I couldn't really tell you what that First thing was - half a century ago. As soon as we could walk/run, we were outside Doing.


But I can understand the question - especially with so many people growing up in town and never getting out into the country and camping. It then becomes a conscious decision to get involved.

So I couldn't really tell you what that "first" thing was - especially given my advanced stages of CRS (can't remember s***).

Does poking my big brother with a stick I sharpened count? Or the pounding he gave me when he finally caught me? Or soaking my arm in the crick to ease the throbbing? Or that brush shelter we made that collapsed on us when the cat jumped up on top? Or when we braided up a rope when our twine string broke on us on our tire swing down at our swimmin-hole on the crick? (three kids at once was just too much - and we never cleared the bank!) Maybe it was ..........

Mikey - that grumpy ol' German blacksmith out in the Hinterlands
- who still hasn't decided to be a ... bushcrafter

 

[Draven]

I'm sorta with Mike on this one, though I didn't move onto a farm (well, croft - close enough ) til I was about six. Then just about everything I did could be construed as Bushcrafty - camping, lighting fires, foraging for grub (not grubs ), shelter building, carving, fishing, archery - et cetera. I suppose that when I really got into Bushcraft in a more deliberate sense, the first thing I did was firestarting with my ferro rod... I tried fire by friction, but my results are mixed

Atb
Pete

 

[Mesquite]

.......- especially given my advanced stages of CRS (can't remember s***)

Mike, if you don't mind I'm going to use that for my tag because it sums up how I am at the moment.

Now what was the original question?

 

[NatG]

built a fire and then went and did some carving, teaches you lots of basic skills.

mighty good fun too

 

[Broch]

Built my first campfire when I was 5 and cooked pastry twists on it!

Made my first saplin bow and set my first trap when I was 8 or 9 (we lived in N.Africa).

Always had a penknife to hand and was always wittling something when I was a kid (we're talking '60s); probably be frowned upon these days!

Camped rough and solo on the Yorkshire moors when I was a teenager and learnt by trial and error - we didn't have the internet or money for books.

But what is really important is I'm still learning. I'm in the hills and woods most days and will usually see something new!

 

[monkey boy]

well its made me wonder,
i mean when i was a kid, i guess i have always bean into bushcrafts, i used to camp in my garden, light a camp fire with my brothers and find branches to make sling shots. my uncle used to own a farm and we would go out rabbit hunting with the dog.
iv must have got cought up with the city life because its only recently that i have wanted to get out there and practice the skills for bushcraft in more detail. i was interested to know where you all started to inspire me on where i could start, but i guess in way i have already started with my bushcraft life and just need to learn something new everyday.

thanx everyone

 

[drewdunnrespect]

going to the BCUK Moot

 

[greeneggcat]

Hello, i think i agree with mike on this too. I never decided to be a bushcrafter, its just every day life for me. I dont live on a farm but i do live in a rural area and living in harmony with the natural world and learning the skills you need to look after your self and the land and animals is just daily life. Still round here you get to knoe older people in the community and they share skills with you that have been handed down for generations. Hunting, fishing, hedge laying, navigation, how to use tools properly, folk lore.

I first remember learning how to make fire safely when i was about 10. As i got older me and my mates would go "walkabout" for a week or so. Sleeping bag, sleeping mat and plastic tarp. A little pen knife and some matches covered in wax. I suppose the first real time of living of the land using our skills was when we snared rabbitts,caught a few fish and lived of those and loads of corn from the fields and nettles!

That was the first time i went out with a definite goal in mind.

P.S i guess its only just recently that all this stuff has got a nifty title!!

Oh the joy of sixweeks holiday!

 

[Mooseman1]

Wow, mmm i guess building a camp when i was 6 or 7 with my buddy's would be the first attemp at bushcraft and all what comes with a camp that being a fire and so on.
We also made really good mud stew with left over tea bags and weeds.

 

[Barney]

My Mam told me a tale once about when I was five, We used to Live across from some fields which had the usual few farms on them, I had been missing "playing out" for most of the day, the tale goes I returned home with a large fresh Goose egg.

I don't remember anything about it whatsoever, but I suppose its foraging and bushcraft.LOL

 

[dangerpie]

The first thing I did was only a few weeks ago, I made the smallest paddle known to man! It could be used by a 4 or 5 inch tall person I've got a bit of string around it and pinned to my wall now!

Pete

 

[ForgeCorvus]

I've always done stuff, made stuff and used stuff.....hell, I've got a scar on my little finger from when I cut it with a knife while carving balsa....at 4

But my first planned bit of bushcraft, lighting fire with F&S, forged the steel, knapped the flint, made charcloth, made a second batch of charcloth (coz the first lot was total crepe ), messed up, asked on here, got help, did it

last year before you ask