This is a how-to on how to make a survival cook stove instead of spending $25 to buy one online. It is a simple projecting that requires an old can, a pair of scissors, and a knife. Be careful and pay attention to his excellent instructions! Watch this video survival training tutorial and learn how to build a cook stove out of a tin can.
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With the season upon us, being in the field is commonplace. In the event of an emergency or in climate weather
Understanding how to create effective wilderness survival shelters is one of the most important outdoor skills. From keeping you protected from the elements to providing a place to rest, wilderness shelters serve a key role in survival situations. Not only do they provide for physical needs, but also help create a sense of home in the wilderness. Though each season and environment presents its own challenges, there are several universal principles for creating effective wilderness survival shelters:
Location
The most important aspect of making wilderness shelters is choosing a good location. A good location is one that 1) provides easy access to ample building materials such as dead sticks, leaves, and grasses; and is 2) away from major hazards such falling branches, pooling water, and insect nests. You also want a location that has a large enough flat area to allow you to lie down and sleep comfortably.
Size
A common mistake when building wilderness survival shelters is to build them too large. Not only does it take more materials, effort, and time to construct, but often ends up being cold due to the amount of space on the inside. Effective wilderness shelters are often small on the inside – just large enough to fit your body to conserve body heat.
Type
The debris hut is an extremely versatile wilderness survival shelter. It can be built in almost any habitat and does not require tools or special equipment. Creating an effective shelter is one of the most important priorities in a survival situation. Most lost persons perish from hypothermia, which may have been easily avoided had they constructed a simple shelter.
The debris hut is constructed using sticks and any available debris, such as leaves, moss, ferns, bark, etc… The key to a good shelter is to insulate yourself from all of the forms of heat loss. Your body can lose heat through direct contact with the ground, wind, and simply radiating off of your body. Therefore, your shelter needs to provide insulation and protection from all of these elements.
A completed debris shelter is like a gigantic water-resistant sleeping bag, insulated by debris and held together by sticks. To construct a debris hut:
1.) Select a location that provides ample building materials (sticks and debris) that is safe from falling branches, pooling water, and other hazards.
2.) Prop up a sturdy 8-foot pole-like branch on a stump or crook of a tree. This ridge pole should be sturdy enough to support your weight. The size of the space underneath the ridge pole should be just large enough to fit your body plus six inches of debris on all sides.
3.) Lay shorter stick along the length of the ridge pole on both sides, leaving room for a doorway. These shorter sticks are called ribbing. The ribbing sticks should touch the ground roughly six inches outside of where your body would lay.
4.) Add smaller sticks on top of and perpendicular to the ribbing sticks. These latticework sticks will keep the outer debris from falling inside the shelter.
5.) Pile large amounts of leafy debris on top, as well as inside. Use your driest, softest debris on the inside closest to your body. When complete, there should be at least three feet of debris piled up on top and on all sides of the shelter.
6.) You can lay more sticks on top to keep the wind from blowing the debris away if it is a windy day.
7.) A door plug can be created by stuffing a shirt full of leaves.
Crawl inside, being sure to burrow into the leaves, so that there is a mattress of leaves insulating you from the ground and on all sides. Though nothing like the warmth of your own bed, a debris hut will allow you to survive the night.
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When we talk about survival, it’s the marquee dangers that carry the conversation: snakebite, gunshot, bear attack. Nobody mentions the microscopic bug in your intestines that causes such severe diarrhea that you die from dehydration, or the plaque that dislodges from an arterial wall to stop your heart. Not a word of the bee sting that induces anaphylactic shock, asphyxiating you as mercilessly as the coils of a python.
Such little things can kill you, but other little things can save your life. In a wilderness emergency, the five pharmaceuticals in the chart at right can be very big medicine. Use it as a guide, and consult with your doctor.
Customize It’s smart to modify your medical kit to your environment and medical history. For example, you don’t need to pack epinephrine if you have no history of allergies. Also, if you’ll hike above 8,000 feet, consult your doctor about getting a prescription for acute mountain sickness. Acetazolamide (Diamox) or dexamethasone (Decadron) tablets can save a life if the victim is promptly evacuated to a lower altitude.
There’s also a pill you might consider adding: a narcotic pain medication such as oxycodone (Percocet) or hydrocodone (Vicodin). If you break a leg, for example, it could mean the difference between hobbling out under your own power or dying where you are. But narcotics must be used with caution. Because they relieve pain by suppressing the brain’s ability to perceive it, they can affect your thinking. If your companion is injured, a pain pill may calm him enough to help you get him to safety. Self-medication is riskier. Only consider using a specific narcotic if you have taken it before and know that it does not affect your decision-making abilities. Otherwise, substitute ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin), which will attack your pain at the site of the injury, leaving your mind clear to help get you out of trouble.
Asprin
For – Chest pain, aches, and to reduce fever.
Dosage – Chew and swallow four 81mg chewable tablets at the onset of chest pain. For aches and fever, follow label directions.
Warning – If you’re allergic to aspirin, other over-the-counter pain relievers can reduce fever, but they don’t thin blood.
Anti-Diarrheal (Imodium A-D)
For – Relief from severe diarrhea that causes dehydration.
Dosage – Swallow two tablets initially, followed by one tablet after each loose bowel movement, not to exceed four tablets daily.
Warning – Consult a doctor before using other antidiarrheals containing bismuth salicylate (Pepto-Bismol).
AntiEmetic (zofran)
For – Severe nausea and vomiting, leading to dehydration.
Dosage – Place one to two 4mg oral dissolving tablets on the tongue every 4 to 6 hours as needed.
Warning – Phenergan suppositories are cheaper, but side effects include twitchy muscles and restlessness; relieve them with Benadryl.
AntiAllergy (Epinephrine supplemented by Benadryl)
For – Allergic reactions to stings or foods, resulting in anaphylactic shock.
Dosage – Inject medicine using an EpiPen. Supplement with Benadryl at the onset of allergy symptoms, 50mg every four to six hours.
Warning – The effects of epinephrine are temporary. Seek medical assistance as quickly as possible.
Antibiotic (Levaquin)
For – Pneumonia; bronchitis; and skin, soft-tissue, sinus, or urinary infections.
Dosage – Take 750mg once per day.
Warning – Levaquin is not recommended for children or teenagers. Check with your doctor for alternatives.
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This is a fantastically easy and cost effective de-scenting option for hunting gear 🙂
Eons before the advent of scent-control activated charcoal hunting suits, a woman working in a Port Perry convenience store taught me how to capture offensive odours. My children suffered from motion sickness, so when I asked her for a scented air spray to mask the sour smell in the car, she suggested filling a perforated coffee can with charcoal. The results far exceeded all expectations.
Hunting season rolled around and the light bulb went on. I could use the same approach to keep hunting gear scent-free. To this day, all my tote boxes of gear and bags of hunting clothes include a perforated container filled with charcoal. When the charcoal becomes saturated and unable to absorb any more odors, I simply refill the container with new charcoal.
Ensure that the container is first cleaned very well and left to air out for a few days to get any residual coffee odor out.
When purchasing charcoal, be advised not to buy any with any extra additives to ease starting or burning…the cleaner the charcoal the better 🙂
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Over the last five years, probably no other “gadget” has changed the way we scout more than the trail camera. For many of us, running trail cameras is a hobby in itself, bringing a whole new excitement to our deer hunting efforts. Much more than just something to pass time, however, running trail cameras can give you a unique insight into the patterns of deer on your hunting properties and really tip the odds in your favor for harvesting a mature whitetail. Let’s take a look at the features to look for when purchasing a trail camera, and how to get the maximum benefit from the camera once you have made your purchase.
As the popularity of these scouting tools has grown, so has the number of companies offering their own line of cameras. The features on these cameras cover such a wide spectrum that choosing the right one for you can be a daunting and sometimes confusing task. While this article isn’t meant to tell you WHICH camera to buy, it IS meant to help you sort through some of the most common differences among the various trail cameras to help you narrow down your search.
RESOLUTION
The resolution of a trail camera is a measure of the image size that the camera creates. So a 5.0 megapixal trail camera will give you a much larger image – and therefore more detail – than one with 3.0 megapixals. Which resolution you choose really depends on how important it is to have a large, crisp image. If you are only concerned with having a general idea of what deer are in the area and when they are traveling through, then about any resolution offered on today’s cameras will suffice. If you want a larger, more detailed image to print off for your friends, then you may want to shoot for something with at least 3.0 megapixels.
BATTERY TYPE & LIFE
In my mind, this is one of the most important considerations when choosing a trail camera, as it will have a huge effect on the cost of maintaining the camera. I have seen some “cheap” trail cameras that burn through six C-sized batteries in a week, and suddenly the “cheap” camera gets VERY expensive! Others claim to operate up to a year on eight AA batteries. So before you go buying a camera based on price alone, keep in mind the battery life, as it may be the most expensive choice you could make in the long run.
TRIGGER SPEED
Another important feature is the trigger speed of the camera, which is simply how long it takes the trail camera to shoot a picture once something has “triggered” the motion sensor. A faster trigger speed can be the difference between having a great shot of that trophy buck and just having a picture of a deer’s butt as it walks out of the frame. If you plan on placing your trail cameras over feeders or a mineral lick, then trigger speed will not be as much of an issue as it would if hung along a trail.
FLASH TYPE
This is almost a moot point, since most trail cameras today have gone to infrared flash. An infrared flash, as opposed to the incandescent flash found standard on most consumer cameras, is less likely to spook deer, uses less battery life, and is less likely to be detected by other humans (i.e. thieves!). While I’ve gotten plenty of pictures of big, mature whitetails with an incandescent flash trail camera, there is no doubt that some animals are spooked by the bright flash. If you can afford the infrared flash, the benefits certainly outweigh the small increase in cost.
OTHER FEATURES
While we have covered some of the most important features to consider when buying a new trail camera, there are many more options that could impact your decision. One of these options is the size of the unit. Size varies greatly amongst trail cameras, and some companies are now producing models that are as small as your hand. Other models go as far as being able to send the pictures it takes directly to your email or cell phone, so the only time you have to check them is when the batteries need replacing. How’s that for convenience?
Before you head out to buy your next trail camera, take a minute to think about how it will be used and what features are most important to you. This will make the task of narrowing down your choices much easier when you start the shopping process.
MAXIMIZING TRAIL CAMERA USE
Once you have waded through all the details, made your decision and laid down your hard earned money on a trail camera, all that’s left is to hang that thing on a tree, right? Let’s take a look at some ways you can be sure you are using your camera to its potential this season and getting the most bang for your buck.
DRAW THEM IN
One of the easiest ways to maximize the effectiveness of your trail camera and insure that you see a good representation of what is in your hunting area is to use some type of attractant to lure the deer into camera range. Probably the most common attractant used across the country is shelled corn – it’s cheap, readily available, and the deer love it. For the purpose of getting trail camera pictures, there is no need to invest in an expensive feeder; just simply spread 100 pounds on the ground in an eight to ten-foot circle area where you want to hang your camera. For safety reasons, do not place the corn in large piles or in an area that holds moisture, as this can result in molding that can cause disease in both deer and turkey. Depending on deer density and other available food sources, this should get you five to ten days worth of pictures. Be patient, as it may take a few days for the deer to really key in on the corn and for you to start getting good pictures. Once they find it, though, it won’t last long!
Before you start dumping corn on your favorite hunting property, check your local game laws regarding baiting. If corn or other “feed” is prohibited, but would still like to attract deer to your camera location, then you may want to consider creating a mineral lick. You can buy one of the many commercial mixes available today, or simply create your own by mixing 50 lbs of trace mineral, 50 lbs of feed mix salt, and 10 lbs of dicalcium phosphate. Break the soil up with a shovel in the area where you want to create your lick and work your mix into the soil. Once the lick gets a good rain on it, it shouldn’t take long for the deer to find it and start paying regular visits.
KEEP IT MOBILE
Unless you are hunting a really small property, or you have the money to invest in lots of trail cameras, then you are going to need to move your cameras around to really get a good idea of what the deer are doing on your hunting property. Don’t get caught in the trap of leaving your camera in the same spot all season. This will not only limit your ability to pattern the deer, but it may keep you from discovering that trophy buck that could be hanging out on the other side of the property!
By experience, two weeks seems to be enough time to get a good representation of what deer are in the area, without your camera spending too much time in one location. You can always bring the camera back to the same spot at a later time, but the idea is to cover as much of your hunting area as possible.
KEEP GOOD RECORDS
Once you have moved your camera around your property and gotten plenty of pictures to look at, the real work has just begun. Now is the time to sort through the pictures, identifying as many unique animals as you can, analyzing what camera sites each deer is visiting and the times that they were there. This should start to give you an idea of the travel patterns on the property, as well as potential stand locations.
This season, make sure you use these tips to get the most out of your trail cameras, and the next picture you get of that monster buck may be the one with you behind him holding his antlers, OR, even that BIG bear 🙂
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A trail camera won’t stumble through a bedding area, leave scent all over a trail, or exaggerate the size of a rack. And it’ll never oversleep. But your perfect little scouting buddy must be chosen wisely and placed carefully if you want to pattern that old, crafty animal you know is around. Here’s how…
The earlier version trail cameras were just a 35mm film point-and-shoot tucked in a weatherproof housing. It snapped a single picture when something triggered the sensor. After retrieving the camera, you ran to the one-hour shop to get the film developed, then thumbed through a week’s worth of pictures. More than once a stack of 36 prints revealed a handful of out-of-focus animals and a couple dozen shots of a wind-whipped brush or a drooping tree branch. That was only a few years ago.
Today, many website boasts several pages of trail cams, and even the cheapest one outperforms the original older ones. They have lenses sharp enough to count the ticks on a deer’s neck, electronic circuit boards so efficient that four AA batteries will run a unit for months, and memory cards that hold thousands of pictures you can download to your computer or delete at the touch of a button. And those are standard features on mid-priced cameras. The high-end ones will send a photo to your cellphone or laptop.
Like everything in the digital age, trail-cam technology has improved, competition has become fierce, and prices have plunged. Still, $200 is plenty of money, and matching a camera with the right features to meet your needs is critical. And even the best camera can’t take spectacular photos of a trophy buck if you don’t set it properly. But it’s not difficult to get started. These are the basics.
Wildlife biologists use trail cams to measure herd densities, buck-to-doe ratios, and the like. Your goals should be simpler: learning about the deer on your property, figuring out where to hunt them, and having fun in the process. You can pinpoint ideal spots before you buy a camera, and the locations you choose can determine what model is best for you. Here are four sites for four different periods.
Time: Late Summer
Site: Mineral lick
Goal: To start an inventory of buck numbers and quality on your property.
Setup: Find a spot with moderate to heavy deer traffic and spade up dirt in a 2-foot circle. Pour in half of an ice-cream pail of stock salt or commercial deer mineral and spade it into the loosened soil. Pour the rest on top.
Tips:
• Establish one or two licks per 80 acres. Allow deer up to a week to find them.
• Situate each lick 10 to 30 feet from a tree for mounting a camera.
• Jam a stick behind the camera’s top edge to point it down toward the lick.
Time: Early Season
Site: Mock scrape
Goal: To find bucks after velvet shed, when they often relocate. Mocks can draw up to 90 percent of the bucks you’ll hunt.
Setup: Rake grass and forest debris 5 feet away from a tree that has a green, overhanging licking branch 5 to 7 feet above the ground. Activate with your own “product” (drink plenty of liquids) or deer urine.
Tips:
• If you are not getting clear shots of a buck, aim the camera at the licking branch. Most bucks will work it with their antlers.
• Establish multiple scrapes in each area and hang cameras only on the most active ones.
Time: Rut
Site: Funnel
Goal: To determine where resident bucks are traveling and whether traveling bucks are in the area.
Setup: Find terrain features that channel buck movement and hang a camera near fresh tracks and rubbing activity. Check camera every three to five days—the rut moves quickly.
Tips:
• Mount camera at a 45-degree angle to the trail. Bucks often move through funnels quickly; a camera set perpendicular to the trail might miss the shot.
• Scuff dirt in front of the camera with a boot. Such a mini mock will often make a moving buck pause and get “shot.”
Time: Late Season
Site: Food source
Goal: To find out where to fill a last-minute tag, and to know which bucks have survived the bulk of the hunting season.
Setup: Scout widely to find the hot food sources in your area, such as waste grainfields and clear-cuts. Place camera within 30 feet of the most heavily trafficked area. Load it with fresh batteries if you hunt in an extremely cold area.
Tips:
• Set up and check cameras at midday to avoid spooking feeding deer.
• If no trees are located near the food source, mount the camera on a tripod and camouflage it with grass or brush.
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Camo cupcakes are surprisingly easy to make considering how cool they look!
To make the cupcake sandwiches, start by mixing up a box of French vanilla cake batter, then divide the batter into four equal parts in four separate bowls. Use Kelly green, brown, and black gel dyes to tint the batter army green, black, brown, and beige (see handy-dandy chart, below).
Once all the batters are mixed up, spoon the batter bit by bit, color by color, into a whoopie pie pan – or to get the waffle effect shown here, use a Wilton ice cream sandwich pan instead.
Bake the cakes for 8 minutes at 350 degrees. After baking, remove each cake and cool on a wire rack, then sandwich them together with frosting that’s been tinted army green. Be sure to check out Debbie’s blog for her shortening-free whoopie pie frosting recipe!
…and yes – you can make these in pink, too! (Adorable!)
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Morels are America’s mushroom, more so than any other. It may be because they’re widespread, they’re easy to identify, and they come up in the spring, giving people a reason to get out and enjoy warm weather after a long winter. Or, it could be they’re popular simply because they taste so good. Morels are so prized they sell for up to $20 a pound in grocery stores in most locations. Here’s a quick guide to finding your own. Please note that although morels are easy to identify, this a hunting guide, not a field guide. If you have any doubt about a mushroom, don’t keep it.
Found in much of the U.S. from late March through May, the morel is our favorite mushroom: plentiful, easy to identify, and delicious. It has colorful names like Molly Moocher, Miracle, Dry land Fish—or, my favorite, Hickory Chickens—but mostly, people just call them “mushrooms” and it’s understood that means “morels.”
Identifying Safe Morels
Here are two morels in the wild. Notice the pits (in the top photo), the distinctive conical shape, and the way the bottom of the cap (the pitted part) is attached near the bottom of the stem. Avoid the half-free morel (bottom photo), which has a longer stem and a cap that attaches near the top, looking like an umbrella. These mushrooms can cause some people to have cramps or other forms of gastrointestinal distress.
Definitely Don’t Eat This
Don’t eat this mushroom, which is a false morel and is mildly toxic. Notice that it lacks the cone shape of the real thing, and has wrinkles, not pits, on its cap.
Where to Look
Morels live in and on the edge of forested areas. Look for ash, aspen, elm, and oak trees, around which morels often grow. Early in the spring as the ground is warming, you’ll find them on south-facing slopes in fairly open areas. As the season progresses, go deeper into the woods and onto north-facing slopes.
Well-drained, sandy soils like this creek bottom make good hunting spots as well. You’ll find the first morels of the year when daytime highs reach the 60s and lows stay above 40 degrees.
Hunting Tactics
Hunting morels is like bass fishing. You cover ground until you find one, then slow down and search the area carefully. Concentrate the rest of your hunt on similar areas, on the theory that you’ve found the “pattern” for the day.
Early-Season Morels
The first morels of the season are small. It takes quite a few to make a meal. The acorn top and walnut husk in the hand above help show scale.
Look For Dead Trees
Morels often grow around dead and dying trees. Old apple orchards make good hunting grounds. Always look around dead elm trees like this one. When a tree reaches the stage of decay where its bark is slipping off its trunk you’ll often find lots of morels around it.
Later in the Season
As the season progresses you find bigger, yellow morels. They taste just as good as the smaller ones, they’re easier to spot, and it doesn’t take as many to feed a hungry hunter.
Soaking morels in water for a couple of hours cleans them and washes out any bugs living inside the hollow mushrooms. Some people slice them in half lengthwise for a more thorough cleaning.
Here you see morels sautéing in butter. Cooking in butter brings out their rich, almost meaty flavor. If I don’t have very many, I like to scramble them into eggs with some tarragon. Batter-fried morels are also very popular.
The bounty of spring, fork-ready. Serve with a breast of wild turkey or some fish fillets and it’s totally awesome!
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Think organic deodorant isn’t for you? It’s actually perfect for deer hunters, because it battles sweat and odor, and gives off no unnatural scent of its own. Buy ingredients in bulk and make three 2.5-ounce sticks—a season’s worth—for only $2 each. Here’s how.
What You’ll Need
● 1⁄4 cup coconut oil
● 2 Tbsp. shea butter
● 2 Tbsp. cocoa butter
● 1⁄4 cup beeswax pellets
● 3 capsules 400-IU Vitamin E
● 21⁄4 tsp. baking soda
● 1⁄4 cup organic arrowroot powder
● 2 capsules Vitacost Probiotic 10-20
The Brew
Heat a small saucepan of water and remove just before boiling. Combine coconut oil, shea butter, cocoa butter, and beeswax pellets in a mason jar, and place it in the hot water, double-boiler style, until melted. (Warning: If you’ve ever had a severe reaction to a bee sting, don’t handle beeswax.) Leave the jar in the bath and add the Vitamin E capsules, baking soda, arrowroot powder, and probiotics, which introduce good bacteria into the skin to battle the bad stuff that causes BO Stir gently until mixed well.
The Cure
Pour the warm mixture into empty, used stick-deodorant containers, new containers (sold online), or lined muffin tins, and let harden overnight. Then, perform your own sniff test: The only scent noticed is a trace of beeswax.
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ON TARGET in CANADA 