On Learning Bushcraft By Doing Bushcraft

   So on Saturday, November 3rd, at the beginning of firearms deer hunting opener here in Minnesota, I met up with my new bushcrafting friend, Sticker, for a few hours of skills practice and some plain old fun just getting out there and exploring. He was wearing his blaze orange cap and I was well, regretting I had forgotten my blaze orange vest. Anyway, Sticker wanted to get another BushclassUSA lesson out of the way and I thought that tackling the "Student Practice for Five Man Made Tinders" would be a good one to try.
   When we first met up at 9 o'clock, he found me working at trying to get a bow drill fire out of some grapevine wood I had harvested for a hearth board. I tried using at first an oak spindle, but found that it was just to hard and drilled thru the grapevine with lots of "shredded" and "stringy" dust. No matter how I tried to finesse it, I could not sustain a ember.
   I then swapped for yet another spindle made of basswood, but still could not get a sustained ember. I so wanted to keep trying different woods, but it was time to get out on our hike and get on to other things.
   Here is a video of our day trip, with Sticker getting his Five Man Made Tinders lit and both of us heating some water and making some charred cloth and charred punk wood.

   On our way back to the vehicles, we searched the Minneopa Creek bed for pieces of chert to use with an improvised steel. Sticker and I tested a few, but found nothing really large enough. I gave him a piece of an old file I had started on, so he has something to use when he gets the chance to search on his own.
   It was a very good bushcraft adventure and he told me that his wife is working on building her bushcraft kit and looking forward to getting back out there and trying a few more things. I know she is going to love it.
    I hope you enjoyed the video my friends and until next time, Happy Exploring.