Christmas, Bow-Less, In Spain

Happy Crimbo blog people, sorry for the dearth of posts lately I've been - er, waiting for the postman.

Let me explain: After an intensive period of putting a shift in at The Goblin King's place I was all set to spend Crimbo with my kids and fly out to Spain for the NewYear and Kings Day.
Oh the schemes I cooked up, the plans I had! It was all going SO well. 

"If you want to make the hunting goddess laugh - post your plans online"

Ancient Spanish Proverb

"What are you doing for Crimbo SBW?" 

"I shall be practicing archery by day, and writing my memoirs by night"

"Really where?"

"Elfa has borrowed a house in the sierra, its going to be great, might even be some Conejo"

"Is that a euphemism?"

"With a bit of luck"

It was all going so well: Gave up smoking and after a year had saved a small fortune, Made peace with Ex Mrs SBW so spending crimbo with her and the kids. With some of the money saved I ordered a hopefullly badass compound bow, sorted shipping in plenty of time for the bow to be delivered to Elfa in Spain before I even get there. So far so excellent!

He said.

Ex Mrs SBW's brother dumps his girlfriend, again, but keeps her and her kids tickets, so Ex Mrs SBW gets a free Christmas skiing holiday for her and our kids. 

Christmas Day, all watching Doctor Who together, now cancelled.

I book a much more expensive flight but agree to travel to airport with Ex and Kids-some money recouped. Fail to check temperature in Spain before packing and in doing so inadvertantly provoke the mockery of the gods. 

I set off to meet the kids feeling pretty sure all the grief is behind me. On arrival Bushwacker Jnr announces he feels tricked and is very concerned that a 'proper' christmas lunch won't be available. The Littlest Bushwacker hates her mum, but ever the pragmatist, will put that to one side for skiing. The Ex Mrs SBW has gone to bed in a huff. So far so Christmasy.

At the airport I see the amusing sight of my former brother-in-law with his moody sister on one side,  his moody now on-again girlfriend on the other side and assorted offspring standing around awkwardly. "Cheerio! Have Fun!!"

It's bloody freezing in Spain, I'm totally inappropriately dressed for it. Elfa's plan to order furniture and have it assembled by her brothers has come to nowt. We must go to Ikea NOW. We have traditional massive row in Ikea's carpark. Much to the amusement of smirking Spanish brother in-law.

I don't know if you know this, it came as a surprise to me, but ikea's furniture is perishable. Exactly who knew! So it has to be assembled, as soon as its through the door. The very second. Still I keep telling myself, my bow will arrive in the morning and I'll be free to play with it.

Get up and check tracking. Finland's rigorously efficient postal service email me to announce my box left their jurisdiction slightly ahead of schedule. Defending silence from the Spanish postal service. Lots more furniture assembly later. More defending silence from the Spanish postal service and no sign of the postie. 

Elfa's family home is a converted office block, it was built as a showroom and office space in a hot country. No insulation, no central heating. Acres of tiles, cold hard tiles. Half of the floor is fully decorated, furnished and quite warm. We live in the other bit. We huddle around a propane fire. Me, forlornly checking my email, Elfa keeping up a running commentary of things that may or may not have happened to my bow in the post.

The Spanish posties have stolen your bow, with this Crisis they are so desperate they wanna hunt christmas lunch with it, then when they found out how early you get up, they sold it for a few drinks

Drinks, Food, more Drinks. Spain can often seem like a never ending meal. Even their junk food is delicious. Drinks are about 30% of the prices in London. We stagger from bar to relatives house to bar. Since I gave up Elfa is now smoking for two so we sit outside, patio heaters are apparently illegal in Spain, its freezing. There is no sign of my bow.

Christmas morning dawns; the post won't come today, there is nothing more I can do. I give Elfa her prezzie, she tells me she didn't get me one. A relative has given us Christmas Night in a Luxury 4 Star hotel. Elfa briefly tries to claim its a present to me from her. Happy Christmas.

We set off for the four star resort. The drive takes us a few hundred meters closer to sea level, its a bit warmer. The Crisis means there are lots of abandoned building sites where half finished hotels are crumbling. We see one that looks open or at least recently open, we rock up and its our place. Four Stars mi culo! This is the last resort.  It's terrible and even colder than the house/office block, the bed is like a box of rocks and the bed's covers are for a Mediterranean summer's night. There is very little hot water. The promised 'Fine Dining' is available only at the vending machine. In fact 'things' in general are only available at the vending machine.  Wifi is sporadic at best. I keep checking the tracking. There is no sign of my bow. 

Back at the casa I'm now reduced to plaintive emailing. The fella I bought the bow from in Finland is willing enough but unable to do anything to help. No tracking information is available, its really cold. We walk to the post office - to warm up as much as anything - its shut, not just for the day but forever. There is no sign of my bow. We've still not left for the house in the sierra, I seem to have gained an enormous amount of weight, or so Elfa persists in telling me. Her mockery the only thing punctuating the deafening silence from the Spanish postal service. Did I mention There is no sign of my bow. 

Don't worry, I'd be laughing if this were happening to you. I hope you're all warm and well fed and that at least the present you bought yourself was delivered and as you'd want it. 

Your Pal

SBW

For The Daydreamers

Can anyone guess what your pal SBW has been thinking about this week? Its been paid for but it won't arrive for a couple of weeks....

In the meantime here's a very stylish video by Donnie Vincent if it doesn't fire your dreams, can I suggest something a little more sedate?

Keep well peeps, I've not forgotten you or abandoned the blog, just been busy
Your pal
SBW

3D Archery with Stickman

Ages ago I got an invite to spend the afternoon shooting recurve bows in an Essex woodland, and when diary's and childcare and work all worked out: what an afternoon it was. I journeyed to Romford; an easterly commuter town in Essex, where the girls are bright orange, and the Louis Vuitton handbags are made in China, to meet with my new friend Stickman from the British Bowhunters forum for a lesson in instinctive archery. And what a revelation it was. My previous efforts at target archery were less than distinguished. All that squinting at a pin wasn't making things easy and the lesssons were on a one-shot-and-get-to-the-back-of-the-line basis which didn't help either. I knew I wanted to learn to shoot 'instinctive', I just wasn't sure how I was going to. 

Stickman hails from the Kimberly - the diamond fields of South Africa - and has hunted most things since he was a lad, like many of the more experienced hunters I've met, his passion for the process of hunting itself had led him to traditional bowhunting; where the chance to take a shot is 
hard won, without the surgical strike at 100+ yards of a hunting rifle, field-craft and even dumb-luck become big parts of the contest. At these distances the chance to even draw the bow in the presence of an animal a major achievement. This is hunting at 15 yards or less. Hunting on an unlevelled playing field.

Note: really neat wrist guard with sheath for his field scalpel

One tale that he regaled me with illustrates just how much skill (and luck) is involved in hunting bare-bow. Stickman had been hiding in a blind near a water-hole when a 'Big Impala Ram' in fact the big-impala-ram-of-a-lifetime, had approached the water-hole coming within 15 yards (i.e 45 feet) of the blind Stickman was hiding in. Having been practising to the tune of 500 arrows a day in preparation for the hunt, he drew back and loosed an arrow. Only to be String Jumped. 

The arrow was travelling at approx. 200 feet per second, lets call the distance 50 feet to make it easier, so in a QUATER of a second the Big Impala Ram was able to sense the movement of the arrow and spring into the air letting the arrow pass harmlessly underneath him.  It gets better - if we call the speed of sound 1200 feet per second that means that the sound of the bowstring got to the Big Impala Ram in a twelfth of a second. When the sound of the string arrived at the Big Impala Ram in the next sixth of a second the  Big Impala Ram had taken flight. literally.

Stickman had invited me to the woods his archery club use for 3D archery - instead of the circles on an straw board the targets are various prey animals, there is a tradition of throwing in a couple of humorous examples.


My first shot was a master stroke of beginners luck, Stickbow was impressed, I was double impressed!! Obviously once I started thinking about what I was doing I was back to my usual lummox self. Where I would have remained if it hadn't been for the light touch of Stickman's coaching. In between the banter and storytelling he paitently coached me to - actually hitting the target! Both eyes open, none of that squinting and aiming malarky, just launching arrows that either grazed the target or pounded into it! Yea instinctive archery!

"Call for Mr O'Shay, a Mr Rick O'Shay?"

Ok There were a few that went astray. Although sometimes the arrow, seemingly by magic. regains its trajectory, usually it's found embedded in a tree. If you're lucky. 

A large part of the sport is the time spent searching for lost arrows, not always successfully. Opps! Sorry Stickman.

Any prey animal taken with a stick bow is a trophy - even this plastic fella

I was defiantly well taken with Bare Bow and even felt the first throbbing certainty, that tickle of obsession yet to come, archery is a lot like casting when fishing. The first time you cast perfectly you're hooked, the simple elegance of the motion, the economy of movement and the cybernetic connection between spring and soul. Launched by love and magic the arrow seems to fly on the wings of intention. Once.

By which time you've started to think about how you did it and the next arrow goes at a right angle to you, before burying itself in a pile of leaves.When fishing: the line is now tightly bound around the reel so you cant even turn the handle. But despite the set back, you've been tantalised, you've seen the magic, by then you know, you must, you will. If you could just send another few hours, if I could just spent another few pounds, stay up for just one more hour surfing for infomation. Whoa...

...whoa, you like to think that you’re immune to the stuff, oh Yeah it’s closer to the truth to say you can’t get enough, you know you’re gonna have to face it, you’re addicted to [Insert latest obsession here]

might as well face it, you’re addicted to [fishing, archery, deer, blogging, the american girl - delete as appropriate]

So many hobbies, so few pounds to spend on them. Such is suburban life dear reader.

Big shout to Stickman - for a great afternoon - One of the Good Guys

Your pal

SBW

Note to self: my victory over The Northern Monkey in last years archery competion needs mentioning again

On This Day 1916: Ishi Died

In europe we have Otzi the iceman, we have a few artifacts, some of his EDC if you will, but the languages we speak were not due to be heard for thousands of years after his death. He's a Polaroid, a snap shot, just one frame (in not too sharp a focus) of a world we can only imagine and even then imagine only through the distorting lens of a viewpoint far far removed from anything Otzi would have known. His world was long gone before ours was born or thought of. We'll never know the date of his death, or the shape of his life, we just get a tantalizing glimpse into the day he died on. A glimpse that asks a lot of questions and answers very few.

On the other side of the pond there's an actual date, a day and a time when the last stone age man in North America saw the door close behind him, and breathed his last. His friends put some of his tools in a simple bag by his side, and committed his empty body to the flame. I like to think of his spirit going to the happy hunting ground. Wherever he went, his body turned to ash and his brain went to medical school.

A lot of things flicker to life in my imagination, but very few have consumed me like Saxton Pope's book about his friendship with Ishi the last of the Yahi people - the last north american to live in the stone age - literally a time traveler who came to the 20th century.

A victim of genocide, born on the run from an encroaching culture that was totally alien to the frame of reference he'd have known. Fresh out of options, he turned to face the very thing he'd run from his whole life, and one afternoon bewildered and exhausted Ishi stepped out of the stone age and into the 20th century.  He was imprisoned, poked, prodded, and gawped at. Then at last, protected, befriended and given the welcome such a stranger deserves.

None of us can ever know the 'real' Ishi. We can only project the Ishi that we wish for onto his legend, but that probably makes him all the more special. I've read Pope's book several times now. It's not a very well written book, its in the style we might now call 'blogging' (it slips from history, to how-to, to eulogy, to call to adventure), but there's something about it. Something beguiling. I sometimes feel it's the book I'd been waiting to read. Pope and Ishi's friendship is a reflecting pool can I see myself in, and if you ever played at Robin Hood with two sticks and a shoelace you too may hear the call Pope was so compelled by.

At the end, against the express wishes of those who knew and cared for him, his brain was taken to medical school with what intent we can only speculate.  Ishi's legacy hasn't come from that bag of cells and inanimate neural pathways, it's come from the fire he lit in the hearts and minds of Dr Saxton Pope and Art Young.

If I couldn't have my hearts desire and become more like Ishi, I'd settle for being more like Saxton Pope and consider it a life well spent.

How you treated that stranger might just be how you really are.

SBW
PS: "Ishi felt Western society was essentially silly - the only things that impressed him were matches and glue,"  

A bit more about Ishi

New School Hunting Video

A couple of days ago a new face joined the google blog followers function (see team bushwacker on the right) and i spent an enjoyable couple of hours checking out their site' Wild Works'. Intrigued i popped the site admin, Kyle, an email and a conversation started.

I was born and raised in small town Texas. My home town has less than 3,000 people in it and hunting is a major part of the community. I grew up with a gun and bow in my hand and have always loved putting food on the table! If something seperates this team from all the other hunting shows and groups, it is,that what we are doing is not a hobby that we pursue on the weekends, it is our everyday. We have members on the team from many countries, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, Cananda, and several from the US. Our goal is to bring hunting back to what it is really all about, the chase and the challenge, and to create our wildworks to share with others.....
We do all of our own hunting,filming, and editing. We use consumer cameras and we only hunt free ranging animals by fair chase. We are not interested in high fence hunting in the least. The logical end to a hunt is the kill, but there are many facets involved in our chosen past time and we hope they all shine through in our WildWorks

The video above is how I'd always imagined Elk hunting, with a bow, on foot and with loads of close-but-no-cigar moments. A true test of guile and sneakability, where in the words of Rifle Yoda 'you only get to take a shot if he makes a mistake'. If that's not hard enough for you, the Wild Works crew are self filming while hunting. What appeals to me is that the video is about the experience, there's no 'kill shot' no whooping' high fives, as ever swimming against the tide produces the more interesting work.

In this video Kyle shows some stone points he's found and talks about his connection with the food chain through hunting.

Professional as the videos are, this one proves that things don't always go according to plan.

My guess is we'll be hearing more from Kyle and the crew as 2010 develops.

Your pal
The Bushwacker.

European Bowhunting

As the about me section for this blog says I'm going to turn myself into a bow weilding elk hunter I can't blame any of you who are tapping your fingers and demanding "enough of the kit collecting and distractions, get with the hunting already".

So in the interests of getting on with it I thought a review of the european options for the hunting toxophile would be in order. As you can see from the map, bowhunting is really starting to gain popularity in southern Europe, the summer before last the French hunting magazines all had bowhunting sections and CHJ has found severl Italian bowhunting sites. The European Bowhunting Association has some useful information, if you're thinking of making the trip.

I'm off to Italy in a few days to do some outdoor plumbing and some scouting for big pigs in a chestnut forest.

Frankly any pointers would be much appreciated

Your Pal

SBW

If You Stand Very Very Still...

You might just get close enough to .....

Big shout to Chad who found this one

More soon
SBW

S'now Its time For Archery

Snow had closed my course down for two days. so we had an afternoon free. we put the time to good use. Archery! Posture,upper body strength, breathing, aim, release and the bow all need some work.

The Northern Monkey had scouted out some land and on the walk in we found a dumped black plastic air vent. Target!

TNM shot ever tighter groups, while I couldn't even manage a loose association.
Luckily a sudden fart of wind was sent by the coyote god, and one of my arrows smashed the target!

TNM retorted with a 'tree splitter'.But still NIL POINT!

Showing another great example of th sheer dumb luck that has sustained me so far, another field point juddered home. Here you see me explaining to The Northern Monkey the traditional 'salute' used to remind the french that our archery skills are superior to theirs.

The bow is way too big for me,[I cant remember my draw from my days at the archery class'].

It's much more TNM's size so I shan't morn leaving it with him. After all, he needs the practice!!

Keep Warm
SBW

Two New Blogs - Well New To Me

Hiya

The feedback from my OBS interview has exposed me to a couple of blogs that are well worth a mention.

First Rabid Outdoorsman's The Maine Outdoorsman
"Greetings fellow outdoor fanatics and welcome to the Maine Outdoorsman Blog. I started this blog as a way to share some of my favorite hunting, fishing and outdoor experiences with the general public. My goal for this endeavor, is to work to improve my writing skills so positive comments and suggestions are much appreciated. With that said please sit back, make yourselves comfortable and join me in conversing about a few of my favorite outdoor memories."

And Fish Hunter's Hunting Knive
"When you are in a position to indulge in it, hunting is one of the activities that can provide both a great deal of physical activity and bragging rights, not to mention an impressive amount meat and a truly epic trophy at the end."

Both struck a chord with me, hope you'll enjoy them too

Thanks for reading - leave a comment or two
SBW

The Elusive Obvious Pt1

There's a fortune at stake, there are countless review sites and everyone has an opinion (or two). What to wear outdoors?

As regular readers will know I'm quite a fan of The Gun Nut. My family and friends sneer when I recommend this blog, but whether you’re interested in firearms or not, David E Petzal has a voice that leaps of the page and an understanding of his audience that anyone could learn from. A bit more worldly than many of his fans, (as judged by reading the comments section) he never acknowledges his expertise, choosing instead to portray himself as weary traveller, incidentally dispensing knowledge while dismayed at the way the worlds going.

On the Gun Nut Blog this week David E Petzal talks about the clothes needed take a hike and THEN to sit still for long periods of time during a hunt.

In the comments section I saw this pearl of wisdom

"The quickest way to figure out how to deal with all that is to go to the nearest construction site nearest to the area you want to hunt and see what the guys who are out in it all day long trying to do their job wear. It's not that different from the needs for hunting. They work, they sweat. They can't quit and run home every time they step in a puddle, get sweaty or it rains a little." - Jack Ryan

If you've got any tips for clothes that protect you from the worst of it without costing the earth - post a comment and let us know
Cheers
SBW

SBW interviewed!

I was recently approached by the folks who run a website dedicated to helping you find presents for people who are a problem to buy presents for. They asked me to answer some interview questions. Obviously as the worlds leading authority on my own opinion I jumped at the chance!

"As we're heading into Father's Day, it's time to have a man back on interview of the week, as the women have been dominating for a while. The Suburban Bushwacker blog is on Dr T's feed list, and SBW is a man with a mission and a passion. You might not agree with it, but it makes great reading, and, as with the answers we got to our questions, really well argued."

From Fat Boy to Elk Hunter.

It's a long journey between the rotund desk jockey my family and friends see me as, and the super fit backwoodsman Elk hunter I really am. My blog is about all the things I do outdoors and all the stuff I buy to do those things. Hopefully it’s also about the stuff I learn on the way to the hunting and fishing adventures of my dreams.

What do you do for a living?

I work in the sales industry, usually as a sales trainer.

I like to make out that hunting and fishing are my hobbies, but really it’s blogging and buying kit.

Owing to the positive feedback I’ve had from the blog I now have delusions of grandeur and see the blog as a starting point of an internationally acclaimed (and syndicated) newspaper column of the same name. Brad Pitt will be playing me in the movie.

Why did you start blogging about this topic?

There are plenty of self-proclaimed experts blogging away out there. A lot of them are a bit po-faced for my taste.  My angle is: while i may not be able to give expert advise i doubt you’ll meet anyone quite as enthusiastic as me.

The main reasons are:

1.The journey would be more achievable if i kept a record of it, Keeping a record would keep me honest about how much i was actually doing to achieve my goals.

2.As I’ve started reviewing equipment it would be good to have a second opinion after a few months of using the kit. Most people seem to have a box of junk they never use which they bought having read a review written by someone who either, only had the thing for an afternoon, or worked on a magazine that was funded by the manufacturer advertising.

How long have you been working on this blog?

I’m a relative newcomer to blogging I started this blog in may of this year (07)

How many visitors does your blog get per day?

I’ve not put a counter on it yet, but 111 people have now viewed my profile and a few people have emailed to say nice things.

Does your blog have an income? Which ways have worked, which haven't? How succesful has it been?

I do plan to put ads on my blog, if only so i can claim its a business to the tax office and claim back all the money i spend on kit!

What kind of person would be interested in this type of blog?

Irreverent bushcrafters, hunters, fisherfolk, lovers of wild foods, and gear freaks.

When i imagine my reader he’s a guy who’d love to get out more but the house, the job, and family life always seem to come first, he maybe a desk jockey at first sight, but really he’s an adventurer! It could be I’m just talking to myself!!

About how much time do you spend blogging per day?

I aim to post at least every other day, sometimes the average drops well bellow this. Most of my posts are written in one sitting. Due to work, getting the kids off to bed, ect i usually spend no more than an hour on a post.

Tell us why we should subscribe to your blog.

For the same reason as every other blog you subscribe to. It was funny and thought provoking the first time you read it, so you put it in your RSS feeds. And now it only takes a second to see if you’re interested in the latest offering. More often than not it’s quite funny so you’ll keep looking in case you miss a good ‘un.

What advice do you have for other bloggers trying to succeed?

The same advice my writing coach gave me

“Only one thing separates writers from non-writers. It’s called writing”.

What are your favorite blogs? (List at least 3 urls)

http://americanbushman.blogspot.com/ 

the American bushman comes across as such a nice guy, and we have similar interests.

http://www.urbanscout.org/\

The trials and tribulations of this lad’s life are life affirming. He’s not happy and he’s doing something about it. Gotta love a tryer.

http://www.thegreenwichphantom.co.uk/

The phantom can really write and he’s very knowledgeable about the area we both live

in.

http://www.fishing-blog.co.uk/

Thanks for reading, post a comment or two
SBW

Guns,Bows,Trebuchet and Pumpkins

flyingpumpkinsthemovie.com

C'mon what's not to like?
SBW

Happy Blogday To Me! Bushwackin’ 365

Suddenly it’s time to do one of those ‘that was the year that was’ reviews that TV stations use as cheap programming on new years eve. A whole year has passed since I formalised my journey and started telling all of you about it. I’ve not been deluged with animal rights nutters telling me I’m a cheerleader for the forces of darkness, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the number of people who have told me that they couldn’t do it themselves but understand why the wild food journey is so important to me. First things first, I’m always a bit amazed that you are actually reading this, and enduringly grateful to those of you who could be bothered to chip in with the odd comment, it’s made keeping the blog going a lot easier. The year has been full of soaring highs and crushing lows in my other life, the one I lead outside of the adventure in this blog, and the blog has helped. It’s given me a focus outside of work, a perspective, a purpose. The other positive output has been a new found confidence in my writing. Like it or loathe it, mock my spelling and poor grasp of grammar, but there’s no one else writing anything quite like it, it’s mine and, there are a growing number of posts that I’ve started to feel quite pleased with.
I’ve done errhm ‘some’ work on the skill set that my hunt will require, re awakened the kit fetishist within, took a bit more exercise (ok babe a very little bit – but I have dug the vegetable patch over!), expanded the range of my reading, learned the basics of bare bow archery, hunted rabbits with ferrets, used a shotgun to turn flying ashtrays to dust, and cast my first fly at a wild trout. My compound bow still languishes in the garage, certainly not unloved, but unused. I’ve found an archery club I could attend but they are stickbow only as their secretary told me her butt wasn’t big enough. I was confused too until I remembered that a butt is the traditional name for an archery practice ground!

Lessons in feral failure?
When I stared fishing I learned three knots, and for some reason my brain has only assigned enough memory to its knots database to remember those three, I can tie them in the dark, in the rain, wherever. Regular readers will have noticed that while I confidently announced that I would be making my own set of purse nets for rabbiting, so far all I have to show for my efforts are some tangled pieces of string – described in the word[s] of one observer as ‘shocking’.

Tanning Hides?
Firstly I’d like to try to shift the blame onto Mrs SBW – she found my rabbit brains in the freezer and chucked them out. So that was brain tanning out the window. Sadly the rest of the failings are mine. Tanning hides is harder than it looks, one rabbit skin is now hard enough to make a knife sheath from and the other two are still hiding from Mrs SBW in the freezer.

Fitness and Mass Reduction?
I’m too embarrassed to talk about it; there is only one worthwhile prescription.
Eat less and do more

The wild food highlights were;
Bunnies ferreted out by James’s little helpers. The legs cooked with tomato, paprika, and black olives. The loins rolled into spirals, poached, browned and served on top of large slices of black pudding (traditional English blood sausage).
A haunch of Muntjac; which turns out to be the perfect size of eating deer for suburban dads on portion control, skinny bints and picky city kids. I casseroled mine in a gravy of shallots, plonk red and Hoisin sauce. Yummy.
GMT Chestnuts (harvested in Greenwich park) eaten with pancetta and leeks in a cream sauce.
Road kill Pheasant – Although I haven’t had the opportunity to either attend a traditional English pheasant shoot (which looks from the outside like a sort of real life video game shoot ‘em up - for £1000 ($2000) a day!!) or join a walked up woodland hunt. I have been keeping my eyes open and have been pleasantly surprised by the number of daft birds who made the mistake of playing in the traffic. With delicious consequences!

As with every ‘that was the year that was’ round up there are of course some awards to dish out.

On the kit collecting front the Best in Test award is shared by the
Fallkniven F1, covered in scratches, sharpened, blunted and sharpened again, a genuinely bombproof confidence inspiring tool.
The Bahco Laplander Saw: which has proved itself to be thoroughly deserving of its ‘bushcraft’ reputation - lightweight, cheap and a very, very efficient cutting tool. [Apparently there are; hardwood, softwood, and greenwood blades available, but the card mine came attached to made no mention of which blade it’s equipped with. It has happily cut all three.

If there were a category for best gadget (ok there is) it would have to go the spyderco Sharpmaker. It does what it says on the tin.

The Bushwacker Style Award
Rogue for their great hats – described by one observer as ‘Like and outdoor Bez hat, way cool’

Services To Bushwacking – furthering the cause.

In the afield category
James Marchington – for teaching me to hunt with ferrets

In the a-stream category
Jeremiah Quinn – for his inspirational fly fishing lesson

In the best blog comment category
Mungo – Butcher, Bushcrafter, Project manager and Surrealist.

Thanks for reading, stick with it – it gets better!
Your pal
SBW

Easily Forage-able Resources. Online And In The Suburban Bush.

Every tribe or social grouping has its rituals and catchphrases, which let members identify each other, and let outsiders know they are outsiders. Sometimes these mantras set a frame of context, making sense of a situation and sometimes they serve to remind you how to do the business in challenging circumstances.

For as long as there’s been a fireside to return to at night, there’s been bush-lore passed on verbally by the light of the campfire, and now there’s the Bushcraft-Blog-Law. The law that dictates how a new tradition develops its tried and tested formulas, conventions and clichés. Leaving aside (for the moment), the obligatory pictures of knives, axes and hats that most of has used as symbols for our adventures. Every bushcraft blog must also pass on some timeless wisdom:
‘The-more-you-know-the-less-you-carry’.
Usually attributed to that wise old man of the hills Mors Kochanski.
Or if you wanted to ‘freshen up’ your pitch (or create your own trademark) it could
‘Make-up-for-what-you-don’t-have-with-what-you-do-know.’

As a culture develops there are also powerful totems which when invoked through stories and songs will provide insight and inspiration. Some people will find themselves wondering what Ray Mears would do. The wit and whiles of the coyote have served as a signpost to thinking beyond the expected in many North American cultures. In South Dakota I often wondered how BoB would have approached the task in hand and by emulating him was able to pass myself off as competent camper rather than reveal myself as a tubby desk jockey from the ‘burbs. But if I were to choose a guardian deity for suburban bushcraft it would have to be Wimbledon’s most famous residents…

I used to spend a lot of time with a really clever management consultant, who ran mind-bending workshops. A sort of Tobermory of consultancy, fixing up (and super charging) broken projects with stuff he found lying around. One of the really cool things that he taught us to do was, to see familiar behaviours (individual and organisational) as processes. Then to look at the process we’d uncovered in new and unexpected ways, until we could see other examples of when and where the behaviour or system attribute could perform another purpose. A bit like bushcraft and survival skills and of course just like the Wombles….

‘Making good use of the things that we find,
Things that the everyday folks leave behind.’

I really was starting to think that I’d seen all the bushcraft blogs of note, when I saw that a guy who posts on one of the bushcraft sites as Fenlander had started one, and its the best I’ve seen in ages. While most bloggers are enthusiastic amateurs afield (or incompetents-a-couch in the case of your pal the bushwacker) – This guy is skilled AND enthusiastic, what the Kiwis call ' a good keen man', check out the post where he and a pal test out the insulation provided by some woolen clothes. Brrrrr!!

As Fenlander demonstrates when the really skilled bushcrafters are out in the backcountry they find new uses for the thing that they find, stuff everyday folks would leave behind. Sadly my backcountry is more, well, suburban back-yard and it’s not so much things left behind, as crap folks throw over my back fence (everyday).

Look everyone SBW’s made a lantern!
(Without spilling any blood or severing a finger!!)

Meanwhile at the other end of the performance curve - Fenlander’s made a distress whistle that, ‘in a pinch’, could save your life.

Thanks for reading
Bushwacker

Christmas Card From Rex At The Deer Camp Blog

Where Rex blogs it's Christmas everyday!
The Deer Camp in question is at the Christmas Place Plantation Hunting Club, on the edge of the Mississippi Delta.
Happy Christmas Rex

SBW.

PS in case your wondering I'm four up and one in from the bottom right corner, wearing the hat.

Swedish Survival Skills

I’ve been meaning to recommend Michel Blomgren and his site Bushcraft.se for a while. Not only is he very knowledgeable about the skills that will keep you comfortably alive should you get lost while in the forest, but he’s also a talented TV presenter who is not afraid to suffer, if it means imparting some knowledge.

If you do nothing else make sure you watch Episode 1 - Five points survival.
It could save you life, it will make an overnight stay in the woods more comfortable, and if you are trying to get your kids into the outdoors the skills he demonstrates are so simple you could be teaching them to your kids by this weekend. Genius!

Enjoy
Bushwacker

Deer Scrap!!

'Always hunt with someone else', is usually good advice.
However there's an exeption that proves every rule.

With a 'friend' like the cameraman, you're probably safer hunting on your own!

Thanks to MB for the link.
Bushwacker

The Farce Is Strong In This One

Hit the target?
I can do it with my eyes shut mate!
Though, sadly it would seem, not with them open.
[sound of chortling elk in the distance]
Ho Hum.
Thanks for reading
Bushwacker

Sundays Are For Archery

It’s Sunday so its round two of archery lessons or The Bushwacker versus The Paper Targets.

In England Sunday archery practice is a tradition that nearly 800 years old. In the 12th century the longbow was the black rifle of its day, a military technology that’s use was strictly prescribed by law.

As standing armies are notoriously expensive to maintain, in 1252 the 'Assize of Arms' became the first Medieval Archery Law requiring all able-bodied men, from 15 to 60, equip themselves with a bow and sufficient arrows. The law also "forbade, on pain of death, all sport that took up time better spent on war training especially archery practise".
With King Henry the first, later proclaiming that an archer would be not be tried for murder, if he killed a man during his weekly archery practice. The Plantagenet (literally the planting of cover to create hunting grounds) King Edward III took this further and decreed the Archery Law in 1363 which commanded the obligatory practice of archery on Sundays and holidays!

The longbow really was the super gun of its day, launching arrows faster than any previous bow. It’s said that a skilled bowman could shoot between 10 - 12 arrows a minute. The bodkin (a sort of longer sharper fieldpoint) tipped arrows could pierce a knight’s armour at ranges of more than 250 yards. Such was the value placed on this cutting-edge military technology that in 1365 archers were forbidden to leave the shores of England without a royal licence.

There are still quite a few place names in England that include the word Butts (Newington Butts in South London) meaning that they were traditional archery grounds with targets to aim at and embankments to keep the death toll to a respectable minimum.

Sadly practice in our local parks is no longer permitted, and on the other side of the pond, things aren’t any better. News has reached me that in the city of Eau Claire, in Wisconsin a public practice ground called Archery Park has just banned archery practice after a local resident complained of finding an arrow in his back yard.

Things, as they say, are tough all over.
Wish me luck
Bushwacker.

Bird Hunting From The Sofa

Bowman 2

"You will discover that to be a good shot is not the half of what it takes to make a tolerable bird slayer."
Maurice Thompson, The Witchery of Archery, 1879

Playing this game's lot like the guilty pleasure of buying delicious junk food, the 'twofers' can really make your day!
Bushwacker
PS on the site where I found the game a fella gave one of the best pieces of advice I’ve heard in a while.
'Don't take life so seriously mate, no one gets out alive anyway'