Write Your own

Another of those strange blogin' coincidences took place this afternoon, just as I was going to tell you about a new online magazine called Sleeping In The Dirt that Urbn Outdoors had linked to, Tom who writes the Trout underground has posted this piece, using his crystal ball to look a the future for Fly Fishing magazines, Hook and Bullet magazines, and perhaps magazines in general.

With the quality and passion that crews like 'sleeping in the dirt' and 'this is fly' are serving up in the digital format, it's easy to see his point. Sleeping in the dirt is, I'm guessing a labour of love as the mast head proudly proclaims

No Sponsors No Advertisements, No Limits...No Shit.

With 'No Cash' the team will just have to plug away at it like the rest of us for the love of it. Good on 'em.

It seems to be working as they report a hit count of 110,000 already. Not quite up there with the market leaders but defiantly well ahead of some of the print titles their voice is replacing. Good luck chaps.

So what is it that makes these new voices so compelling? I think its a mixture of perceived honesty of the new school and the old guard looking caught out by the changing landscape. The authority that magazines used to have is waning, and fast.

I've recently been running that most classic of man-style purchasing strategies and 'researching' a new pair of boots.

I will buy a pair, but first I have to feel I've looked into enough options. It may take months as every choice has to be evaluated against every other potential choice. This is a behavior that once upon a time involved buying lots of magazines, best buy guides and special editions. Now I do it online. The woman-style purchasing strategy is very similar but often takes place on foot going to shop after shop, the man-style takes place in an armchair collecting data - sometimes for months before walking up to the counter telling the shopkeeper the size colour and specification before marching out of the door in double quick time, proudly telling the Mrs' See babe, i just go and buy it, why do you have to take so long?'

While researching I found an option that i hadn't seen or considered before, typed it into a google, and searched for the user reviews by owners. There's the sticking point that big media has - I've come to favor the perceived honesty of bloggers and forum members over the 'bought endorsement' of journalists.

Not all bloggers are experts - we all know there are bloggers chasing 'numbers' who will gladly repeat pretty much any press release that gets sent to them with a dollop of praise from 'Tiffany' the 'online specialist' [in this instance 'online specialist' is a euphemism for intern].

Not all journalists are the puppets of PR departments - I once heard a great example of this from one journalist along the lines of 'they sent a pair of boots for review, they came with a not asking for the boots to be returned by the end of the week - UNWORN'. He had the luxury of sending the boots back not only unworn but ignored. Not every magazine has that freedom.

The boots I might have wanted are a new 'teched-up' version of range-topping model by well known european manufacturer. One who due to their high prices has the money to position themselves in hunting mags across europe.

I liked the blurb, I liked the fact that I could get 25% off, but once I'd read THAT user report....

"Whatever you do don't buy them. I did, leaked in a week, fell apart in twelve weeks and the company said their one year warranty doesn't apply as I wore them everyday and they are outdoor pursuits clothes designed for occasional use'

"An even stronger version of our strongest boot" just doesn't sound so enticing when compared to the expectation of 'occasional use' does it? Did he really ever own a pair? I'll never know, but the perception of first hand knowledge and hard field use was there. Could a print magazine afford to come to such a conclusion? I doubt it. So what's left for the great magazines of yesteryear to do? Let's take Field and Stream as an example.

Regular readers will know about my admiration for, and dismay at the Field and Stream empire - I think of F&S as a smelly, slightly sexist uncle who knows a lot of interesting stuff, occasionally tells really good stories about the old days, but has some throwback views and probably has a few racist friends. I keep up my subscription, ignoring the fact that only half the issues i pay for actually make it through the US postal service, hoping, ever hoping, that the bean counters will let the magazine be itself again.

The last two issues have been a partial return to form, Bill Heavy's piece about spending time with the Alaskan trapper was fantastic - the kind of long-form journalism that belongs on a page not a screen, the kind that prompted me to take the copy round to The Northern Monkey's boat and tell him to read it. Great moments, sadly looking all the greater as they are set against some of the most pointless shit yet published. Sorry chaps but it's true, that '50 states of the great outdoors' or what ever it was called was rubbish and obviously rubbish culled from the internet by an intern. Cheap to produce, would have worked on a blog, but not good enough for F&S.

So it's been interesting watching developments around the 'digital campfire' that the F&S site and blogs purport to be.

Holly who writes the excellent NorCal Cazadora blog fulfilled a long held prediction of mine and was asked to contribute to the F&S blog-site - the subject was Booth Babes. I've long been a fan of Holly's blog - if I wasn't the first commenter I was certainly one of the first - so I was made up to see one of our own receive such recognition. Holly is exactly the kind of person I'd invite to write for the magazine - she can really write, knows how to meet a deadline, never needs to play the expert, and is full of enthusiasm. As the old demographic dies off she represents a pretty good template for a future audience. Double Income No Kids, and an evangelical streak a mile wide - an advertisers dream.

Cabelas were smart enough to see the potential in getting her onboard and they buy a lot of space from F&S. Could I be any blunter?

Holly wrote a short blog about her view that covering the SHOT show Booth Babes feature being the days top story was not conducive to promoting F&S as an inclusive space that welcomes newbies. Boys: I'm sure many of us have had more than a passing interest in the 'visual arts' or magazines catering for 'gentlemen's interests' over the years, but wether or not you live in the puritanical US or the come-as-you-are metropolis's of europe, i doubt any of us would feel comfortable or appropriate discussing such interests with say, a neighbors twelve year old daughter? The space has changed and it would be prudent to keep that in mind - did I understand you Holly?

So how did it all turn out? Some comments were well thought out, some ran the whole gamut of intellectual rigor from A to B and at least one loafer wearing smart arse chimed in a few times taking great delight in repeating the sage words of the F&S mascot and offering patronizing dating advice to the fudds- he thought he was being funny. Correct me if I'm wrong but i don't think there's ever been a story on the F&S site that's had so many comments. If this thing gets any blunter it'll be a spoon.

The Booth Babes piece on F&S

Holly's first post on her blog Ahem, there are GIRLS in the room!

Her second piece The F&S Booth Babe saga continues

Her guest editorial Is here

Your pal

SBW

PS just to prove that I'm not giving up my position as armchair evolutionary psychologist/ Sexist pig - BABES?!!! WTF!!

Your New Montana Home?

Dennis who writes the Montana Elk hunting Blog has moved to Alaska and started a new blog about his adventures there, so he's selling his place in Montana, have a look, it's pretty cool, lots of space to think and write.

When compared to a an apartment in London or NYC it's pretty affordable too.

Only 12 miles from the Sun River Winter Elk Range,

home to the largest migrating elk herd in Montana--about 2500 of them!

Sadly not many punters for new designer bathrooms though, so not for me, but it might be perfect for you?

SBW

Shimano STC Travel Rod Review

"The rod is a bamboo weighing seven ounces, which has to be spliced with a winding of silk thread every time it is used. This is a tedious process; but, by fastening the joints in this way, a uniform spring is secured in the rod. No one devoted to high art would think of using a socket joint."

Charles Dudley Warner 1829-1900

Long before this blog was born or thought of I took up fishing, but living an hour or more from the sea and hating the tyranny of long sticks in a small car or the hassley long-sticks-on-the-train. I looked around for a travel rod - same idea as before, One Rod For Everything. Some people (who own fishing shops) say there's no such thing, but I did find a rod that does it all.

The Nine Foot Spinning Rod.

You can spin with it (obviously), you can ledger with it (a 1oz+ weight holds the bait to the bottom), you can freeline with it ( using a shimmering slice of fish as a spinner), you can float fish with it, and it's much better than a boat rod for fishing off a pier.

I've got the Shimano STC 330 (which has now been superseded by the 3033H6) it's a really great rod with a medium action (the speed it springs back to straight) and its tough. I've lost count of the times I've bashed it into trees or dropped it onto the rocks. Keeps on keeping on.

The rod accompanied myself and The Northern Monkey on our 'fishing trip of shame' where we successfully had fish 'under observation' on both sides of north america - They sneered at our bait in the east (until the hook had been removed when they chowed down like they'd been starved) and from Venice Pier we were treated to piscine mockery of the worst kind - a whole posse of table size fish literally swam 'round my Yo Zuri lure laughing, as a particularly handsome specimen wiped the tears from his eyes he guffawed 'HA HA You paid a tenner for THAT!'

Lots of companies make something equivalent to this rod. Some for more money - some for less, but I've never been tempted, and I must have had it for about 6 or 7 years. It's in six sections, casts 20-50g (very cool for big lures - and freelining), packs up into a 700mm tube that can survive being sat on, and at the time was less than £60/$100. The full range is here. Total Thumbs Up from me.

The worldseafishing.com forum posts are pretty typical of the reviews the range has had over the years.

I guess Chad would give it Things That Don't Suck status.

Your pal

SBW

Bear Vs Plane

A while back I told you about the excellent This Is Fly, a fly fishing magazine for people who recognise the "trout bum" as a tired marketing stereotype and aren't likely to say "out of touch and proud of it".

The chaps also have a blog thisisflydaily where I saw this story.

Your pal

SBW

PS No. No connection i could think of either.

Petzal Wins Grits Gresham

I'm a big fan of the work of David Petzal, Field and Stream magazines Gun Nut blogger, rifles editor, and mascot.

He's the last old school voice the magazine has, and knows his audience in a way very few writers manage.

This year he's been honored with the Grits Gresham Shooting Sports Communicator Award

“I had the privilege of knowing Grits for a long time, and hunting with him,” Petzal said.

“There was no nicer guy or finer sportsman. Being given an award bearing his name is probably more than I deserve, but I’ll accept it anyway.”

Not having grown up stateside I had no idea who Mr Gresham was, but having looked him up online I can see why he'd have the following he enjoys. I liked this quote from his obituary in The Times

The Great American Outdoors had no more tireless champion than Grits Gresham. Through his many books, articles and television shows he introduced his countrymen to the fauna of America’s rivers, fields, lakes and wetlands, and explained to them the most effective ways of killing it.

Congratulations Dave.

SBW

Not Just Hot Air – Air Rifle Hunting

A string of happy coincidences have occurred in the last few weeks:

I got that permission to hunt rabbits

I got some unexpected and well-paid work over the holidays

I got a small but timely windfall

I saw the brand and calibre I wanted, at about the right money, on British Blades

PCP – Pre-Charged Pneumatic

I know they have their fans but to me springers (AKA break-action air rifles) are yesterday’s technology. As soon as I understood that, unlike a powder burning rifle or PCP, with a springer the recoil is happening BEFORE the pellet leaves the barrel, I knew I wanted a PCP. I’m told my rifle holds enough air for eighty shots between refills and either needs to be filled at the diving shop or pumped with a special ‘dry air’ pump.

Air Arms

There are nicer looking rifles (to my eye), there are marginally more accurate rifles (supposedly) and there are defiantly more expensive rifles. But all-in-all Air Arms offerings look unbeatable for value, and I read a few forum posts where people who now own more expensive rifles said they’d still recommend Air Arms for the money.

S400 Carbine.

My Rabbit hunting guru James Marchington uses an Air Arms S400 in his excellent DVD ‘Rabbits’ I was planning to buy the bottom of the range S200 but when the S400 Carbine came up I went for it. I like idea of the carbine (short barrel) model, as anything to make sneaking up on the wabbits easier has got to be a good thing.

.177

I wanted a rifle with as flatter trajectory as possible so I could have the best possible chance of putting the pellet where I aim it every time. The fabled extra oomph of the .22 sounds sweet, but where the pellet hits and what it does on arrival has to be more important than how much of it arrives there.

The three P’s of a clean kill - Placement, Placement, and Projectile.

Magazine [edited]

The rifles are shipped as single shot, a company called Rowan Engineering do an 8 shot conversion for which mine has.

Scope

With a huntable range of 35 yards, I didn’t need to sell a kidney for a Schmidt & Bender , and the rifle came with an AGS scope in 4-9X40 magnification.

Moderation

Not usually a word that’s synonymous with your pal the Bushwacker. On TV they’re called silencers, under UK law they’re called moderators, either way they turn PHHSSST! Into phhssst, and my rifle came with one.

The other bit of good news is that I ran into R&E and E very generously put her vegetarianism to one side and gave me permission to hunt her land!

Yes! What amounts to my own private hunting preserve in the New Forest.

Pigeon, Squirrel and those pesky Wabbits!

Your Pal

SBW

PS: I’ll not be going shooting for a couple of weeks so there’s bound to be time for more of the hot air regular readers have come to expect. Phew!

The Elusive Obvious Pt2

"It's the incidental moving around, walking around, standing up and utilizing muscles."

Even good aerobic exercise can be useless in the face of hours of sitting.

Chad found the study, and The Terrierman found the cartoon

What was I saying about modern life?

SBW

Shhhh I'm Hunting Rabbits

Kent: 'The garden of England' Or A Giant Food Plot For Rabbits

If you want an answer: ask the question, ask and ask again, keep turning over stones, keep kissing frogs, until you find the one you want.

Here in Old Blighty there is no hunt-able public land. Animals can be wild and therefore belong to no one, but the land they are standing on is someone’s property and you can’t hunt on it without their permission. No Permission = No wild meat

Meanwhile back in the 'hood

The interview process for a new flatmate had been dragging on. The Co-op sends a list, we call the people, filter out a few nutters and ner-do-wells. Stay in a couple of evenings waiting for no-shows and just when we were thinking we’d have to start again in the new year the corner is turned, a nice chap turns up on one of the interview nights. The others like him and tell me they’re happy to live with him, if I like him he’s got the room.

We’ve chatted for a while. Seems like a good guy, I’m about to tell him he’s got the room if he wants it, when it occurs to me that I’m not just the mild mannered plumber and building contractor from the room next to the kitchen, I also have another identity, an alter ego, a super-hero identity. I’m SBW. The Suburban Bushwacker himself.

So it went something like this:

SBW “It’s only fair to let you know something about the way I live, [pause for dramatic effect] I occasionally come home with dead animals, [another pause for dramatic effect] not from the supermarket, but from nature. Animals that lived wild and free before they became my dinner. I eat road kill, and [one more pause for dramatic effect] I hunt. It’s very important to me, so it’s only fair to let you know up front, in case you’re squeamish about things like that, that I will sometimes be butchering whole animals in the kitchen”

“Really! Well I like eating meat and I’d like to come and hunt it with you”

SBW “ Excellent! As you’re from Kent maybe you can help, I’m looking for a farmer who’s over-run with Rabbits and Deer”

“My dad has a plant nursery, I’m sure he’d love you to come down and kill his Rabbits, they’re a major problem for him because they eat loads of his new plants”

SBW “Welcome home fella”

So the new-year is shaping up well, bathrooms to build, and Rabbits to hunt, wish me luck.

Your pal

SBW

Freeganism In The Suburban Bush

Freegan = Someone whose diet is made up of free things

One of those funny blogging coincidences sprang up the other day, just as myself and Horsemouth were talking about how the freegan lifestyle might be both an answer to our pecuniary problems, and to the waste problem on this small island, Chad was posting on the same subject.

'Great Minds Think Alike' or 'Idiots Seldom Differ', you decide?

Sometimes I thing that this whole 'big brains and opposable thumbs' thing is a test, one we may well not pass. Modern life has brought us so many wonderful things, but looked at in it's totality, the whole sorry enterprise has been a bit of a debacle.

As America joined the second world war, within one week, just seven days, the automobile industry had been reborn as builders of the machines of war, not another car was made in the USA until the war was won.

Massive changes in perspective and direction are possible. If the will is there.

We have enough resources to end hunger today, we have enough resources to raise expectations all over the planet so people are too busy enjoying the fruits of freedom to nurse to the grievances of extremists.

Here in blighty the second world war saw a massive increase in the nations health, while slashing the nations food bill. Peoples ingenuity was focused on getting the most from every resource and finding new ones in unexpected places. Food wasn't wasted, instead of landfill, scraps became the next meal and people were healthier for it.

There's an oft quoted statistic that a third of the food bought in in the UK is thrown away. Yep, 'scared of their dinner' doesn't only mean that meat must come in a little plastic tray, it means that all foods have to have a a 'sell by' or 'use by' date. Even eggs have a 'best before' date printed on each shell and the hilarious thing is people actually think these dates are sacrosanct. I was brought up in a 'scrape the bad bit off' household. The dried out edge of a block of cheese becomes the basis for a cheese sauce, jam is fine once the furry bit is chucked and dry bread makes the best toast. Why would you need a stamp to tell you if an egg is edible? You have a nose on your face after all.

"What are we having for dinner?"

Can always be answered,

"what needs eating, today?"

Food is one of the most carbon intensive things we consume. With most calories of food costing an average of ten calories to produce and transport to the table. Every time a piece of food hermetically sealed in a little tray is thrown away its made a long carbon consuming journey to the store and then to the house. Before it makes one last diesel powered journey to the tip, where because it's sealed it wont be composted,as it beocmes yet more land-fill.

Less wasted food would be a massive step towards making our current lifestyle more sustainable. The other benifit of gathering these foodstuffs is that once in the hands of a freegan, the packaging is removed and concieniusly added to the recycleing thereby adding to the amount of traded and reccyled plasics. Good for the environment and good for the economy. In these cost conscious times more and more , sustainable isn't just a dislocated wish, it's the distance between pay cheques. Modern Life is Rubbish, we just need to be more intelligent with the rubbish.

Horsemouth is a cheapskate to rival even The Northern Monkey, and as your representative I thought I'd do a spot of Freegan Foraging too. We know we can eat for free, but what will we eat for free? What's the legal position? What tools do freegans use? All these and many more questions will be answered in part 2.

Your pal

The Bushwacker

I Want One - A Not So Occasional Series Pt15

Sorry to start the new year with the plaintive wail of unfulfilled consumer lust, but really, $200 for this is! That's awesome.
All the way back to 1888 - every issue. I wonder how many years it'll take F&S to do something as simple and cool as this?

Your pal
SBW

Involved? Or Committed?

Here's a picture of a man filming some falconry, and getting a little more 'involved' than he intended to.

Click here to see some AMAZING pictures of the rest of the hunt. Nuf Sed.

Oh and before i forget - HAPPY NEW YEAR to all of you !!!

Your pal

The Bushwacker

PS Big shout to Tom Chandler of The Trout Underground who found this

Ethical Hunters Blog

Over the last few weeks I've been doing a bit of reading, looking at other bloggers thoughts on the ethics of our place in the food chain, and so it seems has James. So much so that he's started Ethical Hunters a new blog to explore the subject. Hopefully you'll feel inspired to join the conversation.

This project was born out of a sense of frustration, that hunters in the UK are so often misunderstood and misrepresented. Hunting is not a 'hobby', nor is it 'killing for fun'. It is a way of life, with its own set of beliefs and ethics rooted deep in human nature and tracing its origins back to the dawn of mankind.

It is worth clarifying here that we are talking about hunting in its broadest sense, of catching and killing wild animals and birds (usually for food), and not the narrow definition of hunting foxes with packs of hounds.

I hope that through these pages we can begin to define what makes an 'Ethical Hunter', help to promote the highest standards of ethics among hunters in the UK, and perhaps explain to non-hunters something of what Ethical Hunting is all about.

James Marchington

In the meantime here's some food for thought:

I was fascinated by Jeff Simmermon's ' Roo shooter' post with it's no holds barred descriptions of the realities of culling in the Australian outback, I've bigged it up before - it's worth a read.

For the Australians, the kangaroo is both a boon and pest, a national icon and creature to despise. The country is overrun with them—58 million, according to the latest census, making the species amongst the most common wild land mammal on earth. This, ironically, is mostly thanks to a sheep and cattle industry that have created an abundance of man-made pasture grasses and watering holes, and have driven dingoes—the kangaroos only predators, but “vermin” to sheep farmers—into the center of the country. These cute, fuzzy hoppers now pose a serious environmental threat to the rangelands. Travelling in packs of several hundred, they can easily cover up to 500 kilometers. A pod can bisect a farm on one of these journeys and cause thousands of dollars’ worth of damage to valuable crops in a single night, wrecking fences and outgrazing cattle for rare desert grass...........

Female kangaroos, however, pose their own problems. Although easier to lift than male ‘roos or “boomers,” the does are often pregnant. And in those cases, the only humane thing to do for the joeys that can’t survive outside the pouch is to kill them on the spot, quickly and decisively. It can be an emotional challenge. Even for Craig, who accepted this part of the job decades ago.........“Mate, I’ve been doin’ this for fifty years, and this part always makes me feel like such a cunt.”

Let the record show that I didn’t participate in this part of the job. The one time that I did, I made a horrible mistake. I was dragging a doe up to the Ute and could see something wriggling in the pouch. All of a sudden two legs stuck out. I grabbed them, pulling the joey free. I meant to hold it up and shout to Craig, “Hey, what should I do with this one,” but it leaped out of my hand and hopped into the distance with a chirping scream.

“You stupid fucking fuckwit, that joey’s not big enough to survive on its own out here! E’s gonna go off and get eaten or starve to death all alone all because you think you’re such a fucking animal lover!...."

Blunt as a spoon, hard as nails and underneath it all, soft as shite. Gotta love the Aussies init!

Another blog I've been reading is Rule .303 written by Jack Landers, author of the forthcoming book 'Deer Hunting for Locavores' were he argues the case for a sustainable diet hunted and gathered from the locale. As he lives in VA his major sustainable protein source comes in the form of Whitetail deer. He's quite an accomplished hunter and has been leading a class where he takes other foodies and turns them into hunters. He's been featured in the New York Times and my guess is we'll hear a lot more from him over the next few years.

There are a number of reasons to consider learning how to hunt for your own food. Many people reading this probably feel a little bit bad about eating meat but not quite bad enough to actually stop. If you feel that you've been somehow dodging the ethics of meat and animal cruelty in your own life, there is no more effective way of facing the matter head-on than by learning to hunt and butcher the food yourself. As a hunter, the experience of the animal that you eat is up to you. A whitetail deer in Virginia can live a good and natural life in the wild and then have one bad morning before becoming food. Which is an ethically better source of obtaining meat? From a wild deer or from a pig raised in a factory farm under Auschwitz-like conditions?

Commercial meat is typically filled with hormones and antibiotics and is fed on grain that required high amounts of petroleum to fertilize and transport. Wild venison is free-range and free of hormones, antibiotics and the cruelty of captivity. If you are concerned about 'food miles' and the impact that your own diet has on the environment, hunting is a very practical way of addressing this. There are wild deer in high numbers in nearly every area of the Eastern US. Many people reading this can either hunt literally in their own backyards or could be helped to find land within 25 miles on which they can hunt for deer. Literally, you could be measuring your food miles by looking at your odometer.

See you over there?

SBW

I Want One - A Not So Occasional Series Pt14

From pommel to tip 9 5/8" With the blade 5" of that. Ground from Crucible's 5/32" D2 hardened to 60Rc.

Handled in Green Canvas Micarta with white liners and stainless steel pins.

The price? $495

I've got a whole drawer full of knives so I guess the $500'll probably be going somewhere else in the foreseeable, but tiz luv-er-lee and I do WANT ONE!

If you're feeling flush you can get in touch with the man himself.

Charles May
Charles May Knives
10024 McDonald Rd.
Aberdeen, MS 39730
662-369-0404

Catch you soon
Your pal
SBW

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.

'Appy Crimbo From Old London Town

Well guys what a years it's been! New direction with my work, learning to be a divorced suburban dad, and trying to work my way out of poverty during a recession. None of it's been easy.

But this blog has gone from strength to strength, more readers, more comments and more new commenters joining the conversation. It's really helped to keep me going during the hard times. Thank you all for reading, linking, commenting, and being optimistic enough about the quality of posts to read again! I cant tell you how much i get from the whole process.

So as the sun starts to get a little nearer again, all that remains is to deck the halls with gaudy crap, re watch the same old nonsense on TV, stuff our faces, endure the kids sugar and greed fueled mania, and, in amongst the chaos and consumerism, quietly take a private moment to think of those who, for what ever reason, wont be with us.

Hope you get what you want, and those around you show at least some appreciation of all you do for them.
Your pal
SBW

PS for more great pictures of animals 'hiding' in the London Underground 'tube map' click here

Shoot And Release

Saw this one on Bashing Bambi, I concur. WOW!!!


SBW

Oh Oh Seven

As you know i grew up in Blighty and therefore have the compulsory fascination with James Bond. I guess every English schoolboy grows up watching 007 and dreams of having more than his fair share of cool intelligence, lethal aggression, sexual magnetism and badass gadgets. Especially ones you have to assemble, with each piece making a satisfying click as it joins the last.

So I was amused to find this; while surfing t'web I was checking out TAD Gear when i stumbled across this ...err... toy?

I'm far from convinced that it would have any value afield, but it does look like a lot of fun. Made by father and son knife makers Pat & Wes Crawford it comes in 9 parts that can be changed around to make: A hiking staff, a walking stick ( no, i don't know what the difference is either) a baton, a blow gun (I can hear the 007 music now) a knife, and a lance.

Even at a STEEP $259.89 they've apparently sold out of them! Have a look.

For those of you of a more literary bent, here's all the ammo you need to sneer at us overgrown school boys, seduced Fleming's world of 'gadgets,sex, snobbery and sadism'.

More soon as

Your pal

SBW

I want One - A Not So Occasional Series Pt13

I just, stone cold want one. End of.

Click here to learn more about the team who are bringing this and a few other bikes into production. Good Luck guys.

Newbie Professional Hunter: Down Under

I wasn't going to post anything today but I just read this story about a journey into the australian outback, culling kangaroos. It's brilliant. Probably not that much to lift your sprits in the weekends papers, so you might as well read it.

“G’day…is that Jeff?”

It was.

“This is Craig Murphy. Steve Evans told me you was looking for a bit of work as an offsider to a ‘roo shooter.”

That was true, yes.

“Well, I’m getting’ ready to go up to Nookawarra out bush for a couple days and I could use a bit of help. I can’t lift the boomers onto the Ute like I used to, and I’m lookin’ for someone to work the light and go get the ‘roos after I shoot ‘em. I’ll take you up there, take care of all your food, and offer you 400 bucks flat.”

Sounded cool to me.

“I’ll meet you Monday at the train station,” Craig said. “Bring a couple pillows and a towel and some clothes you can get messy. We leave Tuesday morning, first thing.”

Enjoy your weekend

SBW

Merino Buff and The Antarctica Shirt Review

Det finns inget sådant som dåligt väder bara olämpligt kläder

As they say in Sweden or

"There's no such thing as bad weather - only inappropriate clothing"

To cut a short story long: Any amount of cold is tolerable (in the right gear) but even the smallest draft down my neck seems to suck the warmth from my soul. About 20 years ago when i first met MCP we worked a cycle messengers and would have to stand around in the cold wearing lycra waiting for the next job. Fortunately I know BoB (Brother of Bushwacker) a man whose had more mountain time in one winter than all the armchair warriors on the bushcraft forums have had in their lives, and at the time went by the nickname 'inspector gadget'. Some people thought he was called that because he had a lot of kit, true but not the reason, it was because he has the experience and insight to truly inspect gadgets, when he says 'Quite good, I'd have one' you know it'll out perform any claims made on the box and last three to four lifetimes of hard use, in foul weather. I have had tools that have literally collapsed under the weight of one of his sighs.

He sent me to a shop called Survival Aids in London's Euston station, where you could buy silk underwear and 'snoods'. Don't get exited ladies. These were sets of long johns and tops that seriously kept you warm while weighing nothing. The optional extra was what we now know as a Buff, but then called a snood, in navy blue silk. Boy do they work! Really NOTHING KEEPS YOU WARMER. I've had loads of different ones over the years and wouldn't think of going anywhere cold and windy without one. So after last swagmas's great gift of a Merino wool icebreaker turned out to be such a boon in the frozen north, when I saw Buffs were bringing out a Merino Buff I knew I'd have to get one - they seem a hell of a price at £21 - but i consoled myself that the Survival Aids ones were about £12 twenty years ago and took the plunge.

Basically you get a tube of fine woven Merino wool, if 'Betty Swollox' have knackered a pair of merino long johns you could just cut off a section of leg and save yourself the £21. But sitting the freezing cold wearing old underwear round your neck might not be your thing, in fact when i put it like that it's not my thing either.

One nice surprise is that they're about 1.5 X the length of a regular Buff so you and have it as hood and neck warmer simultaneously. Very good - even at over a score I'm still giving them a thumbs up - top piece of kit. If I do feel the company has a failing its that every time they send anything out to you (last bits were free so i shouldn't complain) they send you a new set of Buffs stickers -I don't need any Buff stickers - anyone can tell I'm Buff ;-) and an 'instructional DVD' which is frankly just more landfill.

They do eight different colours and I hope it's only a matter of time before they take up my suggestion and bring one out in Blaze Orange, as it would add 'arm band' and 'hat band' to the list of uses a Buff has, and as we know would be an important safety aid (and legal requirement) for hunters.

Recently I've been following a blog called Bashing Bambi - basically the adventures of an english chap who has a bit of woodland to raise pheasants on, does a fair bit of stalking, (english for deer hunting), likes military history, bad jokes and spends his weekends selling dog accessories and chronicling the sartorial crimes of the english upper classes AKA 'the Ruperts''.

At the bottom of his blog there are a couple of links to merchants he reckons have good stuff, and that's how I found Stalkersuk.com a small site where a keen stalker is selling some things he's found useful himself. At very reasonable prices.

I ordered the Antarctica Shirt in a Nomex/Merino (30%/70%) wool mix for £44 inc postage, and very good it is too. They are available in any colour you like as long as it's green and as soon as I'd unpicked the horrible logo it's a very nice lightweight outdoorsy top; long back, holes to put your thumbs through so your wrists stay warm and a stovepipe collar. The sizes come up quite large, I might even buy another in a size down. Thumbs up again.

Your Pal
The Bushwacker