Bushcraft Camp in the Snow - Fire, Shelter, Axe, Cooking Fish

[Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Music] it's good coffee hey folks Mike here from ta outdoors you join me here at the bushcraft camp on a fine English snow day down in the South of England very really quite rare this is the second time we've had a decent amount of snowfall this year which is great for great for me anyway because it gives me a chance to come out and enjoy the peaceful solitude of the wooden camp is holding up fairly well to be honest I had to get rid of a load of snow on the tarp that was weighing the tarp down and it's actually put a lot of pressure on some of the knots and summer they're holding up okay but it looks like it's sagged a bit since that so there's some work to do that's for sure the shelters themselves they've kept the snow out one of them's had a bit more snow in where I think this the wind has blown it in off the branches of the trees the other one is completely covered I call this one the moss shelter this one here you can see underneath there's absolutely zero snow in that hunting towers all intact ladders intact everything else seems to be intact there is one wall here my backpack is that's collapse but that's okay where some of the sticks that I use were quite rotten it's minus five at the moment so it's fairly chilly certainly for this region in the South of England I've got the fire going got a nice cup of coffee in a cook sir and I'm just letting it burn down to some coals now because I'm going to cook up some macrophylla --tz-- which should be nice they've got some seasoning on them and everything so I'm looking forward to that and I'm just gonna enjoy some peaceful solitude here in the woodland you can hear the crows and some rooks I've seen a red kite fly past its peas for I hear it's really really nice I couldn't think of anywhere else I'd want to be right now for those they're new to the channel this is I did a Hubble I've done a whole 13-part series of building this camp here over the past few years every single piece of wood is dead so I've used in the capital Deadwood I haven't chopped the trees that I have chopped down have had no branches on the top they were dead but most of it is actually dead full or dead standing just lying around on the floor as well and yeah it's been a it's been a hell of a project it's been really good really enjoyed it and now there's sort of less building work to do it's more coming out to enjoy it it's obviously a little bit so I'd like to add but feel free to pop in the comment section anything else he'd add to the to the camp so one of the things I was doing just a minute ago before my coffee was ready with shopping my axe no no he's just a sharpening puck it's got a coarse side like that and a fine side Canada geese hey at home here now it's name and the fine side I was just using the fine side because you probably won't see this but where I look for any nicks or flex just by moving the edge of the blade side to side in the right light so it's hard when the sun's not out but as long as you've got a light source you can see so I can still sees there's some Nicks and flex there when I'm doing this side of the blade I'd like to tuck it into my shoulder this is just my way of doing it there's other ways obviously I like to tuck it into my collar bone up here close my left eye because I'm only looking down this right hand side will be your left hand side but this one side meet the angle of the blade or the bit to the edge of the stone make sure it's just touching a bit of saliva as well you can use water sorry I know it seems rude that I'm splitting but it's a purpose to it once I've met that blade and I can check there it is I keep that angle and I start with really small circles and the reason for the really small circles is so that I know I'm in contact with the edge of the blade and it's getting that muscle retention back I don't want to sort of just rip around the point there I'm just slowly checking everything's in noise I'm doing small circles I don't do a certain amount of circles eighteen one side eighteen outside I just keep going until I feel there's a good enough burr there so once you get going then you can get two long smoothest babe motions and when I come to the edge in a bit here I lean out just to check that's touching you want to roll the edge over too much lovely ceiling sound and then I just flip it over I can see there's a burr there already for this side I just hold the edge the axe you can rest it on your knee to keep it nice and still check that the blade the bit is meeting and then just small circles again there's obviously loads of ways to do this guys I appreciate that this is just my way probably not the best way that's my way and it works so I'll just show you you can see if you look there's there's the this is what the blade looked like previously and this is what it's like I still got some Nick's in here that's what I'm working on it but this is the shinier part here it will focus this part here this is where I should just sharpened this shiny part there and I've taken away that material and you can see it's like this it's created like a slurry say I could use that straight up that would be fine to use and it would cut no problem but I do like to strop a little bit just to get rid of some of that burr so that I know it's a nice sharp point I don't want to make it to be angle too steep because axe has the axe has a lot of weight behind it and if their angles really fine almost like a scandi going knife like really really fine it's more likely that the points gonna be able to roll over as you hit it with all that weight it's gonna roll that point over so I don't like to make it too to find the angle but this is a fairly fat it doesn't look it but it's a fairly fat hatchet this 1/2 pound head or nearly almost too bad head really well balanced they as you can see and it's actually one of the cheaper versions axe this is just the husqvarna hatchet hobby I've had this absolutely years and I always come back to it so let me just the next thing I've got a nice to show you as well in a minute an absolute beast but she saw earlier but stages actually I need my belt I'm gonna take this off slide the knife off slide the axe leap by the way and the belt was made for me by brian at journeyman handcraft he custom made this all to my liking he can do custom made brush grab it so I'll pop a link in the description below he's my friend really nice guy and he makes really nice good quality bushcraft equipment this pouch here I keep various lighter various lengths of paracord Hank's a paracord and also some stropping compound or Smurf pea as it's called over here in the UK I don't know about globally where it's called but this is a stropping compound and this goes on your leather strop or for me this is this is a leather strop the belt begins the suede sort of part about the inside if I show you this hopefully you can see okay I don't do it up near the hole so I do it down there here just scribble it in get good amount of compound on there goes a long way this stuff it's pretty tough come on Liv obviously I only need to really go the wit and the Mach because that's as that's as much as I can draw the blade across I'm not gonna put too much pressure on this I'm just going to simply draw for stand up you can see just draw the axe across it keeping that angle that I did before say let's see that's that's the blade flat obviously the the bevel of the blade isn't touching the leather there if I tilt it up slightly it's just touching if I tilt it too much and push hard I'm gonna really roll that edge again and you'd be surprised how much you do roll it so just gently I'm really not putting too much pressure on here cuz I'm only getting rid of those that burr of metal again like I say it's just my way of doing it let me get me the other side I'll tell you how you want to hold the axe I'd like to hold this side right by the head I've got lots of control of it you can use a stropping block or stropping stick which you can also make yourself aware of those I do have them at home but this is for out in the field and I end up carrying extra equipment the belts already on me anyway so I may as well use it it's got multiple uses then I don't know if you can see that it's starting to shine a bit there now on that edge obviously I could end up polishing all this bit if I want to but that fits I'm not fussed about it's just this tiny edge bit here and that's now much sharper obviously be wary running your finger down the edge of a blade guys loop nice which we talked about the better shaders buta the noise it's nice to have the belt on the outside just helps you access your tools a little bit better I'm pretty pleased with that axe for now out in the field when I'm at home I can sharpen that a lot better so the belt loop works he acts there about a knife first let's get some macro Don another friend of mine UK guy made me this grill cover it's wax canvas oil skin and this grill is a really cheaper one from Amazon it's got legs to it but I'm not really a fan of the legs it can warp a bit in the middle but that's okay as long as it holds the food up I'm just gonna have it flat it's warm it up first pop a link to Tim stuff as well in the description this is a matte cool smokes ready but it's Peri Peri Peri Peri on there the monument is a bit too much flame you know ladies on the edge a bit [Music] very very much that was good oh gee burden they are looking good and done very very macro it's my plate today oh say good how about at Matco lessons summary just falls apart so this is camp for those that haven't seen it logs are over there getting low and logs because we're back into winter now kitchen e area here top roof which I would like to change to put more permanent roof eventually this was camp update 13 the film where we built this large now primary lean-to shelter fire pit more log storage in Jax's little house dog house over there most shelter that one over there hunting Tower this is a little perspex or twelve bit of a plastic bag really recycle plastic bag could be used as a window for the shelter there's the tower which is only accessible from the ladder inside this is the most lean-to you can see the moss just under there a lot weight on that lean Tina knows the hunting tower with the ladder I keep this black sheet on top of the logs which I bridge is obviously blown off snows on it gate raised bed over there raised bed you can see that down here more logs this is my cooking crane so I built in I know camp update seven or something for a sawhorse down there as well so what whilst I love my camp that I've built and I'm very proud of it there are some flaws and I've never really talked about the downsides of it before the main kind of downsides and disadvantages of the type of shelter that I've got here is the top roof and the fire pit inside don't go too well together because also because I've built so many walls and it's so enclosed there's no air flow which means that the fire is always smoky and it smokes out the whole the whole shelter both the small secondary mean to the primary island behind me they just get smoked out and we've tried all different sorts of things we know it's the airflow we know it's the lack of air play I've raised this I've raised a little bit of a back wall with the stones here on the fire pit which has helped but my initial idea of having the fire pit inside the clamp was so that to keep the shelters warm in the winter but as soon as we put that tarp roof on the smoke would come up and just fan out it would cool and then sink as smoke tends to do so you know maybe you guys can help me with this I'm thinking there's different options I could either I'm not I can't do it the co2 fire pit guys I've had a few people say do it the commit to fire hole it's so PT the soil here as soon as it comes to summer I'll do it we'll just set all the tree roots to light in the Forester light it will burn underground for hundreds of meters so the co2 fire pit is out the question I need to protect the forest floor if anything this does have a metal plate underneath this fire pit to prevent the ash going through and burning all the ground so the options I had are I either run a drain pipe with a fairly big diameter along here to the outside of that wall because that's where the air flow is from that wall so I run it underneath that wall into the fire pit here and that way the it creates a draft and it draws the heat when it gets going will draw the air through and then produce much you know much basically more of a flame much more heat a cleaner burn of the fire that's one option so let me know your thoughts on that obviously it would be partially buried dip the pipe and I put dirt over neat over the top of it so that people you wouldn't trip on it so it wouldn't be visible that's one option the other option was to take that wall down and make it a kind of triangle and actually have the fire pit just outside the camp so there's sort of wall there but the there's no roof above the fire and that way it goes straight up out into the into the forest so let me just show you so what I'm thinking is as opposed to having the fire pit just here in the middle of the camp taking this wall putting it at a diagonal like that and then having the fire pit down here that way it's got clear area for the smoke to go up to the top of the forest canopy there here you can see it straight up into this tarp which and the top so low that it just smokes out under here and it gets caught under this shelter caught under that shelter and smokes it out so I'm thinking maybe have it out here but still have this wall out there and maybe maybe another wall I don't know maybe leave it out and just have the fire pit out in the open and that way yes it won't heat the shelters as much but we're coming up to summer anyway but it'll also just allow for that better airflow because there's such a lack of airflow anyway that's the wall that's just that's come down recently with the snow with the rotten logs that's easily fixable it's within the shelter anyway a lot of you said I'm camp update 13 about pushing this part we folded it up in here anyway but pushing this part to the outside of the shelter so any rain that trickles down you know it's gonna come in between this gap here it's gonna come out underneath and trickle down the wood so perhaps pushing it through which I'll do in another video push it all through the other side so it all the leaks outside that way and keeps it from coming in the shelter that's one option as well just move up this is great this cooking cream works really well anyway let's go to the hunting sir a little bit snow up here which is fine but it's still super solid walls are still solid in this look at this view roofs roofs okay there's better snow on it up here I have a 360 degree V view this is the T key kitchen eventually I'd like to have a wood roof let me come outside a minute but I'm still not sure how I'm gonna do it we've got this pole here holding this tarp up I just would like a more permanent roof but it's really difficult where I've built it perhaps you guys can help with the permanent roof there's pictures on my Instagram of camps so maybe you can look at that picture and see how I can build the roof because at the moment obviously there's this gap here so the snow came in there I know it's gonna be difficult let me know guys let me know in the comment section below if you would how're you would do a roof here there's that tree obviously in the way but it could be used for support I don't know so I wanted to talk to you guys about this new knife I'm using which is made for me by my friend Scott he's called Wessex blades he's a UK knife maker this is without doubt probably the best made knife I've ever seen and used it's a beast it's actually a beast I'm genuinely quite scared of this let me just show you so this is called a lucu okay I've never I've never really heard of a lutely before but this is beautiful talk about the sheath in a minute look at that that is something else that's a thing of beauty as I said made by Scott Wessex blades based in the UK is a UK knife maker this is my first kind of proper UK handmade knife that is beast this is Scots logo which is etched in there this is incredible you saw me using it earlier I'm going to be using it in some more videos as well it's a beast it's it's heavy it's a heavy blade but it's got most of the weight near the tip it's got a slight little drop point there it's kind of got like a piranha look to it but it's not it's it's really unique I've never seen a blade like this it's got the Scandi grind and he's put a tiny little micro convex on there just to give the blade a bit more strength because it it is used for chopping and slicing but he's also it's clever because of the the sort of bulk of the weight is up here near the top for when you're doing that chopping action but as it narrows down refines down to a much thinner part here which would be great for feather sticks and whittling so it's it's a sort of a great all-round knife lovely swell on the handle look at that that's so nice in the hand just to fit Scott's written me an an epic letter here I'm not gonna read the letter I'm just gonna read you some of the points because this is truly unique this so the steel is carbon steel and it's 50 to 100 steel which I've never heard of before I think it's four point seven mil thick you've got this part which you could be used for rocking motions for the food prep and then the weight down here near the tip for that chopping action so this is why when you see on survival shows and things like that they have big blades generally because they want to they want an all-round knife and usually survival knives are all around night this is more designed to for bushcraft then survival the scales are again scales that I've never had before they're called London plane which Scott has cut up himself with his circular saw it's got red fiber liners there for me with Scott it's not just the the blades he makes but the sheets are personally in my opinion the best knife sheaths I think I've ever had I've been following Scott and Instagram for ages and the leather work I'll pop a link to Scott's wessex blades under video description below but the leather sheath he makes are just incredible Nicole so this is obviously black if I show you that there he's got his kind of Spartan the emblem there of the knight helmet that is so well made double stitched hand cut and hand dyed hand stitched and lock stitched all by hand tools and then on the back this is what I've been using it on the belt loop super super durable obviously the blade fits like a glove but it's also got this top down lip here fold over cover which makes it much more concealed obviously if you're carrying this around the public you will get pulled up for in the UK but that's much more discreet and having your actual handle there and also protects the handle if it's raining and everything like that handle is covered another very unique thing I don't know if you can see this is in the the welts there which is to stop the blade cutting into the leather he's actually got two red fiber liners I hope you can see that here two red fiber liners which match their the knife itself I've never seen that before if that's not attention to detail I don't know what is but that's very very clever I think that's probably the first time I've ever seen that in fact so I've already tested this out earlier and I intend to test it a lot more but just to show you with this weight forward and I split this fork in link this is the lucu fit all balanced so with that weight being forward I probably hit this split this wood with about the thickest part of the blade there I mean a race mincemeat of it incredible I can't get over how much of a beast this knife is just smashes through it I'm gonna use this part for the feather six cuz this is what Scott was telling me is more for the whittling this narrow pot so this is the first time doing feather sticks with this knife okay kick the fine cows you can get from it that's truly the best knife I've ever used so far and that's a fact I never i've always been put off of of big nights like this I've always loved the traditional bushcraft knives and I always will do I'm always drawn towards that classic scandi bushcraft knife but I guess when it comes to practicality of all round tasks and you know when you're on multiple day trips and if you were gonna carry one tool with you and not an axe I guess these knives this sort of lucu design piranha the cou cut Cree machetes that's why they're used so much in the survival scene they're super fine so just so you can see that's the thicket girls here that's the fine cows I mean they are so fine it's not easy to further sticks this way but but with that blade having such length to it you can also just slice across the wood and get the finest curls normally I'd never do feather sticks like this but I'm just trying to show you for the camera Bush crossed I'll just leave a grip let's try that well oh man that absolutely cut material it takes off takes off so much material only the chunks of material the thickness it's taking off a bit more of a finesse thumb push works very well I guess the downsides are that it is fairly heavy it's a bulky knife to take field on lightweight backpacking trips I probably would say it's too bulky that's probably a downside to it but nothing than that for me it's pretty awesome let's try it broke up as I was showing in the snow video the other day locking it on my knee pulling the wood that is ridiculous I can't get over how much material it takes off compared to my normal bushcraft standard classic ones I would say with it being longer pulling it back here I'm not getting as much material off down there near the coil there is some power there so I've got a bit of a broken fire still here it's not my traditional one my normal one that I bring it's just one of a spare blank I've got in my bag yep it works fine awesome so I mentioned in the previous I think it was a previous snow video actually about the partnership with G stove and the discount code that they were gonna give me well give you guys and I get it's like an affiliate code so I would get a commission from that discount code so it's amazing the D stove for me I use the heat view version in the smaller version for me it's it's worse it's the best it is one of the best if not the best in my opinion wood stoves out there for general you see me hiking with it you get what you pay for with a wood stove I wouldn't be buying them regularly I'd like to buy just the one and that was it that I'd like to think that would last me most of my lifetime anyway but a great thing and I think what makes G so stand out from other people and other stove companies is the accessories that they have that come with it they've got obviously the water boiling container they've got the stovepipe oven with temperature gauge on which I use regularly at the cabin with dad they've also got a clothes hanger which I haven't featured yet which dries clothes this is where you can plant hang your clothes from it they've got a fan which sits on top of the stove and runs via the heat of the stove itself so it doesn't have need any power it just runs by the heat and it pushes all that heat out circulates the heat around the room or the tent or the cabinet you're in so they they've given me a code guys and it will get you 15% off which is a fairly significant amount for any G stove product that applies to accessories as well but and it also works internationally so whatever country you are that you're ordering your G stove from this code will work and all it it's nice and simple it's just it all in small case ta outdoors okay there's two ways you can use this code there's ta outdoors code which will get you 15% off you can go onto the G stove website if you're a new customer then you register an account which you do anyway to to buy anything from the G stove website you just register an account and then you write in my code underneath where it says discount code so you write in ta outdoors and then when you log in you'll see that there has been a 15% discount on the prices that they that were previously shown the other way of doing it is if you're already registered so if you've been on the G stove website and you're a customer already you go up into the top corner of the G Stoke website they've got what's called a support center so you go to that and then you click my page and on your pages is your personal G stove page you add a discount code which is ta outdoor so you add that code there and that way you guys will always see a 15% discount on G Stoke products whenever you go on their website it's like a it's like a permanent code almost that's they're so very grateful to them and I'm very grateful to you guys if you do end up using my code ta outdoors to purchase anything this really helps the channel well you know obviously a lot of D monetization and everything that's happened to the channel about this time last year it got hit quite bad so I'm very grateful if you do end up using that code that's super super awesome so thank you so as well as G stove coming onboard and helping me out I did say about meeting the chance for like a subscriber Meetup and I've the guys from the bushcraft show this year have been in touch with me and they're looking to I'm gonna help them out with some filming so for those that don't know the bushcraft show is an annual weekend event on the bank holiday weekend at the end of May and it features it's basically a huge outdoor show that features loads of bushcraft classes from the experts it also features seminars and talks from bushcraft experts there's loads of practical hands-on things that you can do there's for example this year some of the expert speakers that are going to be there is Ed Stafford Paul curtly he's gonna be there wil Lord there's some unbelievable you know I mean these are the these are the people that can it be at this year's bushcraft show they are the top of the top as well as that I'm going there with Jax and Emmy so that my wife is coming and Jack's my dog is gonna be there as well and we're camping we're getting we can take it we're gonna do some camping and we will be probably camping out in the fields as opposed into the woodlands but yeah I'm going this year be great to meet some of you guys I'll be really interested to meet some of you and we can just chat anything and everything bushcraft related camping and things like that and it'd just be awesome to meet you I know loads of you been asking about a meet-up and the bushcraft roving is kind enough to offer you guys a 15% discount as well on your tickets so if you're interested in maybe coming for the weekend or the day they do day tickets a world but we're gonna be obviously there for the weekend if you're interested in coming use the discount code ta outdoors 15 on the bushcraft show web site and had to check out and that will get you 15% off your tickets guys so that'd be awesome it'd be such a good opportunity to meet you I'm very grateful for them for to be able to offer you a discount I'll be doing some filming there as well as I'm obviously helping them up with some filming and I'm going to film a little vlog as well so potentially you might be able to be on ta outdoors as well but for me it's just a great opportunity to be able to meet you because I'm usually so busy you know scheduled with films and things like that it's very hard to find an opportunity to actually organize something like this so rather than me organizing it we've been in touch obviously we'll be talking with the bushcraft show and they've they've happily helped me out so I'm really grateful for that grateful to the guys that David and Olivia at the bushcraft show there's live music in the evenings there's bars there so be great shot to you some of you guys and yeah I'm looking forward to seeing some of you there so ta outdoors 15 at the bushcraft show website will get you 15% off your tickets and remember the G stove code is ta outdoors again on their on their page on their website I will put links to in the video description to all of this information including Scott's knife and everything bush Quatro tickets all the information is in the video description below so you don't have to keep skipping back to this part of this episode so yeah it's been awesome unfortunately I'm not doing an overnighter tonight in the camp bit gutted I've got to get back for um for Jax and Emmie I haven't planned to do an overnight tonight I just saw the snowfall cart and came straight out here about to pass 300,000 subscribers well so I'm super grateful for that thank you to all of you guys who subscribed to the channel it means a huge amount to me I'm really pleased that you're enjoying the videos I will state I'm not an expert just so you know I'm just learning along the way and trying to pass on what I learned to you guys and hopefully hopefully you see that in the videos don't forget to check out dad's YouTube channel as well called ta fishing for weekly fishing videos we've got lots plans we have got lots planned the doors are opening I can't leave it like this this time last year I was on under 100 thousand subscribers and there was no sponsorships really or anything like that and now there's doors opening with with sponsors and you know and I appreciate that not everyone likes the sponsorship so I do appreciate that when it can you know it can affect the quality of a video but it won't be every video not not all of my videos that will be sponsored but it just helps me out guys because those of you who are on YouTube will know your revenue is like this you know it's just so up and down it's so unpredictable what can happen and things like last year where the D monetization hit that was overnight I woke up the next day and my revenue had half imagine waking up the next day and your your job your the people you work for saying we're giving you a 50% pay cut that's that's how it feels the next day and it just hit me and it really damaged the channel quite a bit so you know I worked hard worked on through it kept going and you know I'm now at a stage where people are knocking on my door sponsors are knocking on my door and it's it's a great thing because this is my full-time job I have to be able to provide for my family I have to be able to earn money at the end of it at the end of the day but I appreciate that not everyone likes the sponsorships and the commercial side of it but I hope you realize that it is so that I can it's like a job it's like you guys have a job this is my job even if YouTube did stop paying me I would still do this it just wouldn't be on the regular basis that it is and the quality would probably go down so yeah I would I started the channel well before YouTube was monetized and I started ta fishing where we started that in from back in 2010 I think it was or something like that well before monetization came around so we were well aware they still our passion to make these but it's just they won't if I didn't have this income from YouTube and I wasn't full-time the films would not be the quality that they are at the moment so I hope you guys realize that I hope you appreciate that and I obviously I am aware that the commercial side of things on you know a lot of people don't like it I'm aware of that but I hope you realize that this is me providing for my family as well I'm trying to make a living from this you know it's not easy it's the most unpredictable income I think I've ever known it's so unpredictable and it's so hard to know what's coming next you know they can hit us with anything YouTube with the D monetization and non advertiser friendly content there's no heads up at the moment they just hit you with it so I have to do these I have to do these sponsored things every now and then because it it's more security for me who wants to be in a job where there's no security you know there's no there's no knowledge of when you're going to be coming into work the next day it's horrible so yeah hopefully you understand that guys I appreciate those of you who have stuck by regardless and and just watch the commercial sponsored parts you know I didn't really appreciate that and the people who use the codes that's super helpful anyway thanks so much if you're still watching this episode I appreciate it's been a bit of a ramble here in the woods but it's been so nice to just enjoy it so peaceful and I've got plans to be back at camp soon once this snow goes we've got to do some tidying up here I've got a retie some of the walls get the structures a bit better a bit more sturdy there will be plans potentially for another another camp update what do you guys think what would you add to this camp I'm almost done with what I can add to this camp but I'm sure you have plenty ideas of ideas so let me know the roof suggestions if you can I'm very grateful for you for watching this video if you're still sticking around thank you so much and I will see you guys in the next episode oh yeah patches coming soon to follow me on instagram for information on that you

Channel: TA Outdoors

Views: 5,054,036

Keywords: bushcraft, camp, snow, fire, shelter, axe, cooking, fish, bushcraft camp, storm, overnight, overnight camp, camping, survival, forest, woods, nature, tarp, snow storm, hunting tower, grill, firepit, super shelter, natural shelter

Id: A3VdFB6QWt0

Length: 55min 52sec (3352 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 20 2018