Gear Dump and Discussion: Florida Hunter Gatherer Course 4-day

alright guys what's going on this is Josh the great breed of Green Beret just want to talk to you real quick headed down to Florida for a Florida coastal swamp hunter-gatherer course it's a joint event with the Pathfinder school and the flint and steel critical skills group is going to be Dave Canterbury from the Pathfinder school and myself and Justin cook down in Florida from flint and steel critical skills group so we're going to spend four days in the coastal swamps in the Panhandle area of Florida so I thought I'd do a quick gear dump to show you what I'm taking for that type of excursion I break it down into kits basically seven essential kits every time I go out and a good knife that's what I'm looking for but within that seven essential kits and a good knife are the 10 C's and some some other redundancies I've got my fire kit my shelter kit my water kit my food kit first aid kit is on my belt navigation kit and a single kit and of course I've got my tools and items that I can use to maintain those tools okay so let's take a look at the fire kit first going down into a wet area or going into an area that's extremely cold I like to use I like to carry redundancy in my fire kit because fire is such an important resource I also want to make sure that I've crossed loaded so that if for some reason I'm out on a scout and I don't have my pack I still have some of those basic necessities with me on my person so for that reason I put a belt I put a fire kit in my belt and then I put a second full fire kit in my pack now pretty every fire kit needs to have at least three modern ignition sources plus some are done backups modern ignition sources I take with me I'm going to take just a regular big lighter and that's in an X attack fire sleeve and that's got a Titan survivor cord lanyard on it that has some wack Jude in it you know it's nice to have since I've just got a little lanyard here if I've got a lanyard but also can aid me in getting a fire going in an emergency that's just smart to me this makes it more shock resistant makes it a little more waterproof and it keeps my button from getting pressed in my kit and wasting all of my fuel for a matches because this is on a belt kit I don't want to carry you know a case with matches so I normally just carry a large super match that's made out of Titan matches and I've got a video on that I'll drop a cart on here for those if you haven't seen that but that's just an emergency fire starting source that has the ignition source and the tinder and for a ferrocerium rod I like to use the half inch by six inch this one's from SRO I put a I keep this on there as an emergency striker but I generally just use the spine of my knife and then to make it easy to grip I've got some tape some one-inch gorilla tape around that that acts as kind of a handles then of course my favorite piece of gear is my Hudson Bay tobacco tin this has a 5 powered magnifier in the lid and it also moving on from the modern ignition sources to the kind of the more traditional ignition sources I like to carry it also has you know my flint and steel kit in it so flint and steel this particular one is the Pathfinder multi fire tool so it could be used as a steel striker and it also has a bow drill divot that works really well the thickness of this steel works really well to dissipate the heat as you're using it unlike some of the other ones I've used it that heat up in your hand and getting uncomfortable sometimes before you get the Ember this wood does a really good job of dissipating the heat plus it has good 90-degree edges so you can actually use it as a striker as well on your Ferro rod so that's the Pathfinder multi fire tool really good piece of kit and then of course I've got some char cloth but I just made for a recent video to restock this tin a little bit of dried youth some of that is treated with saltpeter to make it more of a slow match and then to protect my lens on the inside I just use a piece of white paper birch another mod that I do that maybe I haven't talked to you guys about before is I put a little arranger band and you can get those from wazoo survival gear but I put a little ranger band around this cap so that it gives me some grip and it's a lot easier to take it off because it's kind of a friction fit lid and it's a lot easier to take off with that Ranger band on there what I also like to do is carry a way so that if for some reason I'm down to a bow-drill or I choose to do a bow drill which hopefully every time I do a friction fire it'll be by choice and with the lighter in my pocket but the two hardest components to recreate in the wild for a bow drill if you've seen that video is the bearing block and the cordage so I carry a small section of wax paracord this has probably got you know 50 bow drill fires on it that I've done several with this is a bearing block just just something small that I can pack inside to that kit fill it in in the nooks and cranny's because I don't want to put this brass tin in the fire to charm it char natural material there's a few other things that I could use to do it but then I've got to store it you know to keep the moisture out of it because it will soak up humidity will soak up moisture so I carry a small charring and storage tin that I can use to char natural materials in the wild so that also goes in my belt kit and the Possible's pouch I like to carry just a couple of sticks of that wood in there it's kind of an emergency natural tinder source it's just abundant around here so it's hard for me to walk by it all the time and not throw some in my pouch then for an emergency right now fire like I need one right now I'm going to be hypothermic kind of goes in in line with the lighter or with the super match and I can also use a Ferro rod for this really well but the mini infernos from self-reliance Outfitters these things are great but it's basically a way for a cotton round that's soaked in an accelerant and then it's coated with a wax you know so the accelerant once you tear this open and expose the accelerant the accelerant takes a spark or flame really quickly and the wax on the outside actually slows that down so that it burns longer and can dry out marginal tender and get your fire going in an emergency on top of that once that's out I've got an additional tin that I can char and store material in so really like these I try to keep these in both my kids I don't generally use them out in the field unless I'm doing some sort of demo for these but these are you know I can't I'm limited to what's on my person or limited to what I can reach because I'm injured or I'm about to be hypothermic I need a fire right now that's when I break these out so you're literally saving these for a rainy day that's my fire kit that goes in my badger claw Possible's pouch here on the belt that's what's in there all right so that's what I keep in my belt kit and then I also keep a redundant kit in my backpack so what I'll do is I'll use the backpack kit first if I have access to it so that for some reason down the road I end up to where I'm down to just my belt get everything in here is fresh this is the fire kit 2.0 from also from badger cloth leather works medical and other works is where I get all of this belt really good leather work really good wax canvas so inside this I carry a Sammy pouch which is a waxed canvas pouch then I collect natural tinder at every opportunity and I just stuffed this full so that when I get to camp and need to set up a fire I've got my tinder with me and I don't have to break in to my other resources so having a way to actually collect natural tinder from the onset of your excursion is extremely important you want to gather resources as you find them using that possum mentality because I don't know what's gonna be available where I'm going I just know what's available right here so I'm gonna take what I need when I can so on top of this also on my belt kit is this basically it's a drop pouch that I can collect in as well so that's what that is and that's a bush crafters dump pouch from Badger cloth and I'm not using it kind of folds up out of the way but if I find something like natural tinder or other resources like edibles medicinals etc I can put them in there or I can put them in here so that gives me plenty of tinder carrying capability once you open this up it's got a nice little a nice little platform there that you can use to keep your tinder bundle dry this particular kit is pretty EXO tack heavy this is the kit I use primarily and that I in my opinion it's is some of the best quality you know fire starting gear out there so I like the EXO tack so I've got a Titan light which is their lighter it's kind of the same principle as a Zippo uses a style fuel for matches I've got the machined aluminum match case and these have Yuko storm proof matches in them which is my favorite type of match anyway so you can carry a few of those plus it's got a striker built in there and a striker right there and just like the Titan light its machined aluminum super durable it's not gonna break really good piece of kit so these are both open flame this one requires fuel this one doesn't work as well in the wind or the rain so that's why I think it's a good idea to carry at least a few matches for those really stormy conditions you'll be able to get a fire going with this pretty much right now when it's not going to put them out rains not going to put them out for long so if you haven't seen my review on Yuko matches then I recommend that you take a look at that I'll drop a card on that as well so the advantage that a liner has is that it's really quick and it's reusable so many times with matches you're limited to how many you can carry in this case I'm only carrying four in here but this is my primary open flame ignition source this is a backup and because I'm using this in conjunction with emergency tinder for emergencies I'm gonna have you know a redundancy here if it's important enough to have this that you're staking your life on an open flame ignition source it's important enough to back that up with something that's just my humble opinion on carrying both lighter and matches so so also from XO tech this is the XO Tec nano striker everything on these is machined aluminum and they have a rings rubber o-rings that seal them and make them waterproof which is great then you're going into an area that that is a high in salt water because saltwater will corrode your Ferro rod so with this one it's got a striker on one end that's extremely sharp that works really well then you take this part and your Ferro rod is inside there flip it around it gives you a little more length so it's not such a fine motor skill you've got a little closer to gross motor skills and then you use that where you can use your knife to throw sparks pretty good little Ferro rod put it back together take that flip it around put it in there that overing keeps it from getting corroded if it's got salt water or something like that on it you want to dry that off close that up protect your striker inside there all of it sealed in this nice little extra Tec nano striker package really cool little Ferro rod and then for solar this is where I keep my big magnifying lens that's just basically a double convex lens that's designed to be used for science class alright so that's all the modern ignition sources I don't have any redundancy on my traditional flint and steel kit or my bow drill capabilities except for my tools are all carbon steel so I can use carbon steel with some natural stone and that my backup flint and steel kit same thing for pretenders in here I've got emergency tender just for just for that reason for emergencies got a couple more pieces of that wood in there which would be the primary ones I'm using if I need to start a fire in wet weather and then this I wanted to show you these are ex attack candle tins and this one I can actually open and show you but we're talking about these are for our Nano candles so a stack of three of these which is how they come is equal to a 12-hour candle and it's a beeswax candle as well so I could carry two of these put this up here where you can see it I can carry two of those each one being 12 hours or like I carry my more traditional kids the Yuko beeswax candles are also twelve hours both beeswax both 12 hours the EXO tack Nano is actually packed smaller and they come in their own tins that are reusable so I could go let's just now it rolls you know twelve hours in this twelve hours in this these come with their own tin so if you're not carrying your candle lantern that you would be able to use these in it might be worth carrying these little candle tins in your kit because you still get the same amount of time there's still beeswax and once they're gone you have these reusable little tins that you could keep medicinals in you can char material and you can store charred material and what-have-you so great little product as well from EXO tack I'm gonna take those instead of the traditional this time and that is my redundant fire kit and like I said I primarily use this I call it redundant because it's in it's a second one in my pack but this is the one that I primarily use every good shelter kit in my opinion starts with something to sleep under something to sleep on something to sleep in and cordage so for my shelter kit I'm going with the war bonnet this time because I'm going to be in the swamps you know aside from getting me up off the ground because it's going to be wet potentially or the the ease at which that kind of area can flood there's also snakes and Gators and bugs and and critters that I want to be up off the ground away from so I'm taking a complete war bonnet hammock system and that consists of the this is the the black bird XL C double layered hammock so really simple to put up and it has a built-in bug net it also has a double layer kind of a sandwiched layer of material and it's an asymmetrical design so it's it's designed to lay in diagonally which I really like because I'm a side sleeper but it has the bug net built in and has a double layer of material underneath so that you can slide a sleeping pad in there if you want to protect you from the convection but your up off the ground you've prevented that conduction but you still have to convective breeze coming in underneath and it does get cold so to remedy that I've got my under quilt which is the war bonnets wiki under quilt that basically just attaches to that and kind of half wraps you in a cocoon of of insulation and this works really well sometimes this is all I need but you know a lot of times when it's really cold I'll take the under quilt and the over quilt which is kind of a it has about a third of the way up it has kind of a foot box to put your feet in and then it's just a blanket and the way that that works is you have the under quilt that's wrapped up around you around the sides of the hammock and you're sitting down in it and the over quilt becomes your top layer and kind of completes that insulated cocoon that you have so those work really well in cold weather for sure then of course the superfly tarp my super polite tarp I've already got rigged with tightened survivor cord so all of the guidelines and the ridgeline etc are all inside there already so I don't have to do that when I get where I'm going I can just throw the tarp up if I need to I can set the tarp up and put the hammock up underneath it if it's raining for example then I've got some stakes for the tarp and I've got some additional cordage I've got some number six bank line and some number 36 Bank line that I can use for shelter I can use for fishing I can use for gear repair or pioneering projects etc one other thing that I want to show you because I'm going to be in such a wet environment I've got some some material that I don't want to get wet I want a good waterproof bag that I can count on to keep all of my stuff dry I'm gonna take my seal line bag that has a valve on it fill that up pull roll down the top and then squeeze all the air out and close the valve and it will stay kind of almost like a vacuum seal really a really a good space-saving options this is also a really cool one because it has you have the ability to turn it inside out and it's got a signal panel on it so I don't have to carry additional signals and the last thing that I consider part of my shelter kit is another war bonnet product this is a stash jacket folds up really small I put them in my backpack or in my backpack I put them in my back pocket like a wallet even you know to where I have something to pull out real quick if it's raining and this has been really what this has been really good for me it's a saved me from getting soaked and drenched to the bone the number of times but super lightweight made out of the same material as my tarp is so alright for my water kit I'm gonna be surrounded by water so I'm only carrying one container to actually store that water but I've got multiple ways or I've got more than one container so of course I'll take my bottle carrier which also comes from badger badger cloth but I wanted to break out the kit and show you but it's kind of the same kit that I bring all the time I've got a 32 ounce stainless steel water bottle from Pathfinder this is Pathfinder stand still available on SRO as well as the nesting cup that goes with it that nesting cup also has a lid it's got all kinds of holes so you can pour out liquids and strain it also has these slots in the top that corresponds with the holes on the side so that I can use my little fish draw spreader which is also going to come handy for that purpose you know to spread fishes jobs to get hooks out as a way to pull it up off to the fire or I can suspend it over the fire with that so that's what why that's designed to all go together so I've got kind of a complete system for a pre-filter I just use this bandanna and then I plan on I plan on thermally disinfecting all the water that I get into down there so I'm not gonna take any filter not gonna take any tab so I'm just gonna pre-filter debris out with this still not going to be safe to drink like any improvised filter and then I'm gonna go ahead and thermally disinfect it over a fire all of that fits inside this so and I keep it on a strap so that if I leave want to leave my deer and just want to carry my water bottle on the scalp then I've gotten this in there and I've got my belt kit set up to where I can do that as well one other thing that's cool about this and I can also charm aterial with this natural material if I don't have a tin for my char cloth I can use this and it works really well and this goes back to what I was saying during the charcloth video the rumor is you have to have a pin hole well I've made really good char cloth or a really good charred Punk wood charred natural tinder like tulip poplar bark Aspen bark etc in one of these with all of these holes without a problem we'll just take that set it on the fire make a big batch of char and you're good to go what you can also do if this is empty you can put punk wood or tulip poplar bark you're going to shred it bark what have you inside there with the lid off actually throw that in the fire and you've got good chart making abilities with that as well so like I said that all fits inside I just put the lid in first nesting cup and the bottle go in next tuck the fish drop spreader in roll that up and my water kit is complete all right so let's get into the food kit real quick and this time I'm going pretty heavy on things that allow me to or facilitate gathering a lot of the resources that you'll find in a coastal wetlands area tons of fish tons of crustaceans shellfish etc so with that in mind I've kind of thrown together a really robust trapping and fishing kit that I want to use while I'm down there I've got probably five or six Thompson's survival snares which are premade snares these are fantastic I can set them out quickly go for rabbits go for squirrels go for other varmints that I could eat some of the micro trapping things that I've got is just a couple of large steel rat traps it'll take mice these will take rats squirrels and etc so big heavy-duty dudes that might get me some chow that I can eat on land that's kind of my land-based traps and then with that I've got a couple of packets of almond butter Yuki's peanut butter doesn't really matter it's just one I had when I'm trappin if I'm making improvised traps I can use this as a bait it's also a really high calorie food source for me if I get down to that you know maybe if you're not you're not successfully trapping maybe you can you know at least eat the bait but I like to carry these because they fit just inside of a trapping kit don't take up a lot of space and I've got bait right there and everything loves peanut butter so it's a good chance of turning this little packet into several meals if I can catch things with it a large mesh bag that I can use and this I can clip on my belt I can gather muscles I can gather that wild edibles etc in that and this would be for stuff that I don't want in like this closed wax canvas bag I can use this but as far as the water I'm pretty heavy on the water so I've got I've got several of these mechanical yo-yos that I can hang from a tree and it's all spring-loaded with a coil spring pull that down until it's in the water set my trigger the line actually runs up through the other end of the trigger and whenever a fish takes that and pops the trigger and it actually reels them up in for you and he'll be hanging off of the limb once you get there so I think I've got five of those then I've got five of the old school military speed hooks which are these little contraptions here those when you close them up and put tension on them and they're running through this eyelet and you just kind of set it like that and same thing this is actually hanging from a tree here want something bites that it pops and you're talking about it good you know five six inches of travel here to where it sets that hook and it catches the fish for you and you come back and get it and these are really small and lightweight so I'm gonna take four of these if I had more I would take more probably then I've got just some small fishing kits that I can use if I want to do any active fishing but mainly I've got this so that I've got additional hooks and fishing tackle for the yo-yos and the speed hooks because I'd rather passively catch fish then actively fish then a couple of other things that I may have the opportunity use this is just a pocket one of those cheap pocket hammocks that I can turn into a gill net depending on what kind of water what kind of bodies of water I have down there if I've got a stream that this will span across I can use this as a gill net if I've got more of a lakish type I can use this was just a pre-made bank line slash trap line kit which has all the leaders all the hooks some weights and it's about I think 30 to 40 feet of tarred bank line mariners line and it's actually going to be used to make a bank line so depend on what I've got if it's a stream I can use this or I can make a truck line with this if I've got more of an open body of water I can use the same kit for a bank line far as active my favorite thing to go with is a fish frog spear I can use this for both so that's one we're gonna take then as far as actually cooking it because the nesting cup on this is so small if I get a big mess of shellfish you know I'm gonna take this 64 ounce Bush pot with a lid and this one I'm actually gonna take one of the greats as well you're gonna set it on its side put something in their cores it up and put that on the fire and it turns it into kind of an oven a lot of this stuff you know you don't need this for you don't need this for your baseline pack by any means my rule for food is two is one one is none ten or more is dinner for sure so every time I'm trapping I want to put out at least ten traps because I figure I'll get at least the 10% return on all the traps I put out so if I put out ten traps I can expect to get something every day if I put out one to two traps I can expect to get something every ten days it's just it's percentages the more chances I have to catch something the better statistically my chances of actually catching something so if you're only putting out one or two traps then you're gonna go hungry for a while or you get lucky if you're actively pursuing food instead of passively pursuing food than your your burning calories you don't need to and you're not necessarily going to be more successful that way having 10 drafts out that are passive while you're setting up your shelter getting your fire going getting some water boiling et cetera all of that is working for you while that happens once I get done with that I can go back out check these traps or I can check them in the morning and chances are you know with that many traps out good chance that I'm gonna have something to eat as far as first date I'm not taking a lot for first aid I've got my first aid kit on here and really it's got stuff for bleeds you know I've got my forest tool and I've got I've got knives etc so the most likely injury that I'm gonna have is is a laceration or of some sort could be a mechanical injury but I can fix that with everything else but as far as like stopping major bleeds that are life-threatening that's what I've got in here I've got some quick clots some Israeli bandages and some s rolled gauze you know so I can kind of stop a bleed quick and that's always on my hip anytime you grab your knife you should be grabbing your first-aid kit just my thought for navigation I'm actually carrying very little for navigation because we'll probably be doing a lot of self mapping so I've just got paper and pencil and a couple of pencils that's waterproof this is the Pathfinder notebook pretty good a nice large size grid pattern is really good for self mapping and of course I've got my son toe mc2 global compass Waze new pace chord that has a mirror on it that I can use and also another magnifying lens so that's my min of my minimalist navigation kit that I'm taking down there is signal we're gonna be with a large group I don't plan on going too far I do have a whistle on the end of this compass that I could use and I've also got my Princeton tech headlamp that I can use as a signal and I've got enough batteries for for changes because I'm going for four nights sorry got my nest muck punky dope now I'm gonna go test against the florida skeeters and the gators hopefully and the moccasins hopefully keeps all those away I've got my punky dope for my bug juice then also I've got a pair of leather work gloves just in case we get time to some nasty brambles and buyers like I expect you now for everyone's favorite part the actual knives I selected primarily my belt knife that I'm gonna be using is gonna be my LT right Genesis which is kind of a Kephart style good thumb scallops nice broomstick handle it's just one of the most comfortable knives in my opinion and of course anybody that knows me knows I love the Kephart design this one is a 2 high carbon steel it will throw sparks nice sharpened edge really really a razor full tang of course but that's my belt knife that I'm gonna be taking this time and then of course my PKS Pathfinder neck knife shop forest tool which this is perfectly suited I think for the southeast you've got kind of a large chopper or a small machete so it's a good in-between I think for hacking through some of that stuff down there in Florida so the forest tool again that's another full tang design that's another carbon steel these are all all PKS those are 1095 this one actually has a convex edge on it this is a scandi which is my preference this actually has a convex edge owner that's really really good this thing is taking some abuse and I've still yet to sharpen it and I've just kind of dropped it real quick keep it oiled keep it in the sheet and it's always been good to go when I needed it I got my standard tool roll going here which if you've never seen it inside of it I'll show you what's in there this has a couple of a couple of crooked hauls in there and I'm mainly bringing both of these in case I want to make something with it you know whatever you need an awl for but I can also make a meat fork out of it if I put those two together and I'll try to see if I can get a picture of that I'll make one this weekend so I've gotten that I've got a large backup Ferro rod and this is a packable draw knife this is a spoon knife I've got a small silky saw a little pocket boy I believe this is a 130 130 dc4 whetstone some olive oil and a repair kit so this repair kit is is reminiscent of it reminds me of the sámi repair kits to the XO tack rip spool which i think is a really cool modern take on the traditional sami repair kit so what it's got is it's a machined aluminum spool that has your duct tape your cargo tape wrapped around that it also has some braided fishing line around that and then on the inside you could take that off there's a little o-ring inside there just like all of XO tax gear has has a little o-ring inside that seals it all up and you see it's a it's a spool of tape but inside I've got a believe it's a 14 sail needle and I can pull that needle out and use it for repair or I can leave that needle in this handle and this becomes a punch all so that I can actually use it for gear repairs so you've got your your needle you've got your thread or fishing line you've got a little bit of extra room in here where you could drop some small hooks split shot sinkers etc down in there there's enough room and I believe this is also fire cord inside here there's a waxed jute inner strand in here that I could use for fire if I wanted but this is one of my favorite little pieces of kit you know because it's it reminds me of that that Sammy repair kit and I think it's just a great idea so repair kit all in one little package Oh last thing it's all gonna go in Alice I'm taking my house back with me this time so this is what I'll be carrying it in and I dry quickly I've had these many a time in the swamp and gonna be down in an area now I'm quite familiar with as far as the Florida phase of Ranger School was down there looking forward to getting back there getting some swamp water on me again and we'll have a great time and I'll see you guys next week when I get back thanks for watching all right now for the question how much does it weigh gonna isolate this house back here there go with 30 pounds I'm showing 27 pounds it puts me right at 30 here we're at 34 pounds

Channel: The Gray Bearded Green Beret

Views: 77,400

Rating: 4.9436884 out of 5

Keywords: Ranger, Green Beret, Pathfinder, Survival, Bushcraft, Preparedness, Fire, Shelter, Camping, Hunting, Trapping, Knives, Axes

Id: jKHZpk02n_Q

Length: 36min 27sec (2187 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 15 2018