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Bushcraft Shelters: Quick Deployment Tarp System

Description

A quick deployment Tarp system for your kit. Easy to Put up and take down in rain or shine.

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Video Transcription

hi guys it's Mike from mcq bushcraft here and I've been out in the woods today tapping some silver birch and while I'm waiting for those jugs to fill up I thought I'd show you my tarpaulin on my tarp system basically my cover that I use out in the woods if it not be a natural shelter so I'm going out for the night I'm taking a tarpaulin with me and this is basically an eight-litre dry bag and inside is a pre-strung tarp a DD 3x3 coyote Brown tarp and polyurethane and I think we've all been in a position where we've been at home and we're packing before a trip and you can generally fold things away quite neatly when you're at home you're in a comfortable environment you can sit down you can get things kind of suss that and fold things away if you get your top nice and small and you put it in your pack you think I've got space for this to go here that to go there you can start basting other items around that sort of bulky item that you've managed to get quite small and when you get out in the woods and you unpack it you start using it or if it rains and you can't get it packed away as small as you could at home your whole system can start to feel a bit disorganized and things start getting strapped to the outer of backpacks this is a system that I run and it's just a crush bag or compression sack that's a dry bag and I don't fold my Taff away no matter what state it's in there it's soaking wet or bone dry just gets crushed in here pre-strung and then I can just take it out and use it as I as and when really and it can always be this size and it always will be this size because of the crush sack basically I wanted to show you the system that I'm running today because I think it's quite useful especially for in a country where it rains a lot like mine so the first part of our ridgeline we're just going to get our loop like this put the ridge line through it like so toggle goes there that's it we're knotted up to the tree then we can draw over to the other tree so we'll just get that nice and tight by bringing it back over the ridge line and just a simple quick release knot keep it close to the tree just like that so you can see our tops connected to our ridge line here I've kept the ridge line pretty low wouldn't actually camp in this location but just for purposes of demo I've kept it nice and low in this area just so you can see what's going on but I've made some changes to my top you'll see it comes with these loops that you thread the actual ridge line through I've stitched mine up to basically make the loop very very small and that way it keeps the top very taut and it stops it sagging so much in the center because often what can happen is is you'll find it'll be very tight on the edges but saggy along the top and this will just kind of eliminate that problem for you but if we just pull dry bag off some drivers come with a handle at the bottom just there they're much easier to rip off this cheap one so I've got date but it's not really a big deal the dry banks just there we'll just put this on the ridge line for the time being you can see there you can just pour the tarp a depth like this and three of the connectors are actually permanently connected to the ridge line but the ones on the end they're not they're slightly different because they're actually connected to the top in a different way I've put some bungee cord just there and knotted it and that gives the top a bit of flexibility when it's kind of blowing around as well stops it tearing it allows you to connect the tarp up and tighten it in a slightly different way which I'll show you now so you can see I have a little plastic not there the loop on it and I have the loop on the end of my tarp there all I'll do is put it through the loop on the press 'ok not put a toggle through and it gives it a bit of flexibility there and allow me to tighten it the other side and really tighten the top but also slide it up and down the ridgeline to make sure where I want it to be is correct the same with this side got my prusik knot there just slide that down slide it down a bit more get it loosened up a bit just put my loop through there I've got my toggle like say and then all I've got to do to tighten it up let's just pull everything nice and taut if you look down the ridge line while I'm doing that you'll see that the actual tarp is stacked right up against the ridge line and this would be a very tall top it weights sag at all in the middle should be good - your corners at the top are pre connected to 550 cord as well so I can just unhanged those and draw them out all this painful Holly to tree for example and you can see that by stacking up the tarp right against the ridge line making these loops smaller it just makes it a much better tarp all in the shape is a far better for runoff and just keeps it nice and taut so this is really just how I keep my tarp and we'll have a look at packaging it packing it away because obviously if it is raining really heavily this thing would be saturated and you don't really want to be folding it away and spending lots of time packing it up separating out all your lines you know separating your ridge line there's no point in doing things like that then you can just crush it all into a dry sack and pretty much achieve the same compression anyway there's other loft hag site and cranked up the coolness even if it starts to really wet

you can see that we've got to do stuff it back into this dry bag I usually start with the bottom where all the corners off you can see all the cause that usually punch that all up start feeling it in obviously if it's a wet tarp and you're leaning against it you're gonna get wet that's just how it's gonna be you can always get a bigger dry sack if you want less of a job packing this thing in it's awfully if you have a really small dry sack just giving yourself a bit more of a good job in I'll leave it like that for the time being obviously take one of the cords off that tree there on parts of the ridgeline

you stun not it it'll just allow me to bring this to ground and then start packing it in on the ground so we just need to hang the Corder so this is just a really easy way of packing away a tarpaulin and unpacking it and it just keeps everything confined to this dry bag so whatever the weather it's not going to interfere with any of your other kit it'll always conform to a certain size so you can pack around it and manage it properly as a something that's a set size instead of it changing size all the time and because when when things get wet they're very hard to pack away and they don't compress quite as well as they did when you're at home so putting it back in your pack in this dry bag at least you know it's going to fit you need to have a hell of a job putting it away it's trying to fold it away neatly on a forest floor collecting leaves and dirt while you're doing it so I hope this videos helped out I appreciate you guys watching and if you're interested any of the kit that I use or I've shown in this video have a look at the links below on the Amazon stores and you'll see kit group together there for you to have a look at and ponder over and obviously there's relevant social media links as well in the description so thanks again and take care and hope to see in another one cheers guys

you

About the Author

MCQBushcraft

MCQBushcraft

I'm a UK based outdoorsman who started hunting and fishing with my friends when I was young.

Educating yourself about your surroundings and having the core skills to sustain yourself using your environment is a lost curriculum in the United Kingdom. We are well provided for, so well that "why do anything if somebody else will do it for you". This lifestyle has drastically disconnected people from having the knowledge and skills required to spend even one night in the woods and not get hungry.

I love being outdoors and have never lost the desire to learn and practice skills that I get a sense of natural connection from. Hunting hangs controversy in the minds of many, but in my eyes there is nothing more natural if you choose to eat meat. I appreciate that not everybody hunts in moderation though.

Thanks for reading
Michael McQuilton

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