Kit Mentality the Basics

Description

http://www.thepathfinderstore.com

Dave Canterbury, David Canterbury, The Pathfinder School,Bush Craft ,Survival skills, Historical Lore, Primitive Skills, Archery, Hunting, Trapping, Fishing, Navigation, Knives, Axes, Fire, Water, Shelter, Search and Rescue

Tags: Bushcraft,Survival,David Canterbury,Dave Canterbury,Pathfinder,The Pathfinder School,Archery,Hunting,Fishing,Camping,Primitive Skills,Fire,Water,Shelter,Navigation,First Aid,Search and Rescue,Signaling,Prepper,Preparedness,Self Reliance,Survivability,The 10 C's,Knives,Axes,Saws,Bow Drill,Ferrocerium Rod,Ferro Rod,Tarp,Hammock,Canteen,Cooking,Longhunter,Trapping

Video Transcription

morning guys - Canterbury the Pathfinder school

I thought we do today is continue on with our basic series and discuss a little bit about basic kit mentality and you can call a kit a scouting kit you can call it a survival kit you can call it a bug-out bag you can call it a trucking kit it doesn't really matter what it is everything revolves around what you put in a container to maintain your body's core temperature and to sustain you over the course of one to three days and Beyond and all of that depends on how much weight you want to carry and what type of items you want in your bag so we're going to talk about a basic travel kit today what I would call a basic traveling type kit and this kit could sustain you if you added a little bit of food to it easily for more than a week up to two three weeks you can go a long time without food if you absolutely have to but there are things in this kit that will allow me to get or obtain meat sources along with my knowledge of what's around me for wild edibles and medicinal plants and things of that nature and that is the key element to any kit is you can make your kit as lightweight as you want to as long as you cover your basic needs and as long as you have the rest of that knowledge in your head to manufacture or obtain from Natural Resources the items that you're not carrying stay with me and we'll get started guys okay so what we're going to talk about today is beyond the emergency kit the emergency kit involves the kit that we talked about in our several tennessee's videos and the things that we've talked about in our basic survival series that went out on DVD that's also posted on YouTube called basic survival and it's a five part series that kit is set up for you in case you're planning to go out on a day hike or what have you a day of travel into the woods anywhere in the United States pretty much in decent weather conditions and something may happen to you what we want to talk about today is kit mentality beyond that what I'm going to carry in the woods with me if I plan to be out there for a few days now understand that you can put food in your pack that will last you if you eat one meal a day could last you for three days very lightly supposed to be using freeze-dried food like Pathfinder trail rations and things like that that our dehydrator freeze-dried those type things will last you for a long time if you only one meal a day and you supplement that with things around you so it's important that you carry the things in your kit to be able to obtain meat sources if that's your plan most people when they go out and enjoy the wilderness and they want to go out and spend a few days out there they want to test themselves a little bit to see if they can obtain meat in case they absolutely had to so we're going to talk a little bit about that today but we're also going to talk about how our kit evolves to make sure that we have the things that we need versus the weight of that kit versus the knowledge in our head and one thing that I always carry if I'm going to plan on being out for more than one night and it is some type of season I'm going to carry something directly affecting my gathering meat sources and that could be a lot of things if it is a hunting season of some sort then I'm always going to carry a single-shot 12-gauge and this one happens to be an H&R 12-gauge with an H and our survivor stock that doesn't matter a single-shot 12-gauge of any kind will do the job and this will also give you good personal protection if you're worried about bears and things like that you can carry something like this it doesn't weigh a ton especially with a plastic fiber stocking I like the survivor stock and you can carry 1012 shells with you of a couple different types you can carry some birdshot some small game shot and slugs and pretty much take care of all of your needs for a week if needs be easy enough and that doesn't weigh very much so I almost always carry the single-shot 12-gauge with me now believe me I love to carry my flintlocks and I carry them a lot but for sake of this video and we're talking about things that don't cost an arm and a leg either flintlocks are very expensive firearms whereas single-shot twelve gauges you can get for under $150 even brand new to this day at Walmart so it's a fordable type firearm that you can carry to obtain meat so let's talk about per minute let's talk about our kit and get off the meat source gig for a minute because you can go a long time without eating if you absolutely have to the one that the two three things that you really have to have is you have to have the ability to make fire you have to have the ability to hydrate yourself and you need some type of cover element to protect you from the environment so in my mind about 50% of the weight of my kit excluding a full bottle of water because water weighs a lot about 50% of my kit is going to be made up of my shelter because I want to make sure that I get a good night's sleep a good night's sleep is something that's very underrated even in a survival type scenario or a short-term truckscout wilderness living whatever the case may be however you talk about it it really doesn't matter the fact of the matter is that in any given situation in a wilderness environment you need to be able to obtain a good night's sleep to function properly not only psychologically but physiologically so you need to make sure that you have elements in your kit that will help you do that okay so let's talk about sheltering and microclimate type options and what I would choose to carry I like to make this stuff as multifunctional as I can so that I can sleep however I feel like sleeping that night depending on the environment depending on the weather and depending on how much set-up time I actually have to play around getting my camp together a wool blanket is always going to be part of my kit this one's just attached to the bottom of my pack it's a queen size wool blanket same when we saw our website and it gives me not only the option of having a cover element when I'm walking or sitting in front of the fire but I can also roll up in this thing to sleep at night if I want to so that's always going to be on my pack no matter what then I will build my shelter elements around that and to things that I carry that I would consider emergency gear in my pack all the time for shelter would be an emergency space blanket and a couple of garbage bags and I put them in the back of the pack right back here there's a space an emergency space blanket here a reusable grabber just like we saw on our website and there's a couple of garbage bags in there as well 55 gallon three mil garbage bags these not only can give me a moisture barrier on the ground but they will also protect me from the elements if needs be and I can use that space blanket and number to see if I start to get too cold now my regular shelter elements would always involve some type of target now again when it comes to your kit you have to think about weight versus rate and what you're really looking for in that kit if I'm looking for something long-term I'm going to carry oil cloth like I did in the basic camp setup videos if I'm looking for something short-term lightweight scouting on the move quick and dirty up down I'm not going to be dragging deer on it firewood or anything like that then I'm going to go with the sole monarch this is the seven by seven Pathfinder tarp that's on our website I'll show you a couple configurations with our new Pathfinder poncho tarp that's on our website it's a different color than this so we'll use it to set up a couple different configurations but I roll that up this is exactly the same size as one we have now I rolled it up and it goes right inside on the side of my bag there that is always on the top so I can get to it quick I need to it's got a couple links of paracord wrapped up on it and inside of it as well I carry a hammock I carry the short hammock for me know if I want to get off the ground

I still got that wool blanket to wrap up in inside the hammock if I want to if I'm worried about getting off the ground if I got time to set it up I've got the straps for that hammock as well I carry a waterproof bag mainly so I'll have a secondary container or another container that I can hold water in and inside that it's just a very lightweight snug pack scouting type ground map again this can be combined with my wool blanket on the ground to avoid conduction to make me more comfortable or it can be put in my hammock to help me avoid convection problems and make me more comfortable so this is a setup that works very well as far as its versatility in that I have the hammock that I can sleep in in colder weather if I want to I have the ground that I can sleep on with the wool blanket and the ground pad and a tarp or I have the option like I said of setting up a hammock then I also have the space blanket in the garbage bag so there's a lot of sheltering elements right there that give me a lot of versatility for the way I'm going to set up and it's not taking up a lot of room or weight in my pack

really this thing takes up a lot of room but hardly weighs anything it's inside of another container which is good and then these two items don't weigh hardly anything at all the tarp is probably the heaviest item out a lot rolled up because it's a seven by seven still in my tarp and it's pretty thick okay so this is the new Pathfinder poncho tarp it is exactly the same size as the old tarp but it comes in a stuff sack with orange paracord or Dorne cordage on there in a drawstring it's got the Pathfinder logo on it is a tarp poncho exactly like this one can be set up in multiple configurations plus can be used for rain gear and that's important because now I have even more diversified my kit because my poncho and my tarp are one unit and that's a good thing we'll show you how to set up a couple configurations of this here in just a little while okay so let's talk about our elements to make fire I always have a ferrocerium rod in my pocket not on my knife if I have one on my knife I still have one in my pocket if I lose my knife I don't want to lose my ability to make fire I've always got a cigarette lighter in the other pocket and then in my kit I'm generally in my container one of my containers depending on what container I'm carrying this happens to be the Seagal 0.75 litre I use it a lot I've got steel wool I have a magnifying glass I have another Ferro rod I have a piece of Flint that I can strike on the back of my knife I can also use that for a striker on a Ferro rod if I have to if I lose my knife and I have and I have fat wood

I have surefire in the bottom in the form of micro inferno or mini inferno and then I keep my bug dope in there and a merino wool type buff in there just to use for filtering or to use for keeping myself warm if I want to put that thing around my head at night so my hydration portion of my kit involves a dog bowl the 0.75 liter I have the 5 liter dry bag and then I have the full-on canteen kit here that has the cup the stove the canteen and the lid so I have multiple containers for disinfecting water carrying water and that's what's important we're talking about hydration we're not talking about cooking I can fill this back with water I can boil that water I can dump that water and I can contain that water so I can do a lot of things to make sure that my hydration is met just with the kid I have I can boil water and these as well and be filling up that 5 liter bag so I have lots of ways to boil and disinfect water at the same time obviously I have lots of ways to cook and make medicine as well ok let's talk about cutting tools real quick obviously the number one most important item that you can have in your kit but you also want to make sure that you have redundancies of cutting tools

I carry my path on your Scout on my hip I've been asked a lot of times what's the knife that you most frequently carry the knife that I most frequently carry is the Pathfinder Scout it is a six-inch blade just over an eighth of an inch thick it's got a full flat grind I think the one that we saw on our website has a saber grind which is pretty close to that and this one happens to have curly maple handles but it's made out of oh one tool steel it will strike sparks off the spine with a hard rock and it will strike a Ferro rod so it meets all of the criteria that I need for a good knife then on top of that I always have backups right now I'm carrying this small martini in a Pathfinder sheet that fits that Pathfinder sheet perfectly so that gives me a backup knife there I have a pocket knife in my pocket just an imperial Camp King but it gives me that another backup cutting tool and it's in my pocket with my Ferro rod all the time it's got one big nice big blade on it here that's pretty sharp that has you know a can opener type deal on it and a screwdriver and it hasn't all so I carry that quite often with me as far as other tools go you know I'm always going to have the Frog gig we talked about that in the summer months because it's just easy food frogs are easy food so I'm always going to carry that frog gig in the bottom of this bag I always have a bahco laplander folding saw and then I also have other tools in the kit too but it's important to understand that we have the elements that we really need we have and those elements are we have to be able to make shelter we have to be able to make fire we have to be able to keep our bodies hydrated in order to control everything in our core temperature and we can do that with this kit anything else that we put in the skin above and beyond that really is more personal choice than anything else I always prefer to carry at least the 10 C's with me but what you choose to carry in your kit is really up to you as long as you make sure that you've got your basic necessities covered you know cordage is always going to be a big one to me I've got two rolls of backline here one roll of 36 one roll of 16 and then I have multiple chunks of paracord inside this pouch as well in 20-foot lengths now I've got some smaller pieces here here here and here and another 20 foot length rolled up in there for a Ridgeline so my cordage necessities and then I've also got a piece of strapping that I carry in here as well just a piece of one inch webbing and that can be used for anything from heavy lifting and pulling this is 20 feet long to make it pack straps if I have to make a pack frame I like to carry about 20 25 feet of that with me all the time as well because that gives me more versatility than the paracord of the backline is going to give me as far as heavy lifting without taking up too much room and I think that's important when you're trying to build a kit is how much room does that stuff take up in your kit versus how versatile it is and that webbing is a very versatile item so you can see that when we're talking about the five seas when we're talking about our cutting tool we're talking about our combustion device our cover element our container and our cordage that is where most of the redundancies within my pack are going to lie but what you really have to remember and what I really want to stress in this basic video is a comfortable night's sleep the ability to make fire and being able to hydrate your body are the most important things that you need to know in the short term and in the long term they're going to make all the difference in the world next to that I would say your ability to obtain food by protein source and meat value is going to be the next thing in line and you can see between a single shot 12-gauge and the Frog gig this time of year I have plenty of opportunities for that okay real quick guys one of the main questions I get other than which is the best survival knife which in my opinion is probably the knife you have that meets the criteria and we talked about the next question I get is hey I can't afford his loose pack or I'm common man and I can't afford to go buy a mystery ranch what is the best backpack for me to go by in my personal opinion you cannot beat these military assault packs woodland camouflage old style you can get these things at gun shows and flea markets surpluses places like that for 25 bucks 20 bucks right now neighborhood you can get the accessory pouches for 5 to 10 bucks apiece you can put this thing together real easy and suit it to yourself because it has attachment points on it male attachment points on it and for the money this pack just absolutely in my opinion cannot be beat so if you're looking for a pack for cheap money that's pretty versatile that will hold everything you need for a multiple day Scout I would say this is definitely it

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