You Carry That For Bushcraft?

[Mistwalker]

That's the way the conversation started one day about a month ago when I was out foraging on a rainy / foggy December day. I prefer wild harvested onions and garlic and dandelion roots and leaves in my vegetable soups. I feel like they have more flavor, and I feel like they bring more to the table nutritionally and medicinally.

As I was rinsing the dirt off the onions and dandelion roots in a creek by a trail, washing my knife, and collecting some creek water for reconstituting some dried roots at home, a hiker walks up and says hi. He looks at my things on the rock beside the creek and says "whacha doin'?", and I told him. Then he looks at my knife and asks, "you carry that for bushcraft?" I said "woodscraft". He said "excuse me?" I said "we're in America not the Australian outback, these a trees not bushes, woodscraft. And I guess, to your point about the nature of the knife, it would be more accurately considered fieldcraft. I have a few knives I prefer to use in the field, but today we're in a temperate rain forest, it's cold and it's raining, I like the Krayton handle in the cold and the synthetic sheath rather than getting a leather sheath soaked. As for the style of knife, if that's your point, I just find pointy tips much more useful in the woods for me than deep bellies, and with my constant experiments in wilderness survival I like knives with guards, at least a lower guard, to help prevent an injury in the woods far from home."

He pulled out a nice custom with maybe a 3 inch blade and said "just seems a little big to me." I said "this knife", picking up my knife and then resheathing it took a lot less effort to make the digging stick there, I made to dig up these roots, than your knife would have." He said "I see. Well to each his own, have a nice day brother." and he went on his way. It was actually a pleasant experience to have someone just be curious and willing to listen rather than being judgemental

And I went home and made my soup, and some more extracts for the winter.

.

 

[crossada]

Nice write up MW. I got into bushcraft from the late Ron Hood and his woodsmaster videos. He also started this forum. He always preferred a large knife too. I know large knife vs. hatchet has always been done to death on the forums but the large knife is versatile and easier to carry on your belt compared to a hatchet imo.

For the sake of discussion is there a blade length where you would no longer carry it in the field?

 

[Mr. Tettnanger]

Looked like a perfectly good outing!

That knife ain't half bad either!

I've given up on so called "Bushcraft" knives and am going back to some classic Buck fixed blades.

 

[Mistwalker]

Nice write up MW. I got into bushcraft from the late Ron Hood and his woodsmaster videos. He also started this forum. He always preferred a large knife too. I know large knife vs. hatchet has always been done to death on the forums but the large knife is versatile and easier to carry on your belt compared to a hatchet imo.

For the sake of discussion is there a blade length where you would no longer carry it in the field?

Thank you! And thank goodness, I was hoping to generate some discussions. There doesn't appear to be the level of discussion in this subforum there used to be years ago, and you've asked a question that is actually at the forefront of my mind at the moment.

I grew up in the southeast US, from the Tennessee hills where I was born and live in today, to the deep south of south Alabama, south Georgia, and deeper in south Florida. I have always been a larger knife guy. In the south it is always more versatile to me. The shelters I make don't have to support a lot of weight, so I'm not going to build a cabin. That's how Steve and I did the Knife vs Axe series of articles in Tactical Knives back in 2009.

And I don't know what blade length would be too long for me to carry, I've carried a Cold Steel Trail Master in Florida, though I have a shorter Recon Scout for that role now.

And I just wrote a piece in my subforum in the LT Wright Pout House on a stout knife for winter survival foraging skills similar to this post but a lot more involved on the foraging part, hoping to generate some serious discussion. And using the knife to fashion a digging stick to dig up the roots I talked about.

Then the recent 8 inches of snow and ice we got here in the hills has me wondering how I would approach that in these conditions, which isn't the norm here, or further north where snow is more common and causes an obstacle just getting to the soil the roots are under. Would I want my heavy Bowie knife and folder combo still? I never carry an axe here in the south. Or would I rather go with a pack hatchet for making the digging tools and busting hickory nuts and black walnuts, and pair it with a smaller knife and a small folder for fine work?

And now that will be the subject of my next winter experiments. I just need to settle on the right pack hatchet. I'm thinking GB but not sure yet.

Looked like a perfectly good outing!

That knife ain't half bad either!

I've given up on so called "Bushcraft" knives and am going back to some classic Buck fixed blades.

Thank you! It was a great outing, I'm glad you enjoyed the post.

I have always liked the SOG Bowie, I carried an original S1 from te mid 90s till about 2010.

To me, though I have one or two I'll pair with the hatchet for the above mentioned experiments, in and of themselves typical bushcraft knives are too limited in function here in my rainforest as a stand alone tool and I'd rather carry a larger knife and less equipment here. And not being forbidden from doing this by local laws, that's what I do. I have a few Buck knives, I keep a 119 around as that was the first real knife I did any serious skills training with in the 70s. I wouldn't feel at all underknifed with the 119 if it came down to that, though like this SOG Bowie and the Ed Martin knife I used im this thread in General Knife Discussion, I do have a few other knives I like more.

 

[crossada]

I will be very interested in the results of the experiment! I think virtually any knife knut goes through these scenarios just to play with different gear and tools.

My first large field knife I bought a long time ago was also a Cold Steel TM in Carbon V. I still have it but deet over the years did a number on the kraton handle. My current favorite is a Carothers Light Chopper. The past couple of years I have been using my regular edc blades which is a rotation of small 3”- 4” fixed blades and a Leatherman Surge. In my pack I have either a GB Outdoors axe or RMJ Loggerhead L13. Having the hammer poll is nice and the GB is a nice splitter.

The RMJ isn’t nearly as functional but I tell myself if I could only grab a few items in a this is the end type scenario I feel it is worth practicing with. It is useful in many different types of environments including urban.

 

[Mistwalker]

I will be very interested in the results of the experiment! I think virtually any knife knut goes through these scenarios just to play with different gear and tools.

My first large field knife I bought a long time ago was also a Cold Steel TM in Carbon V. I still have it but deet over the years did a number on the kraton handle. My current favorite is a Carothers Light Chopper. The past couple of years I have been using my regular edc blades which is a rotation of small 3”- 4” fixed blades and a Leatherman Surge. In my pack I have either a GB Outdoors axe or RMJ Loggerhead L13. Having the hammer poll is nice and the GB is a nice splitter.

The RMJ isn’t nearly as functional but I tell myself if I could only grab a few items in a this is the end type scenario I feel it is worth practicing with. It is useful in many different types of environments including urban.

Years ago that would have been itm just curiosity and just wanting to play with things. These days, between working R&D for multiple gear companies over the years, designing different tools for different companies, and then writing for Tactical Knives and other magazines for the last 17 years, I've played with so many different tools it's not the tools that have my curiosity so much as how better to approach things as I get older, if I might be forced to relocate out of my comfort zone, and being more effective at teaching and empowering my students and followers.

I know how I approach winter foraging here, where we have freezing rain and fern popcicles that are short lived far more often than we get large amounts of snow. But after spending a year in Michigan with large amounts of snow fall, I wonder what I should change to create methods that would work in either environment that would help me get through the snow in a northern environment and get to the soil level to dig up roots below.

In the south I much prefer the large knife over a hatchet for cutting springy young saplings and palmetto fronds for shelters, those lessons were learned decades ago. But I now know I could use a baton and a small knife to take down saplings which I hadn't figured out as a kid.

I feel like an axe or a hatchet would be much more effective in make a field expedient snow shovel than a large knife would But how long of a axe handle I actually need is an unknown quantity to me, I don't want to carry one any longer than I need, but I don't want to carry one too small to be effective in those conditions. So I'm going to pick up a pack hatchet to start with. I like the HB hand hatchet on one hand, but in an urban environment I'd rather have an integral that doesn't have an eye swell to impede cutting through sheet metal and fiberglass which is where the RMJ stuff excells.

I used to work for RMJ I've tested a LOT of their tools over the years. My frind John Hutcheson designed the Loggerhead, mostly for a RMJ hawk that was good in the woods The Loggerhead 13 is my fav all around RMJ hawk. I'd rather have a hammer pole in the woods and in a fight. Spikes get hung up in things in a fight, gear, heads, whatever. The hammer pole glances off and comes around for another blow

 

[thebrain]

I don't get to spend enough time outdoors here in Michigan as I would like, but I definitely see what you are saying for preference in a large fixed blade. I use my Becker BK9 more than any other knife for outdoor shenanigans and I feel like I'm missing something when I use a smaller fixed blade for woodscraft. I have been working up to finding the right size axe/hatchet for the type of work that might be needed in these woods. I have almost settled on my 2.5lb plumb rafting pattern on a boys axe handle but I'm still thinking it through. I do enjoy using tomahawks for most things as a fun alternative to a larger knife but then I just end up wanting both with me.

 

[Mistwalker]

I would like to give Michigan another go under different circumstances. It was beautiful in 3 of the 4 seasons I was there, and the winter sledding was fun, but my work at the time was so stressful it made it hard to enjoy the extreme winter of 2013/14

Hollyweird influenced my teenage knife days in movies like The Sacketts, and the Bowie Knife Tell Sackett (Sam Elliot's character) carried so I developed a fondness for Bowie knives early. I had a Western W49 that handled all my chopping needs here in the Tennessee Hills and in South Georgia as a teen. In my 20s in South Florida I carried a Gerber BMF in the swamps and just got used to having a larger knife and a Case Peanut for splinters and such. So carrying an axe was just never necessay and never appealed to me.

For a while in South Florida and south Georgia, I carried a Latin machete I shortend to about a 16 inch blade and turned into a version of Seax to have a point rather than the deep belly, paired with a Buck 102 for finer work. But eventually went back to the large knife and folder combo.

The laste two years have been a lesson in relearning that a smaller fixed blade can do the vast majority of my cutting needs in the field if it has a well done hollow grind, and a thicker spine to develop the inertia to drive the thinner cutting edge through briers and brambles. Something I had learned when I was 10-13 with a Buck 119 in the pallmetto fields, swamps, and coastal plains around the Tampa Bay area where my Dad first started teaching me to live off the land.

The above SOG Bowie has a shallow hollow grind and does like the Buck did. The Ed Martin knife in this thread, that I've had for the last 2 years, has a deeper hollow grind paired with a thicker spine. And in a two-finger grip, hence the two-finger lanyard, it just flick-cuts through the biggest. thickest, and hardest of brier vines we have here like they are not even there. So I carry it in the field more than any other knife when I go out.

 

[gadgetgeek]

I've not gotten much of a chance to get the woods time I used to since the career change, so not much to say really. But there is always hope. I'd like to spend more time doing "field research" again trying stuff out, but right now I don't have the time, funds, and well, health. I suppose I could chime in more, but I try to not speak when all it is going to amount to is noise.

That said, one of my two employers might get me training advanced first aid, and if so, I'll put effort into sorting photo hosting and post some of that stuff as I get it organized.

 

[LG&M]

Hello gentlemen, I almost wish I had a need for a larger knife. In my neck of the woods a 4" to 5" blade is more then I need most of the time. Offen my BK 11 is enough. I find myself bringing more then one knife on a field trip just because I want to play with them. Mistwalker , you mentioned a hatchet. I suggest you find something vintage. Researching the history & fixing them up is fun. Might make a good story.

 

[Mikel_24]

Great pictures and great write up!

This weekend I went out with my daughter to a 1500m mountain arround here which has a solid free hut on top of it. It has been remodeled in 2017 so it is clean, it has a fireplace saw, bunk beds (concrete) with EVA foam matresses. Great!

The closest wood source is 500m away or so. Si we got there (two people already, nice Erasmus students) so my girl stayed with them while I went to gather wood.

I brought my own prunning saw so I cut some dead standing (or so I thought) wood and carried a shitload of it back to the hut. Later on we tried to get the fire going.

We didn't have any fire starting tablets and it had been raining and snowing, so we had a hard time.

And regarding blade length... I brought my Falkniven F1... and it happened to be too short to split some thick logs to reach the drier core. So I guess next time I will bring the Falkniven S1, BRKT Canadian Camp or RAT-7... I guess in this particular situation, bigger is better.

Mikel

 

[Mistwalker]

Hello gentlemen, I almost wish I had a need for a larger knife. In my neck of the woods a 4" to 5" blade is more then I need most of the time. Offen my BK 11 is enough. I find myself bringing more then one knife on a field trip just because I want to play with them. Mistwalker , you mentioned a hatchet. I suggest you find something vintage. Researching the history & fixing them up is fun. Might make a good story.

I like the BK11, especially with handle scales. I wish I had time for things like that, but until I retire...if I get to retire, I'll be too busy for projects like that. I hope to get a Hults Bruk pack hatchet for something that looks vintage,I have a Mesquite handled Ed Martin knife and a vintage Case Camper to team with it.

Great pictures and great write up!

This weekend I went out with my daughter to a 1500m mountain arround here which has a solid free hut on top of it. It has been remodeled in 2017 so it is clean, it has a fireplace saw, bunk beds (concrete) with EVA foam matresses. Great!

The closest wood source is 500m away or so. Si we got there (two people already, nice Erasmus students) so my girl stayed with them while I went to gather wood.

I brought my own prunning saw so I cut some dead standing (or so I thought) wood and carried a shitload of it back to the hut. Later on we tried to get the fire going.

We didn't have any fire starting tablets and it had been raining and snowing, so we had a hard time.

And regarding blade length... I brought my Falkniven F1... and it happened to be too short to split some thick logs to reach the drier core. So I guess next time I will bring the Falkniven S1, BRKT Canadian Camp or RAT-7... I guess in this particular situation, bigger is better.

Mikel

Thank you! I appreciate the compliments!

Sounds like a fun time! My oldest and I went camping in a free hut, litterally a hut, on Edward's point 20 years ago when she was 10, during the rains from Katrina. She got to see first hand why I carry a stout knife to the woods. That time it was an original SOG S1 Bowie. I had to split everything we burned in the burn bucket with that knife after I had broken it into small enough pieces to fit in the bucket. It was an interesting night.

The S1 is one of my favorite knives