Blades Update.

I thought I had posted on this earlier, but a search came up blank! So here are some images of my blades including the new clasp knife I am now carrying.

Hunting knife.

Legging knife.

The clasp knife my eldest son gave me.

My tomahawk.

All the world’s a stage-Shakespeare.

Painting By Andrew Knez Jnr.

All the world’s a stage-Shakespeare.

All the world may be a stage, but real life is not a play. If we fail to check our gun frequently & the hammer should accidently get knocked back leaving the pan open then our priming may be lost, & unlike in the movie Revenant starring DiCaprio, your gun will not fire should you need to use it urgently!

Wilderness living is about survival, many woodsmen did not survive because they failed to take the dangers seriously. Not looking after your gun can be fatal; you need to keep the lock clean inside & out. You need to waterproof the lock mortise & the barrel channel with beeswax or some other grease to stop the damp from swelling the wood. You need to carry a greased leather lock cover & some grease for waterproofing the pan in wet weather.

After shooting game, always reload immediately & place your gun somewhere safe close to hand where it will not fall. Field dress your game as quickly as possible & leave the area. The sound of your shot will have travelled far & may have attracted unwanted attention. If you can’t carry the whole animal then butcher out what you can easily carry. The rest of the animal can be hung in a tree to keep it safe until someone can return to retrieve it. But caution is needed in case someone is laying in wait.

You take care out there.
Keith.

How do I know if a wild pig is ok to eat?

Field Dressing Game.

Whenever I can I prefere to hang the animal from a tree limb and dress and skin it off the ground. Buffalo I skinned first starting the first cut along the back bone. In this way I could fold the skin toward me giving me a clean inside skin spread on the ground and I could butcher and lay the meat on the inside of the skin.
With an animal the size of the one in this video, I field dress much the same as shown except that I use a tomahawk instead of a saw, and then carry the game out either on my back, or hanging on a pole if there are two of us to carry. I have also constructed a travois to get heavier game out of the woods.

18th Century Wilderness Survival. Then and Now. The Knife.

I could quite easily have become a knife collector, I have a thing about knives. I have owned quite a few modern knives over the years, but none of them ever shaped up to my expectations. I learnt very early on that knives are individual things, and they have specific uses. There is in my opinion no such thing as an all round knife that can take the place of hatchet and knife.
I like a big knife for a hunting knife, but I don't like heavy knives. Throwing knives are great fun, but they are for throwing and do not perform well on other jobs. A hunting knife is for dispatching, skinning and butchering. In an emergency it may even be needed for hunting and defence.
A short blade can be good for skinning, but it does not have the length to reach an animals heart. Longer blades if heavy can be clumsy for skinning and butchering, but with practice a lighter blade can be used efficiently. As a professional meat hunter I always carried more than one knife, and I still do.
No matter where you are or the climate your working in the main object is to dispatch the animal as quickly as possible and to field dress it as cleanly and quickly as possible. One wrong stroke with a blade can dull it against bone, and that is when the second knife comes out so you can carry on.

The author's hunting knife and sheath. A large butcher knife but light.

Author's legging knife, light and simple construction.

Clasp knives are also good to carry as a spare knife.

Another simple large but light period butcher knife. This one cost the author seven dollars at a flea market.

A period whet stone to keep those blades sharp.