It is highly desirable to carry a fixed blade knife mainly for those rare occasions when it is necessary to split branches to produce dry kindling and shave them to produce ‘excelsior’ (wood shavings) which are the best fire starter. Lighting a fire when it is very wet and cold is the most important time […]
Fishing with a bubble or float is an old technique. I’m sure most of us have used this method with live baits to catch a variety of fish. It also works well with flies and other floating lures to catch trout. My handline of choice is Streamlines Tideland which weighs 2.4 oz. I cut the
Was once the bushman’s standy-by. It is usually abundant, enormously varied, relatively easily to take, involves little waste or preparation and is often tasty and nutritious. Of course much of it is also illegal. You will notice though that in my post about the journey to Cromarty not so long ago everyone used to take
These little guys are only US$13.95 each from CountyComm (or sometimes available from Drop for US$26 per pair. They weigh only 8 grams each. It is easy to think of a circumstance that you might need one of these. All you would need would be some line (eg from your repair kit) and you will
This is just about the greatest knife ever! I’m just a little late to the party concerning this knife which has been around nearly as long as I have – at any rate since 1956. As you can see it has a 55 mm blade. That’s just under 2 ¼”. (55mm = 2.16”) You could
SOG have a very nice little multi tool in competition with the Leatherman Micra, the ‘Snippet’. ‘Not every situation warrants a large, full-featured multi-tool. Sometimes you need something that will fit on a key chain, or even disappear into your pocket. For times like that, we have Snippet. A tool designed to help with quick
A 567 gram pack rafting paddle: Check this out on Massdrop this morning for US$29.99 each (08/2018). You would be foolish not to buy a couple. I bought two. It will go very well with the Klymit packraft you should have bought from them some time back for US$99 (I bought two as well): http://www.theultralighthiker.com/klymit-packraft/ Here’s
Ceramic knives are sharper than metal ones and their edge can last 10 times longer. They can also be lighter. I have been thinking that this ‘ceramic escape knife’ would fit well in an ultralight fishing kit such as this: http://www.theultralighthiker.com/the-ultralight-fisherman/ This little guy weighs only 3 grams, has a blade 1.25” (3.175cm) and is
This is the Deejo Minimalist 3 inch Folder weighing 27 grams (as configured). You could probably shave 3-5 grams off that by deleting the pocket clip, but you might also just ruin the knife, so don’t. The pocket clip comes in handy anyway as it allows the knife to be worn on the outside of
If you have an ultralight packraft you will need an ultralight paddle. Our lightest weighs 409.5grams. It was an Alpacka ultralight model, now alas discontinued. They also used to sell ‘Ninja paddles’ which fitted on your hiking poles. (Perhaps check the Wayback Machine: http://archive.org/web/) – they may still be available elsewhere; A comparable one is
