Moose's 1000th Post Giveaway

Moosez45

Moosez45

Custom Antlers, Factory Knives...
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Jul 14, 2010
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Yep, I should read more and post less. But none the less, I made it to 1000 posts, so, in the spirit of Bladeforums, the best knife forum out there, I wanna give some stuff away.

I'm a big budget shopper, so, heres Moose's Best Bargain Bushcraft Blades. A Cold Steel Magnum Kukri Machete (slightly used, no damage) and a Brand new Mora #1 with Kydex sheath.

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I like hearing stories about knowledge beating gear in tough situations, so,

Please tell me a story where you were smarter than the gear you were carrying.

I'll pick a winner Sunday night, when I get back from Joezilla's.

Thank you to all of you, for the knowledge, laughs, converations, and friendships.

Moose
 
Moose, just so you know; you have made some great contributions to BFC in your short time here. So Congrats on 1K, and I look forward to more.

OK enough of the ghey crap. (not that there's anything wrong with that)

This one time when I was climbing K2 and fighting Zombies... oh who am I kidding, I got nothing bro

:D
 
Moose, way to go on #1,000 !! I thought when I got here 3 weeks ago, #100 was going to look good to me. You have made some interesting & informative posts on here, and yours, along with guys like Mist, Pitdog, Zombie Zeke, T.T.D. & all the rest I keep an eye out for because I know I am going to learn something that evening, even at 50 . . .:D
One of these days, I have made a promise to shake hands with you guys around a campfire even though we are scattered from in Ohio, to Tennesee, to Texas, to Idaho & parts in between. Maybe I can find some more forum members who are from this area & head down to your neck of the woods next year. That would be awesome. Congratulations again, keep posting & we will most definitely keep reading. . . Story to follow later.
Be safe.
 
moosez45 said:
I like hearing stories about knowledge beating gear in tough situations, so,

Please tell me a story where you were smarter than the gear you were carrying.

Moose
Click to expand...

Well buddy, I'm not all that smart, but I will pass one on that I heard years ago. I worked with a half Native man (John), who's Caucasian father was a traditional trapper. He told me that when they got low in meat and when grub was tough to come by, that his father and uncle would find an old black bear den. One would crawl in, kill it, and they had meat. I'm a bit too old, fat and chicken to pull one of those off, but I like to pack anything\everything away in the memory banks....just in case. John said that his father told him about going up creeks in the spring and having his prop sputtering from hitting so many spawning fish. He also told me that his old man got tired of the local Natives stealing his gas in the night, as it was very costly to have it brought into the deep bush. So the old man hand pumped out most of the gas and pumped some diesel into it. In the morning he stood on the hill and watched\listened to the ratty engine and smoke leaving shore and found out who it was.
 
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Well here's my story. Just a couple weeks ago, me and one of my friends decided we wanted to see if we could make it over night out in the middle of the woods. Mind you, we're both 16, very into knives and the wilderness and all that good stuff. All we brought was a machete each, i had my kabar, and my spyderco tenacious, along with a gallon of water. He had a gallon of water, a SOG multitool, a Boker Ak 47 and a bunch of paracord. First thing, I started making shelter, and he made fire making tools. we found four trees in a square almost, and we tied trees that we cut to the four trees horizontally, to make a square, then cut down smaller ones and tied them to the square. to basically make a bed up and off the floor. after that, we made a bow and drill out of a branch we cut, and a peice of paracord, after about an hour, we finally got fire. it was both of our first times making fire with a bow and drill. We live in South florida, we barely got any sleep, between getting eaten alive by mosquitoes the size of helicopters, and the fox that was barking and crap at us all night. But over all it was fun, and im pretty glad that i actually did it, i learned alot along the way.
 
Congrats Moose.

In 2001, I went on a canoe/backpacking trip to Charles L Somers Canoe Base in the Boundary Waters. We had been saving for the trip ever since I transitioned over to Boy Scouts so it was a big deal for some Missouri boys.

We had all canoed a fair amount on campouts and most of us had basic orienteering skills but were used to navigating in the wide open spaces of Missouri. I'll try to summarize and hit the bullet points.

Our guide was named Sam. He was a UP-er and an ultralight guide to the max. All of his gear fit in a cheap backpack and most of it was sci-fi books he was reading. Sam grew up drinking the water up there and was certain he could drink it right out of the lake without Polar Pure. He was wrong. On day 3 of 7, Sam got Giardia bad and had to be airlifted out by float plane. As the plane flew out of sight we realized Sam had burnt 1.5 out of our 2 radio batteries calling a flight for himself. Excellent.

Before he left he gave us the basic route we needed to take over the next 4 days. Seemed easy enough. We would miss him carrying a canoe though. :D

We made it through days 4 and 5 just fine but on day 6, the fog set in. The thickest fog we had ever seen. He had a name for it but I can't remember what it was. Basically until the sun was well up we couldn't see the compass to keep bearings very well. All of a sudden we'd run right up on an island that we had to circumnavigate, etc. We had never navigated terrain like this before. What didn't help was we flipped our maps over and in the lower right corner in what I swear was Arial size 6 font was "Not For Navigation Purposes". Are you kidding me? They give us gift shop maps?

One evening I decided to walk to the top of a rock outcrop that we were camped near and took one of our handy maps with me. I had never been here before but I began to pick out features that matched the map pretty closely. I started adding up how far we had traveled the day before and where I was pretty sure where we were. Frog Bay. I talked it over with the others and we decided that if worst came worst we would just sit tight until the next group came by and follow them in the final day.

The next morning I spotted a native fisherman so I paddled out to him. I said "Sir, can you tell us where about we are, what bay or lake?" He looked at me, spit and said "Frog Bay" and went back to fishing.

We made it back within 2 hours of our scheduled time. Looking back I now realize how completely unprepared many of my fellow crew members were. Half of them didn't even bring a knife or compass.
 
moosez45 said:
smarter than the gear you were carrying.
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Well, I guess I was about seven or eight at the time.... My brother and I were helping our grandmother with some yardwork and for some reason we wanted to cut a piece of thick rope. (I don't remember why we had to cut such a heavy rope ... it was a long time ago.... We might have been rebuilding a grape arbor.) Grandma tried to cut it with her pruning shears and couldn't do it. So I got out my pocketknife and had a try at it but I wasn't accomplishing much. My knife wasn't very sharp; I didn't know how to sharpen a knife very well then. Then I got an idea -- I untwisted the rope and cut it a little at a time. I remember Grandma exclaiming, "You're strong!" and I modestly explained I didn't do it with strength -- I did it with intelligence.

I was reminded of that recently when a neighbor lost the keys to her bicycle cable lock and asked me to cut it. I have a pretty big pair of end nippers but not big enough to cut that cable -- not all at once. I stripped off the plastic coating with a knife and untwisted the cable and cut it a little at a time and saved the day. :)
 
very cool concept you got here Moose, if I can think of a good one I'll post it but until then I'm just going to have fun reading other folks' stories.
 
In the little time you've been here, you have made some great contributions. Very generous of you, bro :thumbup:

I have nothing to tell, but here's to another thousand!
 
Congrats on 1000!

Not directly bushcraft related but the only thing I could think of:

When I was 16 I had a piece of crap 4x4 truck. We were WAY out on a buddies land cutting trees up for firewood for a get together a few weeks from then. I ran over a sharp stump sticking out of the ground and ripped a hole in my tire. I had a spare but I didn't have a jack. Luckily I had a tire iron. We cut about a 15 foot tree down, layed a log behind the axle, jammed the 15 foot tree under the axle and used it like a lever to jack that side of the truck up. 2 of us sat on that log to keep it in the air long enough for the other one of us to change the tire. Then we cut our lever up into firewood size pieces, loaded up what we had cut and went home. This was before any of us had cell phones and it would have been a LONG walk back to somebody's house to call one of our dads.
 
Congrats on #1000! I've been here longer than you and I'm still shy of a grand.

The best experience I can think of happened last year. I was out hiking in a relatively flat wooded area with a couple of novice friends (I'm not a particularly experienced woodsman, but I was more knowledgeable and better prepared than them), when we got turned around on a trail. We had stopped at an area where three trails converged for tea and snacks and we couldn't agree on exactly which direction we had come from and which way we should go next. I had a small compass on my backpack, and I knew that we needed to be heading roughly NE. I have a terrible sense of direction and usually rely on a compass. However, after checking it, something inside me couldn't believe that it was telling me the truth. I shook it and angled it, but it seemed to be pointing in the wrong direction. So, I used my watch to get a bearing. I learned this trick form this website http://www.survivaltopics.com/survival/using-time-as-a-compass/ . Sure enough, the compass was about 100 degrees out. We followed the bearing from my watch and we ended up back at the car, exactly where we wanted to be. I threw out the compass after that.
 
While setting up a cabin tent by myself I ended up breaking a pole in half.I reamed out the two ends that are now severely crimped with a pair of needle nose pliers.Then used a knife {cant remember the brand but probably a Schrade LB7] to whittle a limb to fit inside of the two pieces.When I was finished the pole was stronger than before. I then finished setting up the tent.I used that repaired pole for many years after.
 
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A couple of year back, I was out for a burn on my (new to me) Honda XR250. I did quite a bit of back country ridding when I had that bike, so this particular day I was quite a ways from home. So, as luck would have it, the bike broke down on my way back, still two hours ride from home with the sun setting. Now this was before I came across places like BF, EDCF and the like so was not as prepared as I am today. Anyways all I had with me was the Leatherman and Survival neck knife,(misc bits held together with a ranger band. The XR250 (1986) is a easy bike to take apart, but not really with only a leatherman. I had it all stripped and when I came time to remove the gas tank, I turned my leatherman into vise grips with the ranger band to crimp them fuel line, instead of loosing all my fuel to get home. Turned out to be a small electrical issue.

Thanks for the opportunity and congrats on the 1000th.
 
moose-congratulations on 1000!
always enjoy reading yr posts
and i enjoy a good story
so thanks for this give-away
 
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westcoaster said:
A couple of year back, I was out for a burn on my (new to me) Honda XR250. I did quite a bit of back country ridding when I had that bike, so this particular day I was quite a ways from home. So, as luck would have it, the bike broke down on my way back, still two hours ride from home with the sun setting. Now this was before I came across places like BF, EDCF and the like so was not as prepared as I am today. Anyways all I had with me was the Leatherman and Survival neck knife,(misc bits held together with a ranger band. The XR250 (1986) is a easy bike to take apart, but not really with only a leatherman. I had it all stripped and when I came time to remove the gas tank, I turned my leatherman into vise grips with the ranger band to crimp them fuel line, instead of loosing all my fuel to get home. Turned out to be a small electrical issue.

Thanks for the opportunity and congrats on the 1000th.
Click to expand...

Ive done the same thing with the ranger band. I use it to carry a AAA flashlight on the sheath , then use it to make vice grips when needed.

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MMOOOSSSEEEE

Congratulations brother! Welcome to the club!

You are an awesome poster, great advice and one of the most pragmatic dudes out there.

God bless man!!


(Oh yeah I am in too, never had a Mora always wanted one)

zeke
 
dipbait said:
While setting up a cabin tent by myself I ended up breaking a pole in half.I reamed out the two ends that are now severely crimped with a pair of needle nose pliers.Then used a knife {cant remember the brand but probably a Schrade LB7] to whittle a limb to fit inside of the two pieces.When I was finished the pole was stronger than before. I then finished setting up the tent.I used that repaired pole for many years after.
Click to expand...
thanks for the reminder!
about 10 years back I was camping with a buddy and he brought a "miner's wedge" tent - basically a canvas pyramid that uses only a center pole.
his brought the wrong 2 piece pole - it was about 2 feet too long and he didn't want to cut it down, so I had to use about 20 feet of rope to splice it together.
must have done a decent job, because it survived a fairly decent thunderstorm.
 
Congrats on the 1000th post!

This is sort of an opposite story about knives.

About 10 years ago, I went on a hog hunt on the Central Coast with an old guide, who was well known and respected in the area. Sort of an old cowboy and quite a character. I ended up shooting a really big boar in the late morning. After hauling it up a steep ravine by hand with my buddies and guide, the guide was getting ready to gut and skin it. He was fumbling around, and I thought he was looking for a knife. So I offered my early model Gerber Gator (Oregon made) for his use. He looked at me and laughed hard, saying no thanks, I'll use my knife. I expected him to pull out a Buck 119 or similar. Instead, he pulls out a very old, bone handled small Case Trapper and proceeds to gut and skin the entire hog with just the spey blade. I was impressed and humbled by his old school ways. Just goes to show you that it's not the tool, but the tool user that does the job.

Despite all that, I still carry a big, super steel fixed blade with me while hog hunting. :-)
 
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