Dispelling The Mythos Bushcraft VS Camping

 There is no VS! None, nodda, nope, nil, zero, zilch.......... Bushcraft IS camping!

You can slice it, dice it, chop it, mince it, and even puree it! The fact is, bushcraft is nothing more than camping. It's camping using a different skill set than most others use, but it's still camping. All the old books state is was camping, the skills are forged after camping, or more to the point in the US after the voyages of the frontier. Guess what? The frontier travelers were, hold on..

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CAMPING!

Bushcraft or woodcraft in these times is the hobby of practicing the skills those old pioneers used on excursions, expeditions, and adventures. Be it by land or river, by boat or horses, or foot, each night they would make camp. Out skills are at the core, based on this. Foraging, hunting, navigation, cooking over a fire, sleeping either under the stars or in tents.

We as outdoors men and women, who follow and practice these old ways do so as a hobby now. It's a fading hobby, but it's a hobby. For some it's LARPING or REINACTING, dressing in the old style clothes, which just makes it even more of a hobby.

In the purest sense these days, bushcraft is the hobby of camping. Even glamping (to some extent) if you are practicing the skills learned by practicing bushcraft. 

What is camping? Going out to a destination in the woods. Setting up some sort of shelter. Gathering fire wood and making a fire. Cooking over this fire. Sleeping in our shelter. This is camping. Or at least how camping is supposed to be.

What is bushcratf? Going into the woods. Making some sort of a shelter. Gathering wood and making fire. Cooking over that fire. Sleeping in our shelter. The difference is we might build our table and chairs from materials we forage from the forest. Or make our shelter from the same materials. We might use a primitive method to start our fire instead of a lighter or matches and two gallons of charcoal lighter fluid. But, no matter if we build a table or not, we're simply, camping.

To think otherwise is simply, silly.

This message was brought to you by someone who has spent decades camping and practicing the skills associated with bushcraft. I have a knife and a computer, so that makes me a professional. 😆

At The Lake

 Yes, at the lake again. Today we had invited some friends to join us which was a nice change. I had slow cooked two pork shoulders last week and made up a pasta salad. Today I just added more BBQ sauce and heated it up over charcoal. Not a lot of pics, but here's a few.

Fishing

 My wife and her dad used to go fishing a lot when she was young. In memory of him on the first Fathers Day since his passing, she wanted to go fishing. So that's exactly what we did.

I had taken one of his old fishing rigs to try and catch something on. The rod is a little loose and the reel has seen better days. It will remain as it is in memoriam. It is also probably now officially retired. Sadly, I did not catch and fish using the old rig.

I did manage to catch a couple of chain pickerel, but to small to keep so they were released. Below are a couple of cool action shots I took from video as well as the video.

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Velociraptor Tracks!

 BIGFOOT HAS COMPETITION!

While visiting a local lake this morning, my wife noticed some very large bird tracks in the water. I went over to have a look and saw these:

Once we got home I did a quick search and they are blue heron tracks. In all my years playing in the outdoors I think this is the first time I have ever actually seen their tracks. I see the birds somewhat often, but don't remember ever seeing the tracks before. Pretty cool.

I was originally thinking crane, but they are more of just a "Y" track.