TheViking said:
Hi...
I saw on the Jack Mountain bushcraft page, something called "7 essential bushcraft knots".....? This really makes my curiousness grow!
Is there anybody who can tell me what those knots are? I can tie a bunch of different knots, but which ones is it that they call 'bushcraft knots'?
I would have said, off the top of my head, that you need to tie a line to something solid like a tree, to suspend a hamoc or basha, pull perpendicular or pull parallel to the support. For this, you want womething that stays tight even if the load is taken off (so no clove hitch for this job). A bowline or a fisherman's hitch can do for the perpendicular pull, and an icicle knot for the parallel pull.
Then, to join a line to another line; double sheet bend, or two interlinked bowlines.
Then, for building shelters, you need to be able to join poles together. The diagonal lashing would perhaps do it all, and the straight lashing is useful.
For weighting a line, for throwing, nothing beats a monkey's fist. You can use this as a grapple to climb a tree.
But a simpler stop knot would be a figure of eight.
So at a guess, you could get away with four:
bowline,
icicle knot,
diagonal lashing,
monkey's fist.
Keith.