survival with no knife or means of making fire

[tommy11]

Say you are out and you get lost or stuck with no knife on you or firesteel, matches, lighter etc...

How would you go about surviving...

This is the most likely scenario that you would find yourself stuck as most people don't carry a knife and fire tools handy.

I suppose you could try using your shoe laces as snares for rabbits... but then you've no way of cooking them. You could built a shelter no problem using the trees and branches....

 

[Ahjno]

I'd try to find some flint ... or glass, which could be easier to find ...

[video=youtube;vPk28DiIWPU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPk28DiIWPU[/video]

 

[tommy11]

I'm pretty sure we don't get flint here in Scotland, at least where I'm near.

 

[Nonsuch]

But you'd probably find a knife chucked in the bushes…:yikes:

 

[mountainm]

I'm pretty sure we don't get flint here in Scotland, at least where I'm near.

Try someone's driveway, there's loads on mine...

 

[blacktimberwolf]

First thing to do is sit & think. Take it all in. Presuming there was wood about & I could find some tinder & kindling, I would prepare a few sticks, either with a rock or sharp stone & with my boot lace, I would make a bow drill. Fire started, look around for a tescos, if none to be found, I would start looking for water,& something that could be used a bowl maybe, also I would examine the groud, look for tracks etc. Next I would try & build a shelter, probably a lean- to using branches on the ground or those I could snap off, good nights kip. Next morning I think I would make a rudementory bow, using my boot laces, with sharpened sticks ( again using a rock or stone) for arrows, which should work for close range hunting, I would also carry a stick or stone with me as I could throw them to kill or stun a small furry or bird......Iwould look around too for some edibles but my knowledge is limited. Due to my hunting skills & the bounty of nature I would restart a fire from the smouldering embers & eat my catch, I would grill it fur & all over the fire, with a stick stragedically placed, & I would no doubt eat it as I would a chicken leg, guts & bones an all.......I might fancy a fish supper so I'll see if I can find a pond or other water course, find a thorn of make an improvised hook from a twig, look for bait in the leaf litter, & for a line I may use some sort of climbing plant, A honey suckle if there is one, take a nice long thin branch thin it out a little with either my teeth or a stone & my thumb, attach the hook, tricky that, bait it then whip it as far as it will go into the water, ........got one...try for another, nope, thats my lot, return to camp & try to open the fish with a sharp stone or sharpened piece of wood, gut it, cook it, Mmmmmm nice, sun's going down Quick wash if possible,, time for bed........tomorrow is another day.

 

[Home Guard]

Where I am, Norfolk. It is impossible to get lost. So just say I did and had to survive for a while.

The first thing i'd do is pick up piece of flint (they dont call it flint county for nothing) and smash it, then try and knap it with another piece of flint until i have a nice usable cutting edge. And the left over pieces I would use for fire lighting. I suppose older keys could be used to make sparks with the flint, newer keys are brass or a very soft nickel plated steel.

The second thing i'd do is look in the hedgerows for the remenents of the thin plastic netting used for holding together round straw bales.

Once I had a camp set up with a lean to shelter and a nice fire I would get some hazel sticks about a yard tall and set them out around a rabbit warren, i'd then slip the net onto these sticks and smoke the rabbits out with some green plants, they should run out and get caught in the net. Works on the same principle as long netting or ferreting.

And as far as water, there are irrigation ditches nearly everywhere, the problem would be making the water drinkable.

 

[Toddy]

Bent stick, wee straight stick, nettles, two limpet shells.....makes fire
It's not rocket science, just practice and a patient teacher

Even a hearth board's not a problem, just get a bit of bark and lay two close fitting sticks side by side on it. Then close peg outside both of them at both ends to keep them tight together. The spindle will burr into the edge of both sticks where they meet and create a coal. Lift it on the bark and ( you *will* have prepped tinder and extender *and* kindling and firewood beforehand, won't you?) off you go

In Scotland if you've got time to snare bunnies you've got time to walk out.

Toddy

 

[forestwalker]

Priorities would be shelter and water. Depending on the season shelter can be easy or quite difficult. It is easy to build a decent shelter for summer use with no tools, but in winter it would be harder, and in late fall or early spring (i.e. around freezing, no snow) it would quite difficult. Ideally I'd build some sort of raised bed depris hut.

Around here almost all water is drinkable right out of the streem (but not the taps... two recent outbreaks of Cryptosporidium in municipal water systems in Sweden within a year).

Of course, with a bit of time I could fashion the cordage -- either from nature of sacrificed clothing -- to make a bowdrill fireset, and they are quite doable with no knife (and then I would carry the fire with me, probably using a smoldering F. fomentarius in a birch bark container). No flint here, but "plenty" of thrown away glass bottles if one is close to habitation.

 

[Andy BB]

I saw a vid on youtube of someone using a bowdrill without the bow! Basically using a shoelace/paracord held in both hands, providing stability and downward pressure on the spindle with a block held in the mouth. The narrator said to use a smaller spindle and block than usual with a bowdrill, but it actually required a lot less effort to get a coal.

Anyone tried it?

 

[SMARTY]

Tommy 11. I think what you are talking about here is unlikely. Firstly survival situations dont just happen, they follow a sequence of events, that ends up with you having to survive outside of your normal comfort zone untill rescued. You have to recognise the warning signs and react, that will prevent, or reduce the chances of a survival situation happening. When you go out you should let someone know where you are going, planning to be back etc. Then, when you fail to return they can at least give the emergency services the information you left, and which gives them a good start point for a search.

Consider this: if you are going to a place where a knife and fire are essential to your survival, dont go unless you have those things.

Sorry to put a damper on the thread, and I expect that my reply could / will get slated etc but, I have been teaching "survival skills" (not bushcraft) now for around 20 years and I come across this type of thing all the time. I like to call it the "SCI FI" Syndrome. This is where you are in one place at one time and then transported to a completly new place a second later. Only happens in films at the moment.
Plan your joiurney, tell someone (complete a POP preferably) take the right kit and be safe.

Smarty

 

[forestwalker]

Sorry to put a damper on the thread, and I expect that my reply could / will get slated etc but, I have been teaching "survival skills" (not bushcraft) now for around 20 years and I come across this type of thing all the time. I like to call it the "SCI FI" Syndrome. This is where you are in one place at one time and then transported to a completly new place a second later. Only happens in films at the moment.
Plan your joiurney, tell someone (complete a POP preferably) take the right kit and be safe.

I agree that for realistic scenarios it is totally out of the question. I wear a multitool to work, I have a lock blade SAK in my pocket, an axe and a mora in the car, FC sticks as keyfobs, etc. But I have actually been out for 10 days with none pf all these goodies. On a survival course. On one level it is a ludicrous premise, but by removing all the "toys" one makes certain that one can do without any one of them (and loosing some of them is possible).

As for the most bare bone survival I've heard about lately there was a man last winter who just got out of his hut when it caugth fire. No extra gear stashed with the snowmobile, so he had to ride it to help in is underwear...

 

[superc0ntra]

You could always get a glass shard or sharp stone as a makeshift knife.
Finding dry wood for fire by friction should not be hard but making the fire could potentially be a lot of work.

 

[rik_uk3]

Which country?

 

[santaman2000]

Exactly;which country? The climate will dictate a great deal. I'm not sure the premise is completely valid either. Even with today's health concious attitudes at least half the people in any given country smoke so there will almost surely be matches (at least a limited supply) Also I don't know to many people (men; women seem to not have pockets) who don't carry a pocketknife. At least not those with normal jobs (it was different when I worked in the prison obviously) Even my 9 year old godson has his "whittling chip" from the Cub Scouts (has done for over a year now)

 

[santaman2000]

Tommy 11. I think what you are talking about here is unlikely. Firstly survival situations dont just happen, they follow a sequence of events, that ends up with you having to survive outside of your normal comfort zone untill rescued. You have to recognise the warning signs and react, that will prevent, or reduce the chances of a survival situation happening. When you go out you should let someone know where you are going, planning to be back etc. Then, when you fail to return they can at least give the emergency services the information you left, and which gives them a good start point for a search.

Consider this: if you are going to a place where a knife and fire are essential to your survival, dont go unless you have those things.

Sorry to put a damper on the thread, and I expect that my reply could / will get slated etc but, I have been teaching "survival skills" (not bushcraft) now for around 20 years and I come across this type of thing all the time. I like to call it the "SCI FI" Syndrome. This is where you are in one place at one time and then transported to a completly new place a second later. Only happens in films at the moment.
Plan your joiurney, tell someone (complete a POP preferably) take the right kit and be safe.

Smarty

Exactly; even bush pilots have some kit with them and usually someone knows where to look for them (at least the smart ones tell somebody) A hiker should definitely have kit.

 

[Husky]

I remember a funny quote by Lars Fält.
A journalist asked him, during an interview, how he would make a fire if the weather is really wet and rainy.
"I always have some strips of bicycle inner tube with me. It burns well even when wet."
"But isn't that cheating?"
"Well you have to be prepared, otherwise you wont survive..."

 

[rik_uk3]

If in the UK I would get the number of a local taxi firm from my mobile phone to pick me up from my location found via GPS on said phone and use my survival kit Visa card to book into the first good hotel I could find. Having told the Mem-saab I am well I would order up a good meal and fortifying drinks.

 

[demographic]

Survival in the UK? You're never more than about seven miles away from a metalled road, get walking and make sure your not just going parallel to it.

 

[Satyr]

I would walk towards the nearest house at a nice steady pace, politely ask to use their phone and then call my grilfriend to come and collect me (and stop to get a bottle of wine to say thanks for the kind use of a phone).