Cyrils top tips, Bushcraft tips and information

Menu

Home

About Us

Courses

Calendar

2008

Cyril's Top-Tips

Welcome to this first edition of “Cyril’s Top-Tips” page. Each month Cyril the bush-crafting hamster will be sharing with you some of his vast knowledge of bushcraft and survival skills. Over to you Cyril……....

News

Updated : 1st July 2007

New Courses

We have a range of new & exciting weekend "taster" and workshop courses available as well as our calendar for 2008, just click on the links below or left.

Weekend Courses

2008 Calendar

Top-tips NEW

We are pleased to announce a new member of our team, Bushcraft Master Cyril.

Each month Cyril will be divulging his bushcraft wisdom, his top-tips will be useful for bushcrafters of all levels and ages, so ensure that you don't miss this opportunity to improve your bushcraft and survival skills, just click on the heading to go to "Cyrils top-tips"

Events

Bushcraft Ventures has been asked to attend several events throughout the year, we shall be using our expert knowledge and many years of experience to provide a wide range of workshops, for more information go to our news page.

New Courses

Hello Bushcrafters!

I’m a lucky old hamster who was born with many of the bush-crafting and survival skills that you are all working hard to aquire – shelter building, tracking, foraging, woodcarving.

I tested my skills out in a big way when I was only 10 weeks old! I escaped from my cage, jumped off a table and travelled extensively in the local environment. After several recce.’s I set up home in a chest of drawers and made myself a nest in a lovely green wool jumper (real wool is warm even when wet and it’s resistant to fire!). I travelled through a dog infested landscape, retracing my tracks each night for a whole week. I raided the dogs food bowl and took food back to my nest where I made a yummy dry meat larder in a sock. So this month my first round of top tips will be on …….foraging!

Foraging

Tip no. 1 – storage!
It’s easy for me to collect and store my foraging bounty because, I carry high volume waterproof cheek pouches with me at all times. I just fill my cheek pouches with the edible nibbles I find as I wander and sort the contents out later, or nibble on them as I go.

Unfortunately the majority of you won’t have cheek -pouches so I recommend carrying a waterproof rucksac or similar with loads of pockets / bags, in which to keep your individual finds. This stops them from ending up in one big gummy mush like what happens in my cheek pouches.

Tip No. 2 – what to collect!
Pick the best and freshest samples and avoid old plants
Only pick what you can 100% positively identify.
Only take the nibbles if there is an abundant supply, ONLY TAKE WHAT YOU NEED !

Tip No 3 – Be aware of the needs of other foragers!
Please be aware of the foraging needs of other small creatures. I once got stuck in the neck of a discarded bottle as I tried to lick up the remaining drops of juice! So take your empty foraging containers home.

Tip 4 – Don’t get Lost!
It’s easy to get carried-away and lose your bearings, I am able to “sniff” my way home but your noses are far too far from the ground to be able to do that so ensure your are aware of where you are at all times.

All this talk of food has made me hungry, so I am off for a forage in my larder!

Happy foraging!

Cyril

Bushcraft Master & Hamster Extraordinaire