Survival tips

**Sarge47** · 07-09-2007, 07:44 PM

Originally Posted by wolf

well theres alot of tips i know and one is never eat polar bear liver becaus i has lethal concentrations of vitamin A

And just how do you propose to get the liver away from the Polar Bear in the 1st place? ;>)

**Sarge47** · 07-09-2007, 07:49 PM

Most peple know that if you point the hour hand of an analoge watch directly at the sun that halfway between that and 12 o'clock is due South, in this hemisphere, but fail to realize that if you have a digital watch, just draw an analoge watch face on either a pice of paper or in the dirt with the current time drawn in and you can use that to get your direction. (Attn. Aussies & Kiwi's, it would be "North" in your hemisphere mates!)

**woodzman** · 07-10-2007, 08:05 PM

ALWAYS carry and know how to use a compass. Unless you get hurt and can't travel, or are in a very remote area, chances are you wont need anything else.

**Sarge47** · 07-10-2007, 09:15 PM

Originally Posted by woodzman

ALWAYS carry and know how to use a compass. Unless you get hurt and can't travel, or are in a very remote area, chances are you wont need anything else.

Except for maybe a good Topo map, right? ;>)

**woodzman** · 07-11-2007, 10:40 PM

Originally Posted by Sarge47

Except for maybe a good Topo map, right? ;>)

Absolutely right.

**MesquiteCharlie** · 07-17-2007, 12:11 AM

you live in TX? where at?

**Rocky789** · 07-17-2007, 10:06 AM

One big thing is always be on the look for anything even if you really need another thing, for example if you are out collecting materials for your shelter and you see a branch that would make a really good tool or a little bit of food go ahead and pick it up.

**woodzman** · 07-18-2007, 09:47 AM

Use caution and don't take chances. It's bad enough being lost, don't add an injury to your problems.

**FrankyFourFingers** · 07-18-2007, 01:28 PM

You can put a small stick in the ground and mark the top of the shadow, then wait about 20-30 minutes and you will see the shadow has moved. Mark the top of the new Shadow and then connect the 2 markers making a straight line. This gives you a fairly accurate east-west line.

If you have a needle or other magnetizable metal, you can set it on a leaf ( or any other floating surface) in a pool of water and it will automatically point north ( make sure you dont go south instead)

Or you can just use the rising sun method that everyone should know by now ( Rises in the east, sets in the west....at least in this hemisphere).

All of these methods have been used in one survival show or another so you probably have seen them before, but i figured I would post them just in case.

**FrankyFourFingers** · 07-18-2007, 03:29 PM

If it is getting late in the day, and you still need to built a shelter, fire, gather wood etc, you are going to need to know how much daylight you have. Assuming you dont have a watch on, you can use the fist method.

Hold your fist out in front of you with the bottom of your fist lined up with the horizon line. Then, continue putting one fist on top of each other until the top of your fist 'hits' the bottom of the Suns outline. Each fist count should be approximately one hour (it varies with the size of your fist and arm length, but an hour is pretty close).....so if you stack 5 fists to get to the sun, you have about 5 hours left of sunlight to build that shelter, fire and collect wood. If you wanted to get really techical, you could even break your fist down into 15 minute icrements by counting the knuckles ( your fist has 4 knuckles, each would represent 15 minutes)

**survival scout** · 07-22-2007, 08:36 AM

please be more specific are you looking for ways to find north?

**wareagle69** · 07-24-2007, 04:31 PM

to spirit man

please do not give advise if you do not have any experience that is how people get sick injured or killed .

the best advise is seek a professional and get dirttime nothing beats your own experince

**spiritman** · 07-24-2007, 11:34 PM

Originally Posted by wareagle69

to spirit man

please do not give advise if you do not have any experience that is how people get sick injured or killed .

the best advise is seek a professional and get dirttime nothing beats your own experince

Just so ya know war eagle 69 you totally contradicted yourself by saying seek a professional for dirt time to get your own experience. Have you heard the term borrowed experience? Guess not, but thats what your getting when you seek out the professional. Nothing against the professional, I prefer to pretty much know what to expect when going into any new situation so i would try and get all of the borrowed experience I can get. Passing on borrowed experience is really what this site is all about no?

HOWEVER maybe I can redeem myself for you, where did I give bad advice? Maybe it needs some clarification for you.

**Fog_Harbor** · 07-30-2007, 09:32 PM

I've got some tips:

If you don't know what you're doing - don't go there (I stay out of deserts because I don't feel I know enough about them to get by)

Remember the rule of threes:
you can live-
3 seconds without your brain (about the time it would take you to fall down)
3 minutes without air
3 hours without proper shelter/clothing
3 days without water
3 weeks without food

And last - when in doubt, don't