Spring outings.

With the warmer weather on its way longer shooting sessions will not be far behind. If you are like me you will getting everything ready for those full day shoots, or like some of us do, weekend shoots. Incorporating our air gun skills with shelter building can lead to a really enjoyable hunting trip. Think back to when we were kids and we headed to the woods to build dens....well this is a skill that can be put to good use in our hide building. If you are roughing it you are doing it wrong ( Ray Mears )....with a little thought you can easily put together a comfortable shooting hide in around 30 minutes using branches, twigs and grass.

Now i have been looking through my long stay hunting bag and i thought i would show you the kind of kit i have. In this post i want to show you what i use to cook on.Its small and compact and most people will have seen one before....

I find this kind of stove is more than enough to boil my water for a hot drink and to heat food whilst in my hide. One solid fuel block burn`s for about 5 minuets and if you use just enough water for your drink, you will have enough time to warm some grub up to.

My fire kit looks like this.... from left to right.....

1. Wax paper : easily takes a spark from the flint striker of a flame from a match. Great tinder.

2. The hexman solid fuel stove. I use it this way round as i find it remains stable. Push it into the ground and you wont loose your fresh boiled water.

3. cotton wool. Again use as tinder for starting your fire. Takes a park easily from the flint striker.

4. Flint striker.

5. Shotgun cartridge match box. Keeps matches dry and you can put tinder into this cartridge and you have a small, compact fire kit that fits in your pocket.

6. windproof lighter.

I also have in my kit a magnifying glass as this is also a very handy tool for fire starting. It also comes in to its own when you have to remove a sting or thorn from your finger.