A number of years in the past, I noticed a man on-line utilizing a conflict membership to baton a knife by way of wooden. On the finish of the video, he stated one thing to the impact of, “Why am I utilizing a conflict membership to baton wooden, as a result of I’m Craig Caudill!”
Quick ahead about 10 years, and we’ve shared the pages of out of doors magazines on many events. I used to be honored to lastly meet Craig on the Georgia Bushcraft Fall Occasion. Not lengthy afterwards, I caught up with Craig to see what makes him tick on the gear aspect!
Craig Caudill is a distinguished chief in wilderness training, serving because the Director and Lead Teacher of Nature Reliance College. Famend for his best-selling books on backcountry expertise and acknowledged as an authorized grasp naturalist, Caudill provides complete on-line and in-person programs which can be extremely regarded worldwide.
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These programs serve a various viewers, together with company entities, authorities businesses, and the general public. His social media platforms now have hundreds of thousands of followers. The NRS neighborhood is just the most effective at studying and constructing each other up.
Hey Craig, what you within the outside world?
I grew up immersed within the outside, searching, fishing, tenting, and doing period-correct frontier reenacting. These early blackpowder days actually formed me. Throwing tomahawks, utilizing knives, taking pictures flintlocks, and spending lengthy stretches within the subject gave me a deep respect for each the outside and the historical past tied to it.
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On lots of these journeys, nothing was handed to us. We didn’t eat, sleep, and even have water until we constructed shelter and gathered what we wanted on website. That form of expertise at a younger age leaves a mark. It taught self-reliance, problem-solving, and an appreciation for easy expertise achieved nicely. Wanting again, it’s no shock that these experiences grew to become the muse for all the things I do right now.
EDC In keeping with Craig Caudill
It’s fairly easy, actually. I carry a pockets, my cellphone, a self-defense blade from Filo Bladeworks, a firearm, a tourniquet and chest seals, and my keys. Most days, that gear lives on my belt and in my pockets. If I’m simply working round in a T-shirt and shorts, I’ll typically transfer it right into a Hill Individuals Gear fanny pack to maintain all the things safe and straightforward to entry. The bottom line is to make the most of any of these gadgets nicely, which requires coaching and follow with them. So I do this recurrently.
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What’s your favourite device setup: Trio set or One Software choice?
I often run a multi-tool setup, and it actually is dependent upon what I’m planning to do this day. I’ve all the time been a fan of historical past, particularly Indigenous cultures. They lived on the land for generations with out fashionable gear. More often than not, they relied on a easy system that included a small and a bigger reducing device.
I comply with that very same concept right now, simply with fashionable instruments. I’ll carry one of many knives I designed and had constructed by LT Wright, often a Shemanese or one of many Companions. Then pair it with a bigger reducing device. That could be a small axe or a noticed. Which one I carry actually comes right down to the work I count on to do.
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Craig Caudill’s Chest Rig
Gear entry and mobility are the massive causes I’m such a fan of chest equipment. In loads of methods, I carry the gear a frontiersman would have carried in a possibles pouch. It simply rides on my chest as an alternative.
I run the Hill Individuals Gear SAR Package Bag. It lets me transfer, work, and even battle with out it getting in the way in which. Every thing stays accessible, and nothing restricts my motion.
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Inside, I maintain a transparent 55-gallon trash bag for shelter. For fireplace and sustaining core temperature, I carry our NRS Firecards, a lighter, and a ferro rod. Water-wise, I’ve bought a Sawyer Mini with an additional bag, H2O Go, a metallic cup, and an NRS squeeze bottle.
On the medical aspect, I carry a tourniquet, chest seals for trauma, together with just a few protein and carb bars. The smaller stuff consists of about 50 ft of paracord, 10 ft of jute, and a whistle. Additionally, a Shemanese and a Spark survival device. I additionally maintain a folding measuring device for vegetation and tracks.
To maintain all of it organized, I take advantage of a number of small pouches from Tuff Possum Gear contained in the equipment so all the things has a spot and I can seize what I would like quick. I all the time have a pocket book and writing instruments with me.
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Knife Designs from Craig Caudill
I’ve all the time been a scholar of historical past. I pull loads of training and inspiration from the individuals who got here earlier than us. That’s precisely the place my knife designs got here from.
The Shemanese and the Shemanese Companion sequence had been each impressed by the frontiersmen who settled locations like my residence state of Kentucky. The identify Shemanese comes from the Shawnee phrase for “lengthy knife.” At 12 inches total, it’s longer than most fashionable survival or bushcraft knives, however nonetheless about three inches shorter than the unique lengthy knives these males carried.
Guys like George Rogers Clark, Simon Kenton, and Daniel Boone carried knives that needed to do actual work. They used them for fieldcraft, they usually had been anticipated to battle with them if issues went sideways.
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That very same mindset went into my designs. The blade form works extraordinarily nicely for subject dressing a deer, doing bushcraft, or woodcraft. Nonetheless, it additionally offers you attain and the potential to defend your self towards an aggressor. Assuming you’ve got the talent to make use of it correctly.
Craig’s Beneficial Gear for Wilderness Security and Survival Ranges 1 & 2
Wilderness Security and Survival Stage 1 is what I prefer to name a “tenting journey the place we research survival.” I inform college students to carry all of it. No matter helps you sleep nicely and eat nicely, carry it, even when which means you present up with 500 kilos of drugs. It’s a basecamp setup by design.
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I do this as a result of I’m an educator, not an intimidator. If persons are chilly, depressing, and exhausted, they don’t retain info. Consolation helps studying stick. In that class, I additionally present all of the coaching instruments we want. Tarps, cordage, knives, water filters and purifiers, fire-starting gear, all of it’s there so college students can give attention to studying slightly than scrambling. Though I encourage individuals to carry no matter they think about survival gear. That is to allow them to get good suggestions from our different extraordinarily skilled instructors and me.
Stage 2 is the place issues change. For that course, I inform college students they’re restricted to 25 kilos or much less. What they select to carry is as much as them as a result of we’ve already constructed a strong basis in Stage 1. For most individuals new to this fashion of coaching, Stage 2 forces an actual resolution. You often get to sleep nicely or eat nicely, not each.
We additionally schedule these lessons when the climate is uncomfortable. Actually, my hope is that it’s raining, snowing, and chilly, or all of these. The instructors carry the identical restricted equipment the scholars do, with just a few backup provides in case somebody will get into bother. That method, the expertise stays lifelike, however all the time secure. Now we have had quite a few individuals do our Stage 2 with underneath 10 lbs of drugs.
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