Idaho Afield Hunting Tips:
Campfire Cooking with Chain
Pellet Punctuation
Cheap Snow Traction
A Sign of Caliber
Campfire Cooking With Chain
How do you support your pots and pans when cooking over an open campfire? A heavy, sooty grill? A couple of tippy rocks? Next time out try supporting them from above - by using a simple tripod of wired-together sticks (gathered loosely) and about 3 feet of lightweight brass "safety chain," available in any hardware store.
Containers are rigged with wire bails and hang from a wire S-hook inserted in the chain. Another S-hook anchors the chain from the tripod-binding wire above. Cooking heat can be adjusted by raising or lowering either S-hook on the chain. The whole system is also lightweight and small enough to carry in a shirt pocket - perfect for backpacking and other lightweight camping.
-- Lewis Watson
(Originally published in Sports Afield in 1981)
Pellet Punctuation
You'd like to pattern your favorite shotgun, but on what? You can't find even one big piece of cardboard, let alone several pieces for testing various loads. Your wife isn't about to let you shoot her holiday wrapping paper full of holes. And you already tried newspaper - it was impossible to count #7 ˇ¦pattern results among all that tiny typesetting.
A little-known source of good shotgun-patterning paper is the pressroom of your local newspaper. Such papers are run at high speed on huge rolls of clean white newsprint, and countless tag-end roll remnants are regularly left over. Go to the front desk and ask to buy a roll-end or two of this bright patterning paper - or show up at the back loading dock and you just might be given a 10-year supply free!
-- Lewis Watson
No Bag Limit on Cans
If you're offended by outdoor litter, hang a strapped bag over your shoulder on every outing and develop the habit of tossing in every pop and beer can you come across. Not only will you help keep favorite outdoor areas clean, but you can get some gas money taking them in to recycling companies. More importantly, this eventually translates into a thousand or so fewer cans littering our fields and streambanks!
-- Lewis Watson
Cheap Snow Traction
* Emergency (or permanent) snow chain tighteners can easily be made from two-inch wide bands cut from old innertubes.
* Carry a small stack of clean, rough-textured asphalt roofing tiles in your car in winter. Tossed under the drive wheels, their gritty surfaces will quickly deliver your stalled vehicle from those annoying little "slick-outs" near curbs, on hills, and in parking lots and driveways.
* For better all-around snow traction, cut one side of several old innertubes, fill each with sand, tie off the ends sausage-style, and carry all winter in your pickup bed or car trunk directly above drive wheels. Not only will the extra weight provide superior traction, but the soft, clean, weather-tight tubes won't scar your vehicle (as rocks might) or leak sand or soiled moisture (as porous sandbags do). Tubes also keep your sand dry and unfrozen - for emergency shoveling under wheels when you forget your asphalt tiles!
-- Lewis Watson
A Sign of Caliber
Ever arrive back at your deer hunting camp and desperately need to leave a written message to your still-absent buddies? If so, the pointed lead tip of a high-velocity rifle cartridge makes a perfect pencil for scrawling, "Buck down on east logging road. Come help." If you're a carbine man, your flat-nosed ammo may not inscribe quite as neatly, but your pals will still get the message.
Illegal full-jacketed bullets or meat-wasting hollow points won't work as writing instruments, so anyone using these will just have to rassle his buck out by himself!
-- Lewis Watson