Useless Bushcraft tips to avoid

As with any hobby or area of interest, there are always people who like to spread information that is not only useless but could potentially be very dangerous. When it comes to bushcraft and survival, it’s even more important to make sure you do it right the first time, so here are the most useless bushcraft tips to avoid that seem to be common around the internet.

You can sharpen your knife on a rock

It is indeed possible to make your knife sharper by scraping it on a rock, but it’s also one of the fastest ways to completely wreck your blade. Unless you are in a situation where you need to sharpen your knife, and it can’t wait, then you should always avoid this method. A decent whetstone costs around £20 and will last for years, so don’t use rocks unless you’re happy with buying a new knife every few weeks. If you find yourself in a situation where you need to use a rock, then find the flattest rock you can with the smoothest grain, but don’t expect it to work very well.

(A decent whetstone costs and weighs very little, and will greatly increase the life of your blade)

You can break in new boots by wearing them wet

The idea here is that you soak the boots in cold water and then wear them for a while, and the material should mold to the shape of your foot. This works out in theory, but it doesn’t mention the fact that doing this will require days of drying and will greatly increase the chances of mold. It also doesn’t point out that hiking boots are usually very tough and a simple soaking won’t cause the shape to permanently change.

You can urinate on a jellyfish sting to stop the pain

No, no you can’t. By the time a person who has been stung feels anything, the venom will already be in their system, which means it’s physically inside their body. Urinating on the site of the sting will do nothing more than make your jellyfish wound get covered in someone’s pee.

(They only sting people in defense, but if you’re unlucky enough to get stung, don’t make it worse by covering the wound in urine)

You should pinch out a remaining insect sting

Sometimes when an insect stings a person, its sting will break off and remain in the skin. When this happens, you should never remove the sting by pinching it, especially if it’s a particularly dangerous sting. The reason is that the venom in the sting runs all the way through it, and pinching it could cause the venom still inside to be squeezed out into the wound, and instead should be removed by scraping it out.

You can suck snake venom out of a wound

After the snake has bitten someone, it will already be too late. Certain snake venom is powerful enough to kill dozens of people, so even being able to suck out 90% won’t do anything other than leave someone with poison in their mouth. This wouldn’t be possible though as the venom goes straight into the body and doesn’t linger in a pocket under the bite mark. Proper medical attention and anti-venom should be sought to deal with any snake bite.

(There are certain snakes that can kill a person with less than one drop of venom, so don’t put yourself at risk by performing an action that won’t work)

You can drink your own urine if you’re thirsty enough

When urine is first produced, it is quite sterile and would technically be safe to drink, but it also contains all the things your body tried to get rid of. It also goes off very quickly and creates harmful bacteria at a rapid rate, so unless it’s drank fresh it could cause you to become very ill, and even then you risk the chance of an upset stomach from processing urine.

Don’t rely on a single piece of “reliable” equipment

The all-in-one survival shovel comes with everything you need while out in the wild, with a crappy axe, a tiny and hard-to-use saw blade, and a knife that will break if you try to cut anything bigger than a small twig. There are so many companies out there today that claim their equipment is “all you need” while in the wild, but listening to these marketing schemes will get you in trouble. Stick with the safest method of spares, spares, and more spares.

Play dead when attacked by a bear

This should only be done when you’re faced with a grizzly and have no choice but to play dead. If you come across one of the smaller black bears, or you have a weapon, you should always fight. A grizzly bear standing on you to make sure you’re dead would easily break your back, or its claws could rip a hole big enough for you to quickly bleed out. Unless you’re unarmed and come face to face with a grizzly, you should always try to scare it off and fight if that doesn’t work.

(A male grizzly can weigh up to 250kg, so letting it walk on you to check you’re dead is almost as risky as fighting it, unless you’re un-armed of course)

If an animal eats it, then it’s safe for humans

This one is just silly, but it pops up on enough sites for some people to think it’s real. The problem with this one is that people often don’t realize that animals have completely different digestive systems than humans, and are easily able to process things that would be harmful or poisonous to people. The easiest example of this would be grass, which would cause you to become very sick if you ate enough, but is one of the most commonly eaten plants by mammals.

Follow the animals to a water source

Unless you are in the middle of a desert and just so happen to see a herd of something, then stay away from this one. Animals will drink from almost anything, including puddles and moisture off plants and rocks, they also like to spend a huge amount of the day just running around and not doing anything in particular. Following an animal through the trees will likely lead you to nothing more than more trees.