SURVIVAL SENSE for UPLAND HUNTERS

Mention the word survival and many who engage in outdoor activities may conjure up images of a Rambo-type character wielding a machete-sized Bowie knife as he digs grubs out of a rotted log or a flock of reality TV contestants competing au naturel on a tropical island.

- Tom Watson

You can create a very basic, roofed shelter using large branches for roof frame and stuffed with field grass.

In reality, many mishaps, even in what most might perceive as rather benign, tame environments — from grassy fields to young/old-growth forests — can quickly deteriorate into life-threatening survival emergencies.

Even seasoned upland hunters in tame environments can experience accidents that threaten their safety and well-being in the field. These threats are not limited to typically “hunting” or gun-related incidents but rather common challenges one is exposed to whenever in the field or backcountry.

Consider these few scenarios:

— While ruffed grouse hunting in northern Minnesota, you re-flush a bird deeper and deeper into a thick understory within an aspen forest when you soon realize you have become seriously disoriented or, in another word, lost.

— Crossing a swollen stream channel in Missouri during a turkey hunt, you severely twist your ankle and take a bad, incapacitating fall resulting in immobilizing injuries, lost essential gear or both.

— Pheasant hunting in Montana in late afternoon, at the edge of usable daylight, and temperatures are starting to drop. You’re several miles from your vehicle. You have the discomforting sense to know you’ll have to hunker down and wait it out until morning.

All of these incidents are the types of injuries and predicaments that can put one on the threshold of an emergency “survival” situation.

Take an inventory of everything around you; many materials can be improvised for multiple uses.