2 Nights Camping, Fishing, & Foraging for Food on a Remote Reservoir

For the next two nights I'll be out here in the wild on a remote reservoir completely alone, relying only on what I can catch and forage from the land to keep me going. This land is wild and it's rugged, and while I'm out here I'll have to search the surrounding hills for places to camp out. So join me on my adventure. All right, I'm all packed up and ready to go. I have a long hike to get to the lake that I'm headed to. Since I'm carrying this kayak in with me, and it's pretty heavy, I had to pack as light as I could. So I didn't bring any food, I didn't bring any water, so if I want to eat I'm going to have to catch something. This pack is still heavy, but the good thing is I've got a nice breeze. It's not too hot today. It's nice and shady in these woods. A little bit of cloud cover. I'm hoping it doesn't warm up too much today. Got my fishing rods with me, my trail camera that I'm going to set up somewhere. These gnats are bad. Better than mosquitoes though. All right, now I'm excited. So it looks like we're going to take a little break here and pick some chanterelles. One of my favorite mushrooms to eat. A lot of them in here. They have what looks like gills on the underside, but they're not true gills. They're just ridges. Beautiful specimen right there. These are my favorite mushrooms to eat right next to morels. They're all through here, so I'm going to be here for a minute. Great thing about chanterelles is they grow in big patches, usually. So if you find one, there's most likely going to be a lot more around it. Like these ones are pretty sad looking. Got some mold on them, so I'll leave those ones there. That's a good looking one there. Now these ones aren't real vibrant orange like a lot of the ones I find, but they're still going to taste good either way. I'm going to put these in my backpack because I didn't bring a foraging bag or anything. We got a good bit here. I'm happy. It also makes me happy that I have a future spot for foraging these. Normally they're going to grow in the same spot year after year. The only bad thing is I don't have a skillet with me or butter. All right, let's get back to the hike. Well, I just found another patch. Chanterelles everywhere. It's like my dream come true. These ones are looking better. This is the time of year for all the orange mushrooms. Jack-o'-lantern mushrooms. These are the ones you got to watch out for. These have true gills underneath. They're a lot deeper than the ridges that the chanterelles have. They're easy to tell apart, but it's still good to know about them. Don't eat these. They'll make you real sick. Well, there's a nice looking stream here and I'm getting thirsty, so I'm gonna get some of this water. I needed a break anyway. Hey, put my filter straw on. That's some good water. All right, so I'm nice and hydrated now. Now let's go to the lake. It's nice and overcast now. It's a little thick through here. Watch out for snakes. We made it. Let's inflate this kayak and get on the water. I've got my air pump. It's pretty easy to inflate this thing. It only takes about 10 minutes or so. All right, let's head out and get my rod and put a lure on. We're gonna go with the bluegill lure. I have a steel leader on here just in case a pike or a musky bites it. May or may not catch one, but either way we're gonna try. I'm just gonna cast out and paddle. So I'm gonna paddle for a couple miles and then I'll find a place to camp out up this way. A little place I've been wanting to explore. Here's an eagle. Got something. Croppy. Nice. I'm surprised they're going after this big lure. All right, we got dinner. Let's see if we can catch any more of these. It's getting late and that's when the fish start to bite. Early in the morning and late in the evening. My favorite times to fish. Nice. I'll put these on the stringer. Hopefully a musky doesn't come up and snatch them. I could use them for musky bait. Another eagle up there. The eagle's squawking at me. All right, let's get to shore and let's go find a place to camp out. It's a little steep right here, so I'll climb over this little hill. So I'm going to get these fish cleaned up. I'm just going to remove the scales. It's real easy to take the scales off these. So we got a full moon tonight. At least almost a full moon. It's nice and warm out, but not too warm. Nice breeze coming through. Can't beat it. I'll get my stuff and head up that hill. Then I'll get a fire going. I just have to find a somewhat flat spot, flat open spot. Well, this spot is about as flat as it's going to get. I'll get some rocks. I got a little piece of fatwood here. My magnesium block. My new knife from BPS Knives. Very inexpensive, quality bushcraft knife. I like the sharp 90 degree spine on the back. Makes it real easy to process tinder. Everything's pretty dry, so should be fairly easy to get a fire going. This is not the best striker in the world. There we go. I'm gonna inflate my kayak again. This will be my air mattress for the night. Ready to sleep in. Nice log here I can use for firewood. Fire's going good. I'm gonna let that die down a little bit, and then we're gonna cook the fish. Got seasoning in here somewhere. There it is. I was getting a little worried. I thought I forgot it. And the salt. The seasoning is called Hunt Chef Smoky Bayou, and it is good. Got my little bushcraft grill. It's a nice grill until it burns up. Not much else was biting today, except for the crappie. We'll try and catch some more stuff tomorrow. That's some good crappie. I'm about ready for bed. It's been a long day. I did a lot of hiking, so that's what I'm gonna do. Bed down for the night. I'm gonna dry out this kayak. It's not supposed to rain tonight, so I'm not even gonna bother putting the tarp up. I'll keep it close just in case it does. My blanket and bug net, and we'll be in good shape. This is one of the comfiest mattresses you'll ever sleep in when camping. I'll see you guys tomorrow. It's a warm, sunny day today. I slept good in this kayak. I did last time I camped out in it too. I slept in this morning. I was up pretty late last night. I'm gonna go get some water. There's a little stream down here I can get some water from. I'd rather get my drinking water from a stream like this than that lake, because the water's cooler for one, and for two. Small mountain streams like this tend to be cleaner. There's not many deep spots along this stream to fill my bag, but this will do. You still want to filter this water though, because you never know what's in it even though it's clear. Nice and cold. I also have to clean these chanterelles. These mushrooms collect a lot of dirt and debris. Nice and clean. I'll put these back in the bag. All right, let's go back to camp. Let's get a fire going and cook some of these mushrooms. Grab some charcoal from the fire. From this soft wood. Some leaves. Crush them up. Put that charcoal on top. This charcoal is from punkwood. It should form an ember once I give it a spark. Make a little bird's nest. There we go. That's one way to get a fire going if you only have a small spark. You can use charcoal from the previous night's fire from punkwood. A bit of hot coals going there. Now we're going to grill these mushrooms. They're right up there with morels. Cook them with steak. Here I go talking about food again. I'm getting hungry. Anyways, we got some sea salt here. I would have packed a skillet and butter, but I had to pack as light as I could, and that wasn't really an essential item. You know, even without butter, they are really good. As my pap would say, don't mind if I do. These are expensive if you buy them. On average, about five to ten dollars an ounce is what they go for, but morels, they go for even more. The rest of these, I'm just going to take these home, because my wife loves to eat them too. A lot of times we'll make soup with them. Cream of chanterelle soup, and it is so good. Back into the backpack so they can breathe. That way they won't go bad. I thought I brought a mesh bag with me, but I guess I forgot it. Let's get some more water, and we're gonna go back down to the lake. Do a little more fishing, because while those mushrooms were good, they don't have a lot of calories, and I'm hungry. I'll do some more kayaking and see if I can catch some more fish. Hopefully they're biting today. I've walked through about a hundred spider webs so far on this trip. The gnats are swarming me. That's one thing I like about winter camping. No bugs. Check this out. Some kind of hatch going on. All right, let's get back out there. Let's cruise around, see what we can find, and see what we can catch. Put the blue gill lure in the water, and do some trolling. That's something. That was quick. Nice crappie. Beautiful. Check it out. See if we can catch a mess of these things. Another one. Another crappie. We're gonna put on the stringer. Just using a curly tail jig like this. The jig head's a little big for it, but they don't seem to mind. Blue gill. That's something. Nice. Biggest one yet, I think. That is a good size crappie. Got a perch. Something big. Catfish. No way. Check that out. All right, so I think it's safe to say we have enough to eat for tonight. It's getting late, so I'm gonna head back. I'm gonna find a new spot to camp out for tonight. I'm gonna camp out near the trail where I came in on. Small crappie. Another one. I have enough. I'm gonna throw this one back. Well, now I gotta get these fish cleaned up, and then go find another campsite. If I can get a fire going, cook these up. Tonight's full moon is called the sturgeon moon. I had to take a little break there and charge all my camera gear. Looks like a good place to camp out here. Let's get a little spot cleared out for the fire. I got this napkin here I use for tinder. I got the fish all cleaned up, gutted, descaled, and tonight we feast. I am hungry, and I cannot wait to eat these fish. I'm a little low on seasoning. Not sure why I didn't bring a little more than this, but good. I also have salt. I cooked the catfish last. I'm bringing some water to a boil. I'm going to use that to clean the skin. Looking good. Water's boiling. The hot water will loosen up the slime layer, and you can scrape it off. Some seasoning. That skin is nice and clean. Time to eat. Panfish are good, they just don't have that much meat on them, so I like to catch a lot of them. I was starving. Very good. All right, let's try some catfish. I really like crappie. Very easy to clean, very easy to descale. They get pretty big too, for panfish anyway. The perch was small, but I think that was my favorite one. I love perch. Flavor is excellent. Well, I'm gonna finish this fish, and then I'm gonna go to bed. I'm tired. It's been a long day, a lot of paddling, a lot of hiking. I'm whooped, but this fish is good, so I'm happy. I think we have a slow leak in the floor. I'm gonna have to patch that up when I get home. Nice and warm. I'm tired, but I am full. That's one good thing. I'll see you guys tomorrow. Morning. It's another beautiful day. I don't think it's ever going to rain again. Well, I'd say this trip was a success. I had a lot of fun, caught a lot of fish. I didn't go hungry or thirsty, and I survived. So, I hope you guys enjoyed this video. It was a lot of fun making it, so join me in my next one.