A Game Camera, Hobo Fishing Kit and some Fungi

Now this is not going to come out very well but right in the middle of the picture here is a little owl. It's sitting directly there, it just moved, it's just gone into the bush, into the hawthorn tree. Now that flew out of here, they've possibly nested in here so I'm going to set up a game cam and I'm going to try and get it on film. This looks like a decent perch, it's actually a fallen ash branch from a big tree that's literally just dropping the bits here. That's possibly why the little owls here, because they eat a lot of beetles and moths and grubs and so on. Worms as well. They're not like other owls that'll take mice and rats and all that. They're very small, only about that sort of size. Although I can't see any claw marks on here, there is a rotten log underneath here. There's fallen grass, and I think this may be a decent place, may be a decent place for it to sit. So I'm going to put a camera on here, looking towards there. And hopefully, we'll get something. Now, unfortunately, the strap on this fella is going to be visible from the other side, which is an open field. There's no public footpaths anywhere, but I think it would possibly be seen if somebody had good eyesight. So I'm going to go with a cheaper camera. This is the Vixing 12 megapixel camera, which I still haven't done a review on. I really should get onto that. I'll just try and camouflage it a little bit. That's masked it quite well from this angle. From the other angle, I'm not bothered because it's very rough there. Nobody's going to be down here. Awesome. That's it set. Simple as that. We'll come back to it in a few days and see if we've got any decent footage. That's it there. Reasonably well camouflaged. So hopefully it won't get nicked. And that should be looking at that with any luck. I think while I'm out for a walk, I may as well try my new Hobo fishing kit. I'll put the link where I bought this one. In the video description, and also in the pinned comment, there's actually a fellow YouTuber called Scooty 1968 maybe? He makes them. It's quite big, see from the size of my hand there, but that allows you to get plenty inside. Once I've had a little bit of fish, I'll show you what I've put in here. I've actually taken out most of the stuff that came with it and replaced it with my own gear. The float's far too small and the weight's too much. I'm going to take the float off. What a bad start. I'm going to let it drift down to those trees down there and start slowly bringing it back. I've just seen a fish rise over the other side. I think it's roughly where I can cast it to. I'm going to give it a go for that one. Let's try a little bit further down. Okay, here we go, right under the trees. It's almost pitch black under here, but we're fishing into very deep water. Yes, I've got one. Awesome. Hook came out perfectly, which is great because I don't want to keep this. There you go. Little brownie caught on a hobo fishing hand line. Get in there. Very pleased about that because really that didn't take long. I've been here probably no more than five minutes in this particular spot and had maybe three or four casts. That was the first decent cast that I did. Landed just underneath those overhanging branches and that's exactly where the fish was. So that's good. A worthy addition to my survival kit. Hobo hand fishing kit. Hello? Yes it is, yeah. When I get back home and I sort the filter media out for that fella, I'll take this to bits and let you see what's inside. Let's take a break whilst I'll walk back across the fields and I'll catch you in a minute. Well, that's another satisfied customer. That cost me about 40 to 45 minutes. So I took the car, I've parked up in a lay-by and I've come to some woods which are approximately a mile away from my home to see We'll see if I can find any fungi. We've had a very, very dry summer in the UK, in this particular part, which is the North East, but recently we've had quite a lot of rain, a lot of damp mornings. Today it's very misty, everything's wet. I'm really hoping that the moisture will have penetrated the ground and brought on the fungus because it's been severely lacking. There's been hardly any types. And whilst I've only been here about 10 minutes. I have identified two or three different species, which looks like the start of the fungi harvest. So let's take a look at them. Here's the first type, and I don't know what that is, so I will not be taking that to eat. Next to that one, we've got a different coloured fungus. Again, I don't recognise that one. I would not eat it. And over here, looks like we've got some bigger versions of that coloured one. Let's take that one. Might be a brittle gill of some sort. Anybody with a good ID, you can put it in the comment section. I always like to learn, and I don't know much about fungus, to be brutally honest with you. You're probably asking yourself, if he doesn't know much about fungus, what's he doing looking for them in the wood? Well, I'm wanting to learn about the different types of fungi, which ones are edible, which ones are inedible, and which ones are deadly poisonous, because in the UK, we do have a few types that are deadly poisonous. I would like to think I could recognize them, but it always is a good idea to keep coming out, you know, on and off during the year, find out what's up at the different times of year and whether they're edible or not. And really this is more of a reconnaissance mission than anything. I'm going to check out the various parts of the wood. Here we've got broad-leaved woodland, I'm going to move into a mixed piece of the woodland, take a look at that, Let's start. and if there's a decent amount of various fungus up, I'll come back with Colin at a later date but not too much later though because fungi seasons are often quite short and we'll have a look and see what we can find because two sets of eyes are always better than one. Now I've actually taken a path that I don't normally take and to be honest I didn't even know was here. It goes along the top of the wood and here we've got an absolutely fantastic badger set. What a monster. This is probably where all the badgers are coming from that are crapping all over my wood. I think this is the nearest set to The holes are really, really clean. Okay, here we go. I recognise this one. That one is an amethyst deceiver, purple sort of fungi, and that one is edible. You see that in a lot of fancy French dishes. Unfortunately, that's the only one I can find here, and this is a cracking area. Look at how thick these beech leaves are lying on the ground. This has got to be a good place for fungus. Maybe it's a little bit late after. We've had a bit more rain. And seconds after seeing, I can't see any more. Spotted another one. One there, one there, and one there as well. And that's another one there. Okay, it looks like we've got the start of something here. Okay, that's where we saw the amethyst deceivers, just in this little area here. And the similar area carries on all the way down to the river. This looks like a very good area, so I will be returning here with Colin. There's a mega fungus here. Could have been a penny bun, something like that. It looks like it's been a really big, thick one at some point. Possibly some sort of boletus. I'm not entirely sure. There's not enough of it left for me to make a good ID. As I say, I'm not very good with fungus. OK, a little bit further up the hill, and we've definitely got something here. This is a sept. I recognise this one. Definitely. That's been pretty well hammered, and by the looks of it, it's got a national collection of grubs in there, so I won't be taking that, but when that one was fresh, it would have been a real beauty, and that would have been edible. We've got some very likely-looking land down here. I think it still may be a little bit early for them, though. It's not as many as I would expect. It's a good amount of leaf litter. Pretty manky. Reasonably damp. Look at that. Look how rich that is. That you know there has to be fungus coming up here. I think I'm just a little bit early for it. Here's some sort of puffballs. I did find these in another video, and Colin did tell me what they are. The ones with the little spikes on them that you can brush off. And I cannot remember the name. So Colin, if you're watching this, stick it in the comments section. Here's a very strange sight. Like a little wigwam in the middle of nowhere. Really too small to be of any use, but somebody's obviously built it for some particular reason. Maybe it's just practising their skills. I'm just coming down towards a stream here. There you go, I've got quite a nice little crossing here. Um... And although I haven't heard anybody, or heard any yapping of any dogs or anything, there's an awful smell of wet dog. So I think somebody's been through here very, very recently. The dog's probably come up this other side and given itself a good shake. But in this damp atmosphere, I can definitely smell that dog. It reeks. Here we've got a fantastic example of razor strop fungus. Not that one, but all those ones down there on that fallen log. Look at that, whole logs just covered in them. Even ones that are lying in the water have huge fungus on. Okay, this is how I've got the Hobo fishing kit set up. I've left the hook attached, which is a size 10 short shank hook. That's fitted onto the cork there. And I've stuck a few extra elastic bands around as well just to hold the nylon in place up here and on the real part. So let's take a look at what we've got in here. Oh actually before I take the end off I've got to say that this cord was not on when I bought it. I've actually wrapped that round very neatly one way and then neatly back the other way. That is, It's not paracord, but it's useful cord, just in case. Gives me a nice handle as well. Okay, let's have a look. Right, we've got quite a big cavity in here, so we can fit quite a lot of stuff in. Okay, all of this stuff fits in there. The thing that was in the very bottom of there is a little bag of something called Tinder Quick, or Quick Tinder. It's basically very much like cotton wool. It's compressed, so you can fluff it out, and it takes a spark. And talking of sparks, I've got a lighter there. Obviously, it's got gas in, so it provides a flame. But even if this ran out of gas, I could still use the spark to light that, to light the fire. So that's probably something that you wouldn't expect to see inside a fishing kit. Now something you would expect to see is a collection of different size hooks, bag of different size weights, some swivels in case I want to make up more sophisticated rigs, three rubber grubs there, well actually there's two grubs, and a rubber worm just in case I can't find any natural bait. And there's also three different floats there. Now you'll have noticed that I didn't use a float when I was in the river. You generally don't need to. This is more for kind of coloured water, still waters. Although you could use it in rivers, I suppose. So there you go, all of that goes in here. There you go, that's fitting there pretty well. And there's just enough space in there for our bag of stuff. So what I do with these smaller bags, I just wrap them up nice and tight. And then they all pack within this little bag. So this little bag keeps them all tight. Hook goes in there, we've got enough space left here to take the cork. Job's a good'un. Hook goes back in there and we've got our fishing kit ready when we need it. You can see why this thing is a bit of a poacher's kit. It's pretty much got everything you need in here and if it's left rigged up like this all you need to do is just quickly lift up a few stones, find a worm or two, stick them on the hook, chuck them in and you're straight into the fish. It's an excellent bushcraft item, something that'll definitely Be staying in my bag. Now I'll put the link where I bought this in the video description and also in the pinned comment. It was made by a YouTuber who also has an Etsy site where he makes some great stuff. So I'm very, very pleased with that. Thank you very much. Now I was so impressed with that that I went online and I bought some more kits to give away in upcoming giveaways. Like prize packages, you know. Full of outdoor gear. And I went out to eBay. And believe it or not, these two... which come loaded with line and nothing inside but they do have a hole to put your own stuff like hooks and weights and so on these two were at the time when i bought them under 10 pounds in the uk that's for two of them that's absolutely incredible obviously i haven't used these yet i was trying the big lad these will work just as well i'm really pleased with all three of these you can see the size difference there if you're into really really packing light These little fellas would be absolutely awesome. If you want something a little bit more comprehensive, the big lad would be the one to go for. I'll put the link to where I bought these in the video description as well. And these two are going to be part of some cracking giveaways, so keep watching for those. Now these are fish that I would not want to catch on that little hobo fishing kit. Some of those are probably, I don't know, two to three kilos. That's like over five pound in weight. Very chunky fish. Far too big for that little thing. Okay, I've been so busy with work that it's taken me about a week to edit this video. Therefore, that little camera that I put out, the game cam, hoping to get a picture or video of the little owl, is still out. So I'm going to go and collect that now, and you're going to see the results of it in a second. Well, the good news is, after a week, the camera is still here. Whether we've managed to capture the little owl on it or not is anybody's guess. Well, that perch was used by plenty of birds, but unfortunately, not the little owl. I'm going to get the other two cameras out, and we're going to set them again. So we're going to have three cameras up in that area. I'm going to leave them again for a week. We're bound to get it next time. When I do get it on film... I'm going to make a short video showing you the pictures or the videos because when I went down there to collect the camera this time the little owl flew out of the tree so it's obviously still down there, it's still using that area as a hunting ground. So there you go, thanks very much for watching. If you've liked the video give it a thumbs up, share it wherever you want and I shall see you in the next one. Thanks again.