Nomadic Vacation Hiatus 9/17

Today has been one of rest and recuperation. Nomadism is a hard way of life regardless of the technology. Tomorrow, I shall take off for the smokey mountains of Tennesee on a quest to slay a full grown boar of pure Eurasian stock. But first, several significant short-comings were recognized during the two day "dry-run."

• The collapsable hunting tent is a vital component of any hunter. It serves as 360 degree cloak to deceive large game into coming within the kill-zone of one's bow or rifle. It performs admirably as a temporary shelter and sleeping rig. On stalk hunts, the tent serves as an adequate "home base" of sorts where weapons, supplies and communication equipment can be cached. During the dry-run, my tent proved roomy enough, but the tent stakes were too short and feeble. Additionally, the seating cushion that I had proved to be very bulky during transit. This could be due to the warm weather though. The tent stakes I replaced with thick wooden dowels. The seating pad was replaced by a fabric stool.

• The longbow proved to be a clumsy weapon when traversing forrested terrain. The trees and branches complicates the process of maneuvering and fully drawing the bow for that smooth shot. Additionally, the backquiver during the stalk causes significant noise which may alert the more cautious animals to my prescence. With that in mind, I replaced the 70-inch longbow for a shorter 60-in varient that I crafted last year. This bow is weaker but the decrease in arrow speed should be more than compensated by the bow's stealthier and more flexible profile. The quiver, I padded with some cotton to reduce it's noise signature. In anycase, the shorter bow should still suffice to deliver that killing blow out to 25 yards.

• While on the move, the experienced hunter must seek to absolutely minimize his visual, infrared, audio, and olfactory profile. My hunting camoflouge jacket, trousers, and backpack proved to be rather inadequate for the task at hand. While the camo clothing provided enough visual concealment, it was not very good at releasing heat. After 20 minutes of walking in the forest, one is left sweating profusely. That predatory scent of sweat would flag me as a threat for miles around. The sound of my bow quiver(rifle for that matter) bumping against the backpack while I'm moving is unforgivably loud. The problem cannot be easily solved via a low-tech solution, so I decided to go all the way. To solve this issue, I finally coughed up some hard currency and purchased a modern hunting vest. The vest has built in modular compartments that tightly seals necessary items such has food, water, tools, navigational/communications equipment. So in effect, a person is wearing his supplies, and this creates comparatively minimal sound. Each major compartment can be detached from the vest during transit to reduce weight if the need arises. The vest is camoflouged in the visual light spectrum and it absorbs body oders to lower the olfactory profile. An additional innovation, the vest has a perforated backside which allows some of a hunter's body heat to be dissapated into the air behind him, thus significantly lowering his frontal Infrared signature.