Thread: Fires

Originally Posted by Barry the hunter

and does it not all taste a little better - love the battered old billys - I have my old brew billy and look out any bloody drongo who trys to heat baked beans in it

The sights and smells of a campfire trigger a primal feeling of wellbeing in a hunter. The bush is not quite the same without one. Just be sensible.

Man smell will drift almost as far as smoke, so its a forlorn hope thinking that by not having a fire, the deer won't spook.

Originally Posted by Barry the hunter

and does it not all taste a little better - love the battered old billys - I have my old brew billy and look out any bloody drongo who trys to heat baked beans in it

Aye - gotta love wood smoke infused billy tea

Originally Posted by Nathan F

Here here
Attachment 224208

This is what I was talking about. I bought couple cast iron cookware for camp fire cooking, thinking someday maybe I could find my little secrete hunt place near water, I will carry them there and leave there since it is too heavy.

Originally Posted by Black Rabbit

This is what I was talking about. I bought couple cast iron cookware for camp fire cooking, thinking someday maybe I could find my little secrete hunt place near water, I will carry them there and leave there since it is too heavy.

hmmmm - dont leave cast iron to long out in scrub even if you have greased it really well - rusts fairly quickly

Originally Posted by Black Rabbit

This is what I was talking about. I bought couple cast iron cookware for camp fire cooking, thinking someday maybe I could find my little secrete hunt place near water, I will carry them there and leave there since it is too heavy.

Yeah I’ve got a cast iron camp oven too. It lives out of the rain well under the tarps in the wood pile. Great thing to have

Don't fret about making noise either...I have hunted fallow in a pine forest that allowed firewood extraction, and at midday I snuck up on a hind that was standing on a gravel road intently watching a guy cutting branches with a chainsaw, 60 metres away. I couldn't shoot because the guy was in the firing zone.

Originally Posted by Ranger 888

Don't fret about making noise either...I have hunted fallow in a pine forest that allowed firewood extraction, and at midday I snuck up on a hind that was standing on a gravel road intently watching a guy cutting branches with a chainsaw, 60 metres away. I couldn't shoot because the guy was in the firing zone.

Yes, animals get used to the expected. Was involved with a forest being logged, the goats were used to the work crews and their hi-viz vests and ignored them but ran a mile from camo hunters.
That issue was solved with a change of dress code for the hunters.

Alan Simmons got in the shit over a fire at vechile at road end some time back..... think Sue Gray may have got him off the hook????


last night of a big trip a fire is pure gold... nothing beats sitting beside a good warm fire ..but for crying out loud be sensible and safe
many years back I shot a hare 100 yards from moonlight n roses hut on way in..cooked it for dinner on open fire in campoven..after tea we headed out for look around,downwind of hut with smoke in my eyes I shot a stag not 500 yards from hut...

@Barry the hunter. While you’re looking up doc rules regarding fires can you find clarification regarding the use of standing or fallen vegetation for fires. It’s getting late in the day but I seem to remember that where fires are allowed you basically can’t use vegetation originating from doc estate, certainly not native. Irrespective of what the rules say I like to think we’re all sensible about campfires when we’re out and about and I believe we’ve all possibly broken the ‘rules’ at some stage.

its our land,its our wood,its our heritage if I want to light a plurry fire and its safe to do so I plurry well will.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

its our land,its our wood,its our heritage if I want to light a plurry fire and its safe to do so I plurry well will.

yeah feel the same Micky Duck - fires are allowed back country so I guess common sense says dead wood all okay -

Good discussion - one that comes up on most trips.

I recall reading an article many years ago by a very intelligent historian/archeologist.
He described that the ability to make/use 'fire' was the second thing that differentiated man from other living organisms...the first being an 'opposed thumb'.
He went on to say that the ability to use fire enabled man to do things like cook otherwise inedible food, live in places that were inhospitable, provide protection from critturs that regarded humans as food, make implements, build things from materials that in their raw state were useless etc etc etc
He went on to say that at a subconcious level we are drawn to fire because it is/was the difference between life or death.....
For those that have open fires in their home or in the outdoors, have you ever noticed that guests are immediately drawn to them and most will take great pleasure in throwing fuel onto an already lit fire.....or will help to set a fire.......
He also said that the thought of 'fire' is indelibly imprinted on our DNA and it will take millenia to erase it.

He went into much more depth than what I have written but thats the gist of what he said.

I’m just sitting here watching rugby and got thinking when was the actual last time I slept in a doc hut. Came up with December 2019. The point been I’ve done a heap of trips since then. 95% of them roaming the back country and living out of a pack. So if I get into a camp cold ,tired and wet from crossing rivers - guess what the first job is after putting up the fly?

I love a campfire after a big day in the bush it seems to chill you out and get the stories flowing before you crash out. One night sitting around the fire talking to my 3 hunting mates a Sika hind came flying through our camp and jumped over the fire we were sitting around making my mate drop the bottle of Whiskey we were having a nightcap from, that certainly doesn't happen very often and would be a once-in-a-lifetime event for me. Has anybody else had that happen to them?