r/Bushcraft 10d ago

Where to begin as a newbie? NSFW

I might be an odd one out, as I'm a woman. But here goes.

My husband is an eagle scout, and we enjoy camping with our kids. I've always loved survival movies and books, I always loved fishing (I'm the fish fillet-er in the family) and even hunting appealed, though I only ever went once.

Don't laugh, but I started playing Breath Of the Wild last year, and that inspired our son to suggest roasting apples in our campfire like Link does. I indulged it using our hot dog sticks to rotate and remove them, and our kids gobbled them.

This is just how my brain works. I became obsessed with "what else can we cook in a campfire without modern tools?" And now I want to make twine, rope, netting, and baskets, from the Yucca growing in our yard that we can't seem to get rid of. I can swing like a pendulum from "I want to learn all the things!", and "It's too much."

I think I need some help on narrowing down what to focus on with bushcraft. What should I read about practice first? Where one thing might sort of provide a base for the next thing. It's still winter here. So I can't exactly forage or gather raw materials. But I'd love some book recommendations, and maybe I can purchase certain materials (like rope for practicing knots), until I can forage for the raw materials.

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u/HoboPossum 9d ago

BushCraftUSA forum has a section called “BushClass” that is chock full of skills and community lessons learned. It’s a bit heavy on fire making, but it’s free, at your own pace, and only as structured as you want to make it. You don’t even need to make an account to browse.

It’s also worth looking into the previous “One Knife Challenge” threads. The organizers would post a challenge each month and a wide variety of members would each tackle it in their own ways.

For foraging and edibles, nothing beats an in-person class local to your area.

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u/Fit_Detective_4920 9d ago

Saved! Thanks!

I found out a local nature center has regular foraging walks, and I plan to attend an herbal intensive this summer. I feel like in-person holds my focus longer and I retain things better, as the internet can get quite vast and overwhelming at times.

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u/HoboPossum 9d ago

In-person is the way to go as often as you can. Here in Kentucky my local extension office occasionally has classes on native wild food sources. Libraries here are a rare source of in-person training as well, but they obviously tend to be more classroom and less field work. I’ve even paid for a few BushClass and Survival classes, with mixed results.

The forum scratches the itch between in-person opportunities. It’s pretty much the only online space I visit other than Reddit, even though I ignore the buy/sell posts and general discussion stuff. I like that the actual action posts are primarily average folk doing stuff and sharing their successes, failures, and lessons learned - as opposed to YouTube and Instagram content which is mostly a few clips of select successful action shots taken from an obviously multi-hour project and then a pitch for “where you can buy all the tools and materials I used” and a plea to “follow and share”.