JAB

Thanks for the comments, guys, and keep the suggestions coming. Also, yesterday evening I finally got around to putting together a couple of those fishing setups similar to the one in the YouTube video I posted. I'll start a new thread for that, though.

I've thought about trash bags. I could probably stash a few in the plastic bag with the rubber bands, etc. without adding any real bulk, weight, etc. Some of the stronger types like Hefty Force Flex and the like would probably be sturdy enough that, in the larger sizes, they could even meet the shelter material need that Moped mentioned.

Good thought. I'd be more likely to put something like that in the vehicle kit I plan to put together, though. Also a good suggestion. Again, this (and a small mess kit) would be something I would certainly include in a vehicle kit. That is a nice looking knife. Mostly I just put the filet knife in there specifically for fish. I'd actually like to eventually get a heavy-ish folder to put in there for something of an all-purpose knife. Maybe something similar to the folding version of the Buck Omni Hunter. I want to carry this bag into work every day and my employer's rules aren't real keen on fixed blade knives (part of the reason I stashed the filet knife deep in the fishing kit.) That is why I will probably go with a folder for this bag. It wouldn't have to specifically be an Omni Hunter - that is just the style I am thinking of with its robust looking blade, etc. - any robust folder with a legal blade length would be fine and if I can find something of pretty good quality that is even less expensive than an Omni Hunter that would be a bonus. I am going to have to get a Mora knife one of these days, though, just because they are so inexpensive and I have heard such good things about them.

I have also ordered one of these for possible inclusion in the bag: http://www.amazon.co...pen fishing rod I'll test it out before deciding to include it in the bag. If it works well it will be something nice to have. Again, I really do quite often have times when I don't expect to have an opportunity to fish then end up wishing I had some fishing gear handy. It should be a fun thing for not a lot of money, at least. I also plan to make one or two versions of the type of fishing setup the guy in this video is using: [media=] [/media]Oh, and the reason there is nothing firearm related in the bag is that I plan to carry it everyday - including at work - and I can't have a firearm at work.

Now for other things I decided to put in my EDC bag. Under the front flap I have a small (mini) Maglight, my Buck multitool, an ink pen and a mini Bic lighter. I will be adding a few other things here, eventually: I had a lot of the following stuff in the bag 'loose' or in resealable plastic bags but really wanted to organize it better so I ended up putting it into more rigid containers, mostly trying to group things with some semblance of reasoning. Right now, all of this is in my EDC bag: To be a little more specific, some details of each container follow. First, the contents of the pre-packaged first aid kit: To this, I added a few large bandages (larger than anything included in the kit) and a small package of quick clotting agent: In another container, I have an instant cold pack, a bottle of acetaminophen, some Neosporin spray, a tube of oral anesthetic (basically the Walmart brand knock-off of Orajel or Ambesol), a self-adhesive wrap (sticks to itself so you don't have to pin down the end once it is wrapped around the injured limb) and a bottle of liquid bandage. I also plan to get some of the small, resealable plastic bags that folks use to organize their meds so that I can add a three day supply of my prescription meds into this container. Now, I am certainly no paramedic. I have had some very basic first aid training but my Red Cross first aid certification has long since expired. Once again, like everything else in the bag, the purpose of these first aid supplies is more to deal with things I am likely to encounter on an everyday basis than to survive a disaster. That said, if called upon to survive a disaster, I figure I'd be a lot better off with these basic supplies than with nothing at all. Best of all is that, because I had quite a bit to spend from my FLEX account (money set aside pre-tax from my paycheck for medical expenses) and spent a lot of it on first aid supplies, I already had all of that stuff on hand. That is not to say that I didn't put any emergency supplies into this bag. The contents of the next container include a few emergency supplies (like the emergency blanket and water purification tablets) as well as a few 'comfort' items: All packed in like this (I decided to add another mini Bic after packing everything else in the container) : I included about sixty feet from a spool of nylon cord that I had on hand but hope to eventually replace - or maybe supplement - that cord with some 550 paracord. For now, though, this is better than nothing and it can be unbraided if smaller thread/cord is needed. I also decided to include an assortment of rubber bands. The largest/heaviest of these rubber bands would probably work to help hold a rudimentary splint in place. I actually plan to try making a slingshot with those as the bands to see if that might be something that could work in an emergency. Of course, I'd have to practice target shooting with a slingshot to make that practical. Here is the cord with the type of rubber bands I included: All packed nice and neat in a resealable plastic bag: Last but not least, we must consider food. Again, I am not looking to this bag to provide food for a week or anything like that. Instead, I am thinking much more along the lines of the times I suddenly find that my blood sugar is crashing. I have non-insulin dependent diabetes and when my blood sugar gets too low I feel hot and clammy then start getting dizzy. For such occasions, for times I have to skip lunch, etc. or for times when I might just want a snack, I packed four Clif peanut butter energy bars and two candied peanut bars along with some fast acting glucose tablets into this container. Finally, in this resealable plastic bag I have some orange flavored, 'performance' water additive (Walmart' knockoff of Mio). I put in some packets of sucralose (generic Splenda) because I like sweet tea but have to order unsweetened. Many restaurants around here don't have Splenda and I hate Sweet and Low. The other thing here is a combo salt and pepper shaker - because I have had occasions when I have wished I had some salt and/or pepper and none was handy. Now, I am sure I have included some things that seem pointless to some others. I have probably left out some things that others would include (and thoughts on that are welcome - just remember, this isn't intended as a true survival bag or bug out bag but more a 'preparedness for everyday possibilities with some emergency applications' bag.)

One thing I knew I wanted in my bag was some fishing supplies. Partly, I must admit, this was because all the cool survival kids seem to include fishing stuff in their kits. Largely, though, it is because (living in East Tennessee) I often find myself in places where I could fish if only I had some fishing gear with me. As I invariably end up thinking, "Dangit! I could fish if only I had some fishing gear with me," I decided that I wanted to avoid future disappointment by pretty much always having at least some fishing gear with me. For my 'tackle box' I decided to re-purpose a plastic box that originally contained a wristwatch with a setup to convert it to a fob type watch (I love how, in the current social environment I can say 're-purpose' and it makes me sound like a responsible, environmentally conscious human being rather than simply a cheap b*st*rd who likes to reuse old junk rather than spending money on something new, when possible.) The box is only about 8 inches long by 4 inches wide and not very deep but I was able to put a lot of fishing gear in it. In fact, here is a pic of what I started out putting in it: The small filet knife wouldn't fit in the box if I left it in the leather sheath so I wrapped the blade in aluminum foil to protect the edge and to keep from cutting things I don't want cut. I also wrapped the rooster tails and lures, along with the small piece of styrofoam I used to coral them, in aluminum foil to help protect them, keep the hooks from sticking in other things and keep them organized and untangled. I ended up then slipping the package with the rooster tails and lures in the small, resealable plastic bag with the plastic lures as well as the small floats and assorted sinkers. I packed all that into the box then remembered that I had picked up a couple of packages of preserved wax worms recently. I figured one of those would be a nice addition. I managed to pack those in there, too and was feeling pretty good about myself. That is, until I realized that I had forgotten to put in any fishing line. I had the line out but just forgot to re-spool it and put it in. For respooling, to make things more compact, I used a bobbin like one would use for a sewing machine. I had a partial spool of 8lb. test Spiderwire line and decided to use that. I put all the line that was remaining on that spool onto the bobbin - roughly 67 feet - and packed it into the box with everything else. Just to show how small a space 67 feet of fishing line can take up:

I know that some folks are of the mindset that 'real' men don't carry a bag on a regular basis. I, on the other hand, am of the school of thought that a 'real' man carries whatever he pleases. Along those lines for some time I have been meaning to start an EDC bag. I have had a few false starts, a few abandoned ideas and so on. I'm hoping this one 'takes' but we will see. I guess first I should say what purpose I have in mind for an EDC bag - and to do so it might be easier to say what it isn't. It isn't a bug out bag, a survival bag nor an emergency kit - although it has some (very minor) elements of all of those - and then some. No, what I have in mind is something that can be a 'constant companion'. I am trying to include a range of stuff, some of which might only be useful in an emergency or crisis but much of which can be used on a daily, weekly or maybe a monthly basis. I am also including things that I just think would be 'nice' to have around but that won't fit in my pockets. So, on to the specifics: The first thing I decided that I would need in order to create an EDC bag was, well, a bag. I've tried a small pack but it wouldn't really hold everything I wanted to lug around and it was kind of hard to keep up with - as evidenced by the fact that I have managed to misplace it along with all the stuff that I was carrying in it. I tried one of those small, cross-slung backpacks for a little while but it didn't have enough compartments to best organize what I wanted to carry and really wouldn't hold everything I wanted to put in it. I have a pretty nice, travel backpack that works well as an overnight bag, etc. It would certainly be large enough and have enough compartments - in fact, I really like it - but I wanted to save it to use when I need the aforementioned overnight bag. Besides that, a backpack wasn't really the 'style' of thing I wanted for EDC. I didn't really want to go with the standard (canvas, etc.) messenger bag nor did I want to use a nylon laptop bag or the like. Actually, I wanted leather. The problem is that most of the bags of the type I wanted, especially the ones made of sturdy, quality leather, cost more than I could reasonably spend - and to that end I started making a formed leather bag that would be roughly the size of a briefcase but took some inspiration from the old 'possibles bags' being that a modern day 'possibles bag' was kind of what I had in mind (not so much the black powder supplies as the way they were used to carry a multitude of stuff.) I haven't finished that one, yet, but I plan to do so when I get one of those round tuits you hear so much about. Then events coincided to lead me to a bag that was almost exactly what I was looking for - sort of my Holy Grail of everyday carry bags. See, my mom likes hitting various Goodwill stores and she often finds pretty good stuff at bargain prices (for those not familiar with Goodwill - http://www.goodwill.org/ ) Well, on Memorial Day and the preceding weekend, Goodwill stores were having a sale - 50% off marked prices on everything. Mom wanted me to take her to visit my step grandfather that weekend and wanted to hit a few of the Goodwill stores along the way. Along with a few, other things I found a nice, solid leather bag that looked like it had never even been used. In fact, the desiccant packets were still in it. It looked a lot like a laptop bag but didn't have the padded compartment/velcro straps that most true laptop bags have. It had a zippered gusset on the main compartment (zip if not needed, unzip to allow the compartment to expand.) All this lead me to believe that it was intended as a sort of combination briefcase and travel bag. The only drawback was that it had a local company's name/logo embroidered on the front flap. I imagine it was originally some kind of employee premium or something that was given to an employee who never used it and eventually got rid of it. I figured I could use some of the scrap leather I have on hand to cover the embroidered logo (the stitching was so tight that pulling the stitches would have left too many holes.) The best part was the price. This nice, apparently brand new leather bag/case had a price tag of $3.00. Remember the half price sale, though - so I got it for $1.50. Yep, a buck and a half. Well, just as I had planned I used a piece of scrap leather to cover the company name/logo. I even used a silver paint pen to put my initials on the scrap. I think the initials turned out okay for a quick, freehand job but I didn't stitch the patch down and only glued it at each end. Around here, there are folks who have booths set up in malls, flea markets and the like who have professional embroidery machines. Usually, they will let you choose a design, etc. to put on a baseball cap or the like. As the leather I used for the patch is thin and soft - and as I have more - I am hoping to take a swatch of it to one of them and get my initials actually embroidered on it. I will then replace the current patch with the embroidered one and stitch it down all nice and neat. Anyhow, this is what the bag looks like now: More on the contents of the bag in posts to follow.

Congratulations. I am jealous that you got a lever .357. I am doubly jealous that you got one of the Rossis with a 16 inch barrel. I am triply jealous that it is a stainless with wood model. See, just about the only two guns on my 'really want' list right now are a Blackhawk .357 and a lever action .357. The Rossi (I like the look and the price) in stainless and wood is exactly the .357 lever I would like to have. I've held (a blued) one with a 16 inch barrel and was struck by just how balanced and handy it felt. My problem, right now, is that I don't have the spare dinero to match the desire. Funny thing is, I checked Ballistics by the Inch to find out how much velocity would be lost by going from a longer barrel to a 16 inch and was surprised by what I found out. According to their results, it looks like (with factory ammo, anyhow) a 16 inch barrel yielded greater velocities than an 18 inch barrel - by a few hundred fps in some cases - in both the test barrel and real world guns tests with Federal 125 grain JHP in the test barrel being the only exception.

They really are easy to make. Mine aren't as nice/polished looking as what Curiousgb made but I made two in pretty much one day - one for my old, single-shot .410 (top pic) and one for my mom's .410 pump (bottom pic): These basic, plain versions were much easier than making a holster, etc. This is how mine looks after having stained it with a 'stain' made by soaking old walnuts (with the dried up outer hulls still attached) in some water (I also braided a sling for it and incorporated a shell carrier into the sling):

Besides, saying, "Yippee kay-ee, m*****f*****," while using a Bic to light a trail of jet fuel in order to blow up the bad guys just wouldn't have the same flair.

Even without the corruption allegations, my takeaway from the article was this: So, while schools in the U.S. seem to be having trouble finding enough funding we are sending millions of dollars, apparently with little oversight, to help develop educational programming in other countries, like Pakistan. Anyone else see a problem there?

Honestly, I think a better comparison would be cars that can park themselves because the driver can't. My first experience with a spellchecker (the fore-runner to auto correct) was with the Brother word processor on which I typed my papers for college back in the early 90s. I was constantly having to add words to its 'dictionary' because I apparently knew a lot more words in my brain than were in the word processor's computer 'brain.' Sometimes it got on my nerves so badly that I'd just turn the spell checker off. That said, as my time spent being formally educated grows more and more dim in the rearview mirror of life, I am sometimes glad for autocorrect as a spelling aid. Just keep in mind, however: "Spellcheckers don't know shirt."

I don't smoke but I do carry a lighter pretty much every day. Right now, it is just one of those mini-Bics but I kinda want a Zippo because...well, because it is a Zippo. I've looked on their website and have decided that I want the one that has a replica of a Ouija board on it. I had a neat, little thing that I got with a pack of mini-Bics once. It was plastic and was made to hold one of the mini-Bics but had a lid that flipped open. When the mini-Bic ran out of fluid, you just replaced it with another mini-Bic. I carried it for a while but don't know what in the heck happened to it. Used to see them at gas stations, etc. all the time but haven't found one since I misplaced that one.

A couple of times while BSing at Farnsworth's Firearms, the owner (Robbie) has commented with a grin, "Hey, nobody wants to be shot with a pink gun." I think he is right.

In mentioning hard crackers and Christmas, you made me think of springerle. http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Springerle I used to work with a lady who made springerle around Christmas time every year in memory of her German mother. One of my German instructors at UT (who was from Germany) joked once or twice about how hard they are. When I tried the ones my then coworker made, I understood what my German instructor was talking about. Those things were like slightly sweet hard tack, with a bit of anise flavor. I am not the world's biggest fan of anise (very similar to black licorice - I sometimes jokingly call it anus) but the taste wasn't bad. I don't know that they would 'keep' as long as hard tack but I do know that they are traditionally 'put away' for two or three weeks after baking before they are considered ready to eat. Hmmm...that also makes me think of biscotti - the little, Italian sliced cookies that people usually dunk in coffee, etc. I have made those a time or two. You basically make them as a loaf, bake them then slice them and bake them some more. I have read that they can have a long shelf life, maybe even a few months, depending on what you put in them. Those are actually pretty good.

I agree with both of these statements. I qualified with my 5.5 inch 22A. I have since shot the same 'course of fire' on my own, at the same range, with all of my carry guns. Could I have qualified with what I was going to carry? Yep. So why didn't I? Simple, I didn't have to and didn't want to. Besides, about the only thing that the range qualification proves - even if you use your carry gun - is that if you are being attacked by a flat, featureless, monochromatic assailant that is a sub-waist amputee and lacks the use of his arms then you will be able to defend yourself from him at a myriad of arbitrary distances. Don't get me wrong, I like practicing with B27 targets but my thought is that - at the distances involved - if I can hit a big, paper target with a .22 then I can probably hit it just as well with my 9mm, ,38 and so on.

Your post made me think of something... Most people - even those with HCPs - have probably been driving longer than they have been carrying a gun. I also believe that there are a lot more people who drive daily than those who carry a firearm daily. The folks who do carry likely operate a motor vehicle in public a whole lot more frequently than they will ever need to draw/fire their carry weapon in public - yet while a lot of folks feel that participating in additional, formal training is necessary for responsible handgun carry I don't hear a lot of people stating that drivers should enroll in and complete extensive driving training before they can be considered 'responsible' drivers. Therefore, just as it is possible to be competent and responsible driver without extensive, formal training I would posit that one can competently and responsibly carry a firearm without the necessity of additional training. I'm not saying that additional training is a bad thing, I just don't view it as being as crucial as some believe. Just a thought.

I also enjoy working leather but have not developed anything like your level of skill, yet. Really nice work!

I first saw that one back when I was in high school. I now own it on DVD. The scene where Trash (Linnea Quigley) dances on the crypt had a...ummm...profound effect on a lad in high school. In fact, that remains one of my favorite pieces of cinematography of all time. And the classic line, "...but I don't care, darlin', because I love you. You've got to let me eat your braaaaiiiiinnnns!" [media=] [/media]Along the same lines of a horror movie with some dark humor from about the same time period, I liked the movie 'House'. Richard Moll (who played the character 'Bull' on the television show 'Night Court') plays a zombie/ghost out of the main character's past in Viet Nam who has come seeking vengeance. Not really a zombie outbreak movie but I'd still call the Moll character a zombie, more or less. I also recently saw a movie called The Zombie Diaries (apparently from 2006.) It was done sort of mockumentary/Blair Witch style and I thought it was pretty interesting although not so much a full-tilt zombie fighting movie as a humans trying to survive the zombies (and each other) movie. Heck, in some ways the zombies weren't even the worst thing in the movie.

I like garlic cheese biscuits. I wonder if you could add some powdered cheese (like the stuff that used to come with cheap macaroni and cheese kits - maybe still does, I don't know) and garlic powder to make garlic cheese hard tack.

Well, now, if it were for a planned hike rather than simple survival preparedness you could take along one or two of those chicken breasts/strips that are packaged for shelf stability. Break or chop the chicken up, dump it in the broth with the hard tack and add some ground black pepper. Cook it until the hard tack softened and I'd think the results would be downright edible, maybe even pretty good. I don't do long hikes but I do know what you mean. When I camp up on the Tellico and spend the whole day wading up and down the river trying to catch trout by dinner time I am downright hungry. I am not the biggest fan of fish but in those cases the trout I catch (yeah, even the stocked, 'dog food' trout) can taste pretty darned good!

When referring to simply a daily carry bag, I agree. However, if someone were trying to recreate a type of period costume, etc. then I think the distinctions that WD pointed out would be important. I was actually under the impression that 'possibles bags' evolved from and replaced 'shooting bags' and were used to hold all the things that shooting bags held plus other 'stuff'. I currently have a project going that will be my version of a modern 'possibles bag'. Basically, I am combining the idea of formed leather (as was used in some possibles bag) and the basic construction of some of the more 'refined' possibles bags with the idea of a 'briefcase' sort of setup. It will have a main compartment with a smaller compartment attached to the front of it. I plan to use flaps to cover the compartments and straps/buckles to close them. So far I have only gotten as far as forming the leather for the two, main compartments and staining the leather with a natural stain I made by soaking some of last years walnuts (with the dried outer hull still attached) in water. A lot of folks make wooden forms for making the more traditional formed leather possibles bags. For the size and shape I wanted, I just used a long, rectangular cake pan and a smaller plastic box I had on hand. I will probably end up making a wooden form because I want to make some more traditional type bags - plus even though the corners on the cake pan are rounded off, they are still too sharp an angle to smoothly wrap the leather around very well. This is the leather for the larger compartment as it sits right now: and this is the formed leather for the smaller compartment as it currently looks: I ended up slowing down on this project because I found a couple of nice, leather briefcase/laptop bags at Goodwill recently so my need for this bag isn't as immediate.

I saw an episode of 'Dirty Jobs' where folks were raising fish (I think it was striped bass) as a commercial endeavor. They basically had big, concrete tanks where they raised the fish. What does that have to do with tilapia? Well, they also raised tilapia. They would put them in the tanks that the bass had already used. They said they didn't even really have to feed the tilapia - or at least not much - because the tilapia ate/lived on the bass crap that was in the tanks. Another bonus was that they didn't have to do much to clean the tanks, either. I have also heard of folks in Tennessee engaging in fresh water prawn (shrimp) farming. I think what I heard about was especially geared toward people who were looking for an alternative way to use land where tobacco had previously been grown. Of course, that requires large ponds for a commercial endeavor but I wonder if it would be possible to do so on a small scale for personal use. I haven't looked into it, though, so I don't know if the prawn stock are able to winter over or if they have to harvest them all at the end of a season and start anew with the next season. I guess I just think of this because I like eating shrimp a lot more than I like eating most fish.

I guess one could have some chicken bullion cubes or bullion powder on hand - heat some water, add the dry bullion to make a broth then drop in a few hard tack. Would be just about the most disappointing 'chicken and dumplings' in the history of Southern humanity but I imagine it would be better than starving to death. While at UTK, I checked out a Native American cookbook from the library there. I think many of the recipes must have come from Native Americans after the Europeans came or else were 'adapted' for modern kitchens. One recipe I tried was acorn biscuits. Going by the recipe, I gathered fresh acorns and peeled them. The acorn 'nuts' were then boiled with enough changes of water until the tannins were removed and the water remained more or less clear. Then the 'nuts' were roasted in the oven on a very low heat. Once dry enough, I pounded them into what was basically an acorn meal (I wanted to really go 'old school' so I found a long, slender river rock, cleaned/washed it well and used it to 'grind' the acorns by hand.) The recipe called for adding the acorn meal to all purpose flour then adding baking powder, etc. and more or less making a normal biscuit. They actually smelled great while cooking but unfortunately my baking powder must have been old because they really didn't rise and came out more or less like hard tack. What little I could eat of them actually tasted pretty good. I was so annoyed with the failure that I haven't tried it again, yet (that was almost twenty years ago) but there is a good chance that I will, one of these days. I'll make sure to use good baking powder next time, though. The point is that you could probably grind dried nuts or even dried acorns (if you want to go through the process to remove the tannins, etc.) into a meal to add flavor to plain, old hard tack. I don't see why you couldn't add a little garlic powder, onion powder or other dried/powdered herbs and spices as long as they were things that would not hurt the 'shelf stability' of the hard tack. I also just thought of this - I sometimes make a quick bread that is called 'beer bread'. It uses self-rising flour (so that is where the leavening comes from) and uses a beer for the liquid - three cups of flour, a teaspoon (iirc - I don't think it is a tablespoon) each of sugar and salt and one, twelve ounce beer. The beer, while it probably doesn't do much in the way of leavening (maybe a little) still gives it a 'yeasty' flavor. I wonder if beer could be substituted for the water in standard hard tack to create a hard tack with a bit of a yeast flavor. I also wonder if the carbonation would leaven the bread a little and if all that would hurt the shelf stability. Aside: Some friends and I rented a cabin in the mountains together once. I was going to make beer bread but once I started I realized that all we had was all purpose flour and there was no baking powder, etc. I thought about it and it came to me that Alka-Seltzer is largely sodium bicarbonate (baking soda.) Well, as consuming alcoholic libations was a big part of the agenda for the weekend, I had brought a big box of Alka-Seltzer along. The outcome? Yes, you can make quick bread (beer bread, at least) with plain flour and leaven it with crushed up Alka-Seltzer. The bread turned out just like it does when I use self rising flour.

Nope. I carried a SAK for a long time while in college and after (yes, I was a fan of the show 'MacGyver') but at some point switched to a multitool (my favorites are the Gerber styles where the pliers slide in and out - I like them for fishing and often use the pliers to get hooks out of fishes mouths and trying to open a flip-open style with one hand while holding a fish in the other is a PITA. I liked carrying the Gerber but then I started carrying a handgun. When I carry in a belt holster, that is just too much crap hanging on my belt. I also haven't gotten to fish as much, lately, so I went back to carrying a SAK. I do sometimes miss the pliers, though. Right now I just carry a basic Tinker model but wouldn't mind having one of the 'Forester One Hand' models eventually. In fact, I may have to make a little trip up to Smoky Mountain Knife Works soon to see if I can find one. That might fit the bill for what the OP is wanting, too, except it doesn't have a pocket clip from what I can tell: http://www.swissknif...victorinox-grip