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6) Heed the Weather
Weather in the mountains can change hourly, and hunting in any dense timber can be challenging because you can’t see rough weather coming. In both cases, at the first sign of precipitation, react positively. If you carry a rain shell, put it on. If you don’t have one, find a thick evergreen and sit under the boughs or throw up a quick shelter. Because weather is unpredictable, you must provide shelter as soon as possible when you are in survival mode, regardless of the current conditions. In addition to protecting you from the elements, shelter ensures mental and physical comfort.

7) Drink, Drink, and Drink
Dehydration, which can occur in warm or cold weather, leads to fatigue, headache, nausea, and poor decision-making. I generally carry two quarts of water all the time, but I also carry a water filter that will make any water source potable. Water treatment, like the MSR MIOX or Katadyn Micropur tablets, will also give you a lot of options (www.cabelas.com). Drinking six to eight quarts of liquid a day is optimum. Warm days involving strenuous activity will require you to drink at the high end, while days of sedentary activity might require less.

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8 ) Stifle Your Ego
Especially for guys, this might be the hardest part of it all. No one likes to admit to being lost (call it what you want) or hurt. However, wandering around without knowing where you are or where you are going will only get you more lost. And trying to push through an injury only gets you more hurt. When things aren’t right, stop, come to grips with the situation, and take care of your needs. Also, never push yourself into unsafe situations, such as scaling cliffs in the dark or trying to carry too-heavy loads in steep terrain. These could create totally avoidable emergency situations.

9) Build a Fire
Practice is important for developing skills and testing your equipment. A cold, wet night in the wilderness is a bad time to discover the shortcomings of any firestarting items. Always adhere to the basics: Gather more fuel than you think you will need, scrape the site to bare soil, use a platform to buffer your tinder from the earth, divide your fuel from smallest to largest, use a brace next to your tinder, start with the tiniest pieces of fuel, and add them by the loose handful. Let the flames eat up through the fuel, and keep adding larger sizes.

10) Signal Rescuers
From experience on both ends of the Search and Rescue spectrum, I have learned that a whistle is the best signal method. Don’t let “spooking game” separate you from hunting partners. Use your whistle. It is much louder and carries better than your voice. A signal mirror can send bright flashes miles to search aircraft or ground parties. For more adventuresome trips into the bush, carry a strobe light or a personal locator beacon (www.acrelectronics.com). Finally, you can construct ground-to-air signals out of any highly contrasting material (even branches in snow or overturned dirt in a meadow). Such signals should have straight lines and sharp angles to stand out best.

Source: BowHunter.com

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