*The wally-world light belt kit*
Thought I'd do a quick write up of a little kit I put together a while back. It has worked well on web gear with multi tools instead in place of folding knives also. This particular kit is basicly one I carry a lot hiking hunting fishing ect. It can go nicely with a daypack sized light pack/kit you may keep in your vehicle or have configured for a one day trip and it's activities...affording you the gear for the day and enough support gear that if you had to you could pull an overnighter or more and get where you needed to...but I'll digress on that subject as I guess maybe there is another article in the making...though you can see several peoples light bags in the equipment section here as well I believe.
Basicly what happened was one day I was out squirrel hunting and the sun was going down...I usually have a few things on me or in my jacket such as a Kershaw Ken Onion safe-action folder a LED micro light on my keychain and some form of lighter. In my jacket I also have a lighter usually a camo bandana and one of those whistle cheap compass thermometer magnifing glass doo-hickeys (industry name for it I'm sure) and a garbage bag or 2. Anyway through some odd course of events one day I realized I had left my knife in the car hadn't clipped my Kershaw in my pocket as usual either...so there I am "Mr. survival guy" with no knife and I realized the lighter was gone from my jacket pocket because I had not replaced it after I washed my gortex coat a few days before. Now I had taken a detour into an area I didn't know well...the sun was going down. I had a LED microlight and a .22 rifle with a pocket full of loose rounds and no way to light a fire (though I'm sure with the .22 I could have started one one way or the other) Now the car was only a mile away or so and I knew which general direction but it would have not been a nice time to twist an ankle and have to spend the night. I vowed never to find myself in this situation again. On a longer trip I would have had a light bag but I was just walking around a area I did know well for a quick afternoon hunt when I decided to try a new valley out. What I needed was 1) to make sure my coat pocket and "always on me" gear was never NOT on me again. and 2) something redundant to make sure on these little trips be it hunting hiking or fishing I always have the basics with me even if I have nothing else.
Those are foam earplugs in case you were wondering...they squish down and can be used for bobbers as long as you don't have anything heavy on the line...otherwise you'll need a few...
I wanted this kit to be low profile for obvious reasons as well...so I ran to wally world later that week and picked up another one of these light/multi-tool pockets that go on your belt. They run around $12 and are fairly well made. I took a sharpy and blacked out the label...you may have to repeat this a few times and refresh it once in a while. My choices were all pretty basic here: a Buck 110 folding hunter a mini-maglite (I will convert this to a LED light when I get around to it) A Gerber diamond rod sharpener (not my favorite means to put an edge on but it is fast and if you are in the middle of something that is all that you would need to get the edge back up to snuff)...that was painted flat black to match and be non reflective. there is a hidden pocket under the rear compartment as well...a good place to keep some spair cash and in this case a small sealed bag with half a dozen home brewed small game snares and some basic fishing gear. I have a rather large capacity butain lighter in the top pouch. The things I use most often are easy to get to...a knife a light and a lighter or the means to freshen up the edge on said knife are all easily retrieved one handed without removing the kit. I have since added a book of MRE matches to backup the lighter and a latex glove hidden in the open bottom pocket (cut a finger at a time off and they burn well enough even wet to start a fire easily) Anyway I know I'm far from the first one to decide these little pockets are great for web gear and kits but if you hadn't noticed them check em out over by the flashlights. I'm sure you can come up with a kit customized for yourself that is pretty slick...I just wanted a few basic items with me when I'm out "playing" ;) Hope that gives you some ideas to go from.
JonBot007
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