It is better to spend a night in the dark wood than getting yourself more confused when you are lost. And it always safe to know some survival tips when you are in that situation. There are many factors that could lead us to get lost in the wood even in the daytime. Reads more on how you could survive in those kinds of situations.

There are times when even the best of woodsmen are forced to spend a night in the wilderness. A man might travel so far into the woods, after a deer that it might be unsafe or impractical for him to try to find his way to the camp in the darkness. He might become lost as to direction, and prefer to camp out instead of risking the chance of becoming more confused by aimless traveling. If, for any reason, it is necessary to spend the night in the woods, knowledge of some of the fundamentals of woodcraft will aid in the comfort and even the survival of the lost person.

People seldom become lost on a day when the sun is shining, so the chances are that cold, wet or stormy weather has to be dealt with. If a person becomes lost early in the day, it is all right to travel (unless he finds that he is traveling in circles) with the hope of stumbling onto some tote-road, which could be followed to habitation. Otherwise it is best to try to make a camp somewhere in the vicinity and prepare to spend the night. Usually one night out is all that is necessary, unless the lost person is a lone hunter and no others know of his absence, or in the case of a continued storm of several days' duration. In any case the camp should be made as comfortable as possible.

Fire is the most important item in the camp. The hearth is the symbol of the home and nothing does more to make a man feel at ease in the woods than a good fire. Build it against a fallen tree or a dead stub so that there will be a back-log to hold the heat. Gather as large a supply of dry limbs and down-wood as possible, because an open fire can use a surprising amount of fuel in a night and it is no fun to hunt for it in the dark. Gather anything which might burn and which can be dragged. Long pieces can be burned into shorter lengths and damp wood may be dried enough to be burned after the fire has had a chance to get a good start. Sometimes it is hard to find enough dry wood which can be used for kindling the fire, but the dead branches on the lower part of the softwood trees are nearly always dry enough to start with. Any of these branches that will break with a snap are satisfactory. Some of the mosses which hang from fir and spruce branches may be used for tinder if there is no birch bark nearby.

Sometimes a man will be caught with no dry matches or other conventional means of starting a fire. In such cases it is possible to borrow a page from the days of the flint-lock, when the hunter would use his gun as a fire starter. This modern adaptation should not be used except in an emergency, but it is usually effective.

Remove the bullet from a cartridge and empty about half of the powder onto a dry piece of bark. Cover this powder with crumbled, dry punk which is found in decayed stumps or in the interior of dead trees, or stubs where woodpeckers have been working. Be sure to keep this dry. Fill the bullet-end of the partly loaded cartridge with cotton cloth, or, lacking cotton, any cloth of vegetable origin. Place the cartridge in the gun and shoot it in a direction that will permit recovery of the cloth. This cloth will be smoldering from the heat of the explosion. Place this smoldering cloth in contact with the punk and powder, using sticks to handle the burning cloth and being careful to keep the hands and face away from the flash fire which is almost sure to result. Powder will not actually explode in the open air, but will burn very rapidly with an intense heat which will ignite the punk, leaving a mound of glowing coals that can be utilized to start a blazing fire.

There is something that you should learn which could be useful when lost in the woods especially in the woods. These tips given above will help you in your fight to survive in the woods when you are lost in the deer hunting. You can starts practicing them now, if you have any plan to go deer hunting in the near future.