Using a Compass to take a Visual Bearing

Description

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Tags: Dave Canterbury,Survival,Bushcraft,Archery,Pathfinder

Video Transcription

afternoon guys Dave Canterbury the Pathfinder school doc out here with another video in our navigation series now what I want to talk about today is we're going to talk about setting up a bearing in our compass and following that bearing but first we're going to talk about visual bearings or bearings without a map so we're assuming at this point that we do not have a map we've walked out into a wilderness area like this and we have not brought a map with us and we've gotten lost so what's the reason for carrying them compass if we don't have a map well here's the thing you know nobody can walk in a straight line unless they can see the object if they're walking to you're going to experience lateral drift and it's going to be left or right of an intended target in other words if I can see a tree in front of me I can walk straight to that tree my eyes will focus in and let me walk to that tree if I go down into a holler or down into a ravine and I lose sight of that tree when I come back up the other side I'm not going to be walking straight toward that tree anymore

I'll either be left of that tree or right of that tree now that's not a big deal if you're only walking 150 or 200 yards but if you're walking two or three miles it becomes a major difference it can cause you to actually walk in a circle over time that's why a lot of times you hear people walking in circles when they get lost they are experiencing a lateral drift over great distance so for sake of this demonstration let's just say that we know our cardinal directions without the compass for the most part because we know that the Sun rises in the east and sets in the west we know by looking at the trees that the majority the foliage is going to grow on the southeast side of the tree all of those types of things that we've talked about in other videos so we know that this direction is a general easterly direction behind me and north is over here South being over here West being this way we've walked out at this will descend we've gotten lost but we know in our mind that somewhere east of us there is a major highway it might be two miles or three miles away but we know there's a major highway that runs that runs north-south that is directly east of our Kayson right now so the best thing for us to do is take our compass and plug in an easterly bearing and follow it but what we can do is we can pick an object off in the distance something that we can see far off and hope that it's between us and that object to give us a good bearing now if I open my compass up and I just let it rest naturally it's telling me that east it's pretty much straight in this direction what I could do is I could just face my body to the east rotate my bezel ring until the needle was in the doghouse as they say or the north portion of my bezel ring was over the top of my needle where it rested north because it's magnetic I could turn that dial until it rested on the North arrow or over the North arrow and then I could just start walking keeping the needle in the doghouse and I would walk a straight line as long as I keep looking at my compass or I could leapfrog which means I could take a bearing on something that was in the same bearing line as my intended target and walk to that object close my compass because I can see that object walk it out object take the bearing again line something up this in that exact bearing line and do it again and again and again until I get to my intended target or overshoot my intended target in this case we're talking about over shooting on purpose hoping that we're going to bisect with this major highway so what we're going to do is we're going to pick a spot in the distance and we're going to set up a visual bearing we're not going to pay attention whether it's exactly east or not for this demonstration I just want to show you how to set up a visual long distance bearing in your compass so that you can follow that bearing so stay with me guys okay for this demonstration I don't know how well you can see it on camera but looking straight off in an easterly type direction there is kind of a saddle in the treeline right there and hoping that our highway is between here and there because that's probably three miles away maybe further we're on the highest point around right now and that's important when they're trying to set up a visual barrier to get to your highest elevation point so I'm going to use that saddle as my go-to and hope that between here and there if I follow that easterly direction I'm going to cross or intersect with that road where I can hitchhike a ride to where my vehicle is so I'm going to back off of this for a minute and then I'm going to set the camera up so you can see what I'm doing okay the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to drop my compass down in front of me here for a minute so that you guys can look at my compass this is not the way I would set my bearing as far as aiming at the object because right now I'm just standing with the compass out in front of me and I'm looking in the general direction that that object is in that's not the proper way to take a bearing what I want to show you now is how to set your compass to the bearing and then I'll show you how to aim the compass let's look at this compass real quick while we have it close up we have an arrow in this K and our compass that's right here in the sighting window that is going to be what we're going to use to aim at our object that gives us a very small aim point on our object and you can see it's right there below the mirror we can then fold our mirror over and use that as our aiming point just like this you can see that's sticking up right back here in the back and at that point we will be able to see our bezel ring in the mirror and we can turn our bezel ring to set our bearing and the way we're going to do that is we will aim at the object and we will move the bezel ring like this until the North arrow I got to keep my compass level and try to look at the camera at the same time guys I apologize until the North arrow is in what's called the doghouse and once I have that in there this direction forward of my compass is my bearing when I walk as long as I keep that needle in the doghouse I'm going in a straight line I can shoot and look at this and see if there's something closer to me in that same exact line and walk to that object and close my compass then open it again and do the same thing and that's called leap frogging we talked about that a minute ago but this is what it's going to look like when you set that bearing now I'm gonna try to kind of give you an over-the-shoulder look at doing it so that you can see it from a distance and see what it looks like okay so I'm looking at my saddle I'm gonna keep the compass and figure out which side of the camera is best to get on to do this I'm going to keep the compass in the center of my body I'm gonna raise it up and I'm going to aim at that saddle with my pointer I'm gonna look in my mirror and I'm going to turn my Buzzle ring as I do that as I'm aiming I'm moving my bezel ring until that needle is resting in the doghouse

I'm gonna double check myself a couple times at that point I've got my bearing set I can open my compass up stand up just take a quick visual just to make sure it looks like it's right then I can start walking now if I wanted to find something that was in the same line I would go up and take my so that I could leapfrog I would go up and take my bearing and then I would drop my compass down and look at something off in the distance a tree or something like that that was in the same line and I can pick a tree out of that tree line through there and I can walk to that tree and I can start again at that point I can pick which tree it is make sure it's in the same line that my needles still in the dog house and say okay yep that trees in a straight line with me close my compass put it in my pocket and hightail it for that tree when I get there same thing again open my compass get something in the same line of sight as that bearing close my compass walk to that that's called leap frogging okay guys so that's the way you plug a visual bearing into your compass so that you can walk a straight line a long distance I hope I didn't confuse anybody I tried to get the camera over my shoulder so you can see it a little bit and then we shot a close-up video of the compass to see that as well this is the safest way to travel if you're going to have to travel a long distance and you know about where you're going even if you don't have a map you can at least travel in a straight line as long as you have your compass I'm Dave Canterbury at the Pathfinder school I appreciate everything you do for me for my school for my family my business my associates and my sponsors and I'll be back with another video as soon as I can thanks guys

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