Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Bear Grylls man vs wild Copper Cyn eats trout

Getting back to the topic of Bear Grylls and fish, here's a commercial he did showing a technique of catching fish that might save someone's life when they're starving in the wilderness.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BBzpLEjAr8&feature=related

Evidently Grylls never took a survival course taught by a competent expert. Trout, and most freshwater fish, have few calories, and unless one is able to catch a bunch, one expends more calories catching them than by consuming a fish or two. The same with rabbits, which are very lean. When a person is lost in the U.S., he shouldn't waste time searching for food. Water is a different matter, and one should find a good water source and not wander too far from it.

Most game is lean, and the challenge for the early fur trappers was to consume sufficient calories. They would start their trips with hundred pound packs filled with lard, sugar and flour. BTW, even deer are not a good source of food. There are cases of early explorer who had to survive on deer after they exhausted their provisions and eventually starved.

Grylls does offer some good advice now and then, and he is entertaining. When he was in the Kenyan desert, he drank fluid from elephant dung, advice given by a South African guide. Choking, he said it was the worst thing he ever tasted. I laughed for five minutes.

I can't watch Bear's show either. I am sick of him doing the same thing ever show: drinking his own urine, eating bugs/lizards, stripping down to his skivvies, etc. His show on hiking in the Sierras was insane, especially when he attempted to "tame" a "wild" horse he casually encountered (ah hem), while on the trail. I notice the show now has a disclaimer up front, admitting that almost everything on the show is blatantly staged.

However, I strongly dissent that he has zero credibility. He has summited Everest, this alone suggests he is not a mountaineering flake.

I met him last year when he was on a speaking engagement in Washington. I found him to be very approachable, a lovely guy and very, very fit in person. He talked about the exercise regimen does and it was impressive. He's got a lot of charisma. My only complaint is that he's got 3 very young kids at home in Britain and he admitted he sees them rarely because of his self-induced mania for adventures.