Keith Warren's Outdoor & Camping Tips

Should I Put Water in My Ice Chest?

The short answer is yes. If you want to know how to keep ice longer in a cooler, I've got a little tip for you.

What I like to do is fill the ice chest cooler up full of nice, cool water before I even put ice in it. By doing so, it's going to chill down the entire large cooler. Keep this in mind: if the ice chest stays in the back of your truck, odds are it's going to be the temperature of the outside, and it can take a long time for the ice to cool that down. So, if you put cool water in about an hour before you put in the ice, it cools down the whole ice chest, and it will stay cold a lot longer when you put it in.

The cooler that you can get the inside of the ice chest before you put the ice in, the longer the ice is going to last.

How to Keep an Ice Chest Cold Longer

This tip will help you keep things cooler longer in any ice chest.

First off, block ice melts a whole lot slower than crushed ice. So what I wind up doing is making a big block of ice. How do I do this? I took my vacuum sealer and a vacuum seal bag, and I sealed one end of it. Then, I filled it full of water, and sealed the other end, giving it plenty of room for expansion. I put the bag of water in the freezer overnight, and voila, I have a big block of ice.

Now, like I said, block ice melts a lot slower than crushed ice does, so this will keep things a lot cooler for a lot longer. Plus, at the same time, if you run out of water, take out your pocket knife, cut a hole in the bag, and you've got nice, fresh water.

Gun Case Tips for a Hunting Trip

Gun cases. I often ask myself "Why would somebody skimp on a gun case?" They have a very expensive rifle, and they're putting it in a very inexpensive case. This doesn't make sense to me.

I want to talk to you about gun cases. You'll notice that inside of this case, I have a soft gun case. Many times, when you travel to different states or provinces, those states or provinces have laws that require you to always have your rifle in a TSA-approved gun case. And many times, when you're "in the bush," as they say, it's difficult to have it in a gun case, like a hard gun case. So, I always pack a soft-sided gun case with me, just to make sure it gets a little extra protection when I'm in the field.

How to Travel with a Rifle

Here are a couple of tips when putting your rifle in a gun case or traveling on an airplane, for that matter.

You'll notice the handle of the case is here, and I store the rifle in the case with the optics facing up. The reason why is because when the case is carried and dropped down, I sure don't want the pressure to go on top of my optics. Another thing, when traveling with a hard-sided gun case, I always make sure to protect my rifle in a soft-sided case, just in the event that I need to be able to have it to transport on a quad.

One last piece of advice: If you're traveling on an airline, I encourage you to check with the airline to see what their rules are, but most major airline carriers require a firearm to be locked up separately than your ammunition, and your ammo needs to be locked up as well.

How to Wash Hunting Clothes

Hunters get back from a trip, and their hunting clothes are dirty. They probably have blood on them. I want to talk to you about washing hunting clothes and getting them as clean as you can.

First off, pick a laundry detergent that has no UV brighteners. No UV brighteners: that's very, very important because it can impact your camo, allowing deer and other animals to see you when they couldn't before. For removing blood, a lot of people would think that you use hot or warm water to remove blood. I've always found it better to remove blood with cold water. For whatever reason, it seems that hot water actually sears in the stain. Cold water removes blood a whole lot better.

Now, let's talk about hunting camouflage. If you've had hunting camo for years and years, and you've washed them a hundred times, the camouflage starts to fade. What I wind up doing to keep the fading to a minimum is use the right soap and turn them inside out before washing. When you turn them inside out, they tend to fade less. Remember to wash them in cold water and use a good quality soap that has no UV brighteners.

What Is the Easiest Knife Sharpening Method?

You know, some knives are just really hard to sharpen, and other knives, once you get them sharp, it's hard to keep them sharp. Same with scissors. If you have a hard time sharpening knives, keeping the knives sharp in your kitchen, or sharpening your hunting knives, for that matter, and you want something simple, an easy way to kind of keep everything sharp, I'm going to show you this knife sharpener right here. It is so slick and easy, you won't believe it. It will take a dull knife, very quickly, and it will sharpen it up nicely.

Put your knife on a flat surface and hold it firm, like this. I've got the handle firm all the way down, so I know it's not going to slip. If it slips, it can cut you. Make sure you're holding the knife sharpener with your fingers inside the grip; that way, it protects you and your thumb on the back side. All you're going to do is come down here with the little groove, you're going to set it right there with the blade in it, and you're going to run it down with slight pressure on that blade. You can just feel it and hear it cut. Typically, on most knives, 3-4 passes will get the job done.

As far as scissors go, sharpening scissors has never been easier than using this tool right here. This tool has a little sharpening stone on the inside of it. Take your ordinary scissors, and you can do it two ways: You can take the scissors and insert them into the slot, or you can do it by pushing, like that. You want to keep slight pressure down while you're doing it. Phew, that's sharp! Or, you can actually do it by pulling. I prefer pushing. What I'll wind up doing is do it just like you're going to cut the stone on the inside. Put just enough pressure that it sharpens the scissors up nicely.

If you have a problem sharpening either a knife or scissors, this little sharpener right here will get the job done!