Let me add a few thoughts. Your standing wood is generally going to be drier and is often less rotten (or as we used say, "punky.") There's often dry stuff at the base of a heavy old spruce and it can be a decent place to make fire if the situation calls for it. When I'm hunting slow, I keep an eye out for tinder. I also look for old healed scars on pines that might yield some good, dry pitch. I keep a little plastic bag full of pitch for special occasions. Sure, the vaseline cotton balls work well (in a little tin) and I have them, but I am a fiend for pitch. There's plenty in Montana where I hunt, less here in Maryland. Once a guy gets a little fire going, I use the best, dry wood to get her strong and then stack the wetter wood both to reflect heat and dry the wood. Sometimes you just have to keep a small fire putting along until you can get the bigger wood ready. It's easy to get impatient and try to build a bigger fire too fast. Sometimes a fire just needs time to sort itself out. As for a real squall, that's hard on making fire. I have had mixed luck with the poncho deal because sometimes the wind is just too much. What I will look for is a root wad or something else massive to form a windbreak and the basis for a hasty shelter. I think of fire as a little baby... and you don't want the baby sitting out in the rain and wind and cold. You want the baby all tucked in someplace quiet.
Hunting success is 90 percent hunter, 10 percent weapon.
