I’ve watched him and his wife on their survival show. He’s pretty well versed in survival skills and I don’t remember him ever being overconfident; if anything he was very cautious.
It would be interesting to see him on Naked and Afraid. I have to say that show and everything I’ve read about it is pretty much ultimate survival other than having a link for emergencies and the ability to opt out.
The LA swamp episode last year was brutal for the two participants and this year one player opted out before even starting when he saw the Amazon environment. The two who finally started the 21 days then opted out after 4 days and they brought in two people from the previous season who were able to make it, barely. The limp-wimps on Survivor wouldn’t survive one day on this show because the participants have only two tools, a bag, a crude map and nothing else in very harsh conditions.
Interesting thing on the swamp ep last year was that the clearly didn’t pick the camp spot producers intended. Their first was this horrible mucky lowland that had just enough dirt to be technically not in the swamp. They put up with that for a long time before they finally decided wandering the swamp without a camp would be better than their camp. Then in a few hours they found actual dryish land that’s clearly where producers thought they were going to go, and things got much easier. There’s a lesson there in picking your spots, the ep would have been almost drama free if they’d hit that second camp site the first day.
After watching the NAA show where the people are almost bitten to death by mozzies in the Amazon, I wondered how do the Indians of the Amazon put up with the bugs. I’ve read similar stories about mozzies driving the members of the Lewis and Clark expedition crazy.