for season 4, each entrant was given an extra 3 items, but they had to be a ferrorod, belt knife and synthetic sleeping bag. So the team really got 16 items, on top of the clothing and safety gear. Apparently, they are no longer just given the 20x20 tarp that seasons 1 and 2 were given. also for season 1 and 2, you had the option of a 2 gallon metal bear canister, but nobody had sense enough to take it. I commented enough about it on you tube that the producers removed it from the list! :-)

Assuming that season 5 goes back to the one person format, and sticks with not giving you the 20x20, I'd take the "optional" 12x12 tarp, the Cold steel shovel, a modified Crunch multi-tool, with a 9" Silky saw blade to be held in the visegrip, one of the 5 lb rations of food, (a mix of pemmican and gorp) the 8 treblehooks and 1 single hook with the 300 yds of fishline ( 25 regular hooks are allowed, a treble counts as 3 hooks) I'd take one of Chief Aj's slingbows and the 6 arrows, 4 of them having fishing heads, a paracord 2 person hammock, a paracord gillnet. I'd buy 2 synthetic sleeping bags, pop the stitches down one side and stuff the guts of the second one in with the first. I'd take the 5 qt skillet (Amazon) not the 2 qt pot, and I'd take a big roll of "heavy-duty" duct tape.

I'd sew and tape the gaiters, making them into dry bags, salt in one, and ashes, charred punkwood, and tinder in the other. I'd make the pants of the rainsuit serve a better purpose. One of the legs would form the water filter, one of them would store the filtered water. The sleeves of the jacket would be used to haul water. Unlike Fowler, I'd keep the shelter portable and i'd put it where the firewood is, rather than haul the wood 100m to the shelter! :-) To aitch with that noise!

The gillnet is proscribed as having 1.5" mesh (far too small) and being half the size that was allowed for earlier seasons. It used to be 25x6 ft, but now it's 15x5 ft. Still, that's nearly 1000 ft of paracord. A 2 person paracord hammock is 1500+ ft of paracord. Say you keep 200 ft of the cord as is, that leaves 2300 ft x the 7 inner strands, making 16,000 ft of such small cordage. 3" mesh requires just 8 ft of cordage to make 1 sq foot of netting, so you end up with 2000 ft of netting, say 6 ft wide x 100m long. If 25 fishhooks and 75 sq ft of gillnet are good to take (even tho the smaller mesh is nearly worthless) than 2000 sq ft is a lot better, and so is having the 32 extra fishhooks that can be made out of the 4-tined fishing arrowheads. In stead of averaging 3/4 lb of fish caught per day, (only half of it edible flesh and fish only offering 800 calories per lb ready to eat) the 2000 ft of 3" netting is highly likely to average catching 20 lbs of fish per day (or even a lot more, if you go at it right)

use the fishheads and guts to bait in a bear and arrow it from a tree blind, and make a means of juicing the kelp for carbs, and you'll have beaten the starvation issue, at least for 3-4 months.