Over my years of black bear hunting there is a consistent theme that wafts its way past my ears every now and then. On multiple occasions, after posting a successful bear hunting photo, folks have asked me, “Why did you shoot a bear? You can’t eat bear.” This leaves me puzzled every time I hear it. Their surprise after I tell them I eat bear a few times a week never gets old though. So, with this piece, I want to lay that question to rest.
While out and about the other day, I had a small conversation in passing with a young woman. She told me, quite impatiently, that all she wanted was to be married with children and have a house already. I couldn’t help but be struck by this, because of how young she was. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not one to judge. If you know what you want, than you know what you want. I met my wife when I was 17 years old and never looked back. Now, I am 31 and have never regretted one moment the commitment we made to each other so long ago. We just knew.
As I’ve gone down the road of this blog, one of the things that I’ve gotten asked the most is “what are you bringing on your backpack hunts?” In light of that, I have decided to post up my current backcountry gear list for 2017. My gear list is forever growing and shrinking, but hopefully you can get the gist of what is usually in my backpack. This list is going to be for an archery hunt in the early fall. If it were later in the year, I would just be bringing some extra layers along. I am by no means an ounce junkie, so I can’t tell you the EXACT weight of my pack and all of the contents in it. For most hunts, I am sitting in the 35 pound range though, depending on how much water I am packing in. That number will increase with the amount of days I am planning to be out, simply because of food. Each one of my food bags is in the realm of 2 pounds per day containing about 2500-3000 calories in each one. Besides food and water, everything else pretty much stays the same. If you have any questions, feel free to ask below in the comments.
I don’t know about you, but whenever I miss an animal and lose an arrow, I start hoping I don’t run out of arrows. I know that might sound hilarious, but it’s the truth for me. Probably just a mental thing really. This is especially true when I am backpacked into an area and have only the arrows that are in my quiver. Like a lot of folks, I have been carrying a 5 arrow quiver for quite some time and as of a few years ago, that quiver has always been a TightSpot. I loved the idea of the quiver being so much more closer to the riser, which would make it a lot easier to lay my bow in my lap while crab crawling my way down to a bedded mule deer. Just this past December, I was able to do just that and brought home my first archery buck. It was a day to remember for sure.
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life.” This quote encompasses the very gift that comes from the struggle one may experience when learning how to hunt. It mentions fish, but I think this translates quite nicely into hunting, as well as into everyday life. While the natural instinct to hunt might swim through our DNA, we are not born knowing all things hunting. What many of us are born with though, is the desire to learn how to hunt, along with feasting on our harvest when the hunt comes to a close. Whether we choose to act on those desires is another story entirely.
It seems that every backpack hunt or backpacking trip I go on, I am trying to figure out how to lighten the weight of my pack. There was a time when I would bring things just to bring them, and quite honestly, I probably still do it some. Over the years though, I’ve gotten more comfortable and in tune with my gear to really start realizing what I need and what I don’t need. I quiver when I hear guys carrying 70-80 pounds of gear into the backcountry. If you want to do that, that is totally fine, but I just don’t, especially when I am planning on hauling out loads of fresh meat. Now, I am by no means a backcountry minimalist and for sure enjoy some creature comforts. Here are some things though that I have learned and ways that I have been able to cut down the weight of my pack.
I am sure we have all heard about the threats facing our beloved public lands. These are the places you and I have been making precious memories for years. That first time you heard a bull bugling during the month of September and how it sent shivers down your spine. How you watched a black bear meticulously pick acorns off of a tree or bush. The first time you watched an arrow sail into the vitals of your quarry. These are just examples of some of the things that you might have witnessed while out and about on public land. If we didn’t have public lands or access to them, I seriously question if I would even be telling you this.
My first year ever really hitting this hunting thing hard was about 4 years ago. Of all things that I could hunt, I chose to chase black bears here in Arizona. One of the primary general seasons here lands right in the middle of August. For people in Arizona, that means 2 things. It’s deathly hot out and it’s monsoon season. Yes, it does in fact rain here, unlike what most people think. We aren’t all sand and cacti. This posed a potential problem for me on my hunt. My problem being, I could get rained out. I know. What a wimp right? I was a noob, what can I say!?
If I had a dollar for every time that I vented to my wife about how I didn’t know what weapon I wanted to use on a certain hunt, I’d have a lot of dollars. For some reason, I get into these modes where my indecisiveness takes over and trying to get myself to agree on using either a rifle or a bow is like pulling teeth. I have these internal struggles, because of 2 things. The first is, at heart, I am no doubt a bowhunter. The thrill of trying to get close to an unaware animal and having to deal with the adrenaline dump that comes with trying to execute your shot, is something that one can only know if they’ve done it before.
If you’ve spent any great deal of time looking into new gear for your backpack hunting endeavors, I’d be hard pressed if you didn’t cringe a little bit every now and again at the prices of some of these items. I know I used to do it a ton, when I was first looking into this stuff. Why in the world would someone spend $500 on a sleeping bag?! That’s more than my truck payment! $800 on a tent? “NO FRIGGIN WAY,” I’d tell myself. The fact of the matter is though, if you want to be an ultralight backpack hunter and have good reliable gear, you are eventually gonna pony up the dough here and there on certain items. The more we get into something, the more we care about the gear that goes along with said something. When I started, anything was “good enough.” Now, that I’ve had more experience, I care a lot more about the functionality of my gear, because of previous gear failures as well as knowing what I need out of that gear. I don’t want to be 5 miles + into a wilderness, only to realize that my tent broke or that my rain gear isn’t quite as “waterproof” as it was advertised to be. With that being said, I think that there are some areas where you can definitely avoid the huge price tags and still have an enjoyable experience, especially if you’re new to all of this.
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