The term “OTC Tags” is one that is growing more popular everyday in the hunting community. For those of you that don’t know what that stands for, it means “over the counter.” It is getting increasingly harder to draw tags through lottery systems. I don’t think it is going to start heading in the other direction anytime soon. We spend a ton of money every year on bows, clothing, optics, you name it. Hours and hours are spent at the range shooting our rifles and sighting in our archery equipment. For a lot of folks, myself included, it is disheartening when you invest so much time and money into something, only to be told you can’t go hunting this season. Not going hunting is just not an option on the table in my house. This is why I focus most of my attention on OTC tags.
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.
“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.
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.
Last September I decided to do something that I had been dreaming about for years, but never had the nerve to pull the trigger on. I went on my first out of state hunt for elk in the backcountry of Colorado. That might not seem like a big deal to a lot of you, but for me it was. It made me leave the comforts of my home state in Arizona and the hunting grounds that I’ve grown so familiar with. These are the spots that have helped me grow as a hunter. Within them, I’ve had more “firsts” than I can recall at this moment, which is probably why I’ve become so attached. They’ve also beaten me into the dirt more times than I can count. My decision to “fly the coop” was an intimidating one, but one that I don’t regret a single bit. Being a new elk hunter, on top of being new to backpack hunting, weighed heavily in the back of my mind. Would I even be able to find elk? Did I have what it takes to stay over a week in Colorado’s backcountry? After getting over the hullabaloo and actually making this hunt happen, I came away with way more than I thought. The accomplishment I felt once I got back to my truck, knowing that I just did what I did was incredible.
I have many fond memories of sitting around a campfire and sharing hunting stories with friends and family. Sharing these stories is one of the reasons I created the site you are on right now. Every time I would get back from a hunt, people that were close to me wanted to hear how everything panned out. It was as if I were a feature film and they were watching me, waiting to see what happened next. Funnily enough, I find myself doing the same thing when people are telling me about their hunts. Even if I already know they filled their tags, I am at the edge of my seat. The excitement or disappointment in their eyes hits me deep in my chest. I know these feelings well. This is the part of hunting I think that many fail to see. The part that only us hunters recognize and appreciate. It’s the road to success, or failure for that matter, we share with others the most. For therein lies the bulk of the journey.
Alright, so it’s been awhile since we’ve chatted about one of my favorite kinds of media to consume and that’s podcasts. I thought I’d put together a list of what I am looking forward to listening to in 2017. These aren’t in any particular order, so if a podcast is at the bottom of the list, that doesn’t mean that I like that show the least, it just means it’s at the bottom. Most of the podcasts I listen to focus on all things western hunting, so that is what you are going to see here. I will include two sections to this. Podcasts that have been constants in my library and then I will follow that with newer podcasts that I have just recently started listening to. Let’s go.
Anytime a new endeavor is taken on that has an ultimate goal to it, it oftentimes seems hard to imagine actually achieving that goal. At least it does for me. Things like buying a house for the first time. After my parents raised me and I spent so much time with them growing up, the thought of moving out and owning my own house seemed foreign to me. Life without Mom and Dad everyday? It was a foreign feeling, but one that would inevitably be thrown upon me. As with other things in life that might intimidate us, once we get passed them and achieve those unimaginable goals, we realize that it’s not that bad. Sometimes, I questioned why I would even let such things intimidate me to begin with.
Something that I looked forward to every year, when I was a kid, was when my dad and I would make our annual trip up to deer camp. The key word there is “up.” Our deer camp was located at 9800 ft. on top of a mountain. What a beautiful area. I didn’t even know that places like this existed in Arizona until I saw it with my own eyes. I am used to seeing mostly desert/high desert country. Where we were, straight looked like the photos that I would oogle over in my outdoor magazines at home. Even surrounded by all of that beauty, something always bothered me for the first day or so I was there. I’d have headaches and just feel downright drained of energy. I didn’t know, until recently, that I had been suffering from Altitude Sickness. Never before, did I give any thought on how I might remedy the issue. It was something that I just dealt with for the time being and then it would go away. That was until I heard of Wilderness Athlete’s Altitude Advantage. Let’s take a closer look at what Altitude Sickness is before we dive into this product.
If you’ve been following along with me for the past few years, then you know how much of a bear nut I am. Last year I wrote a story called Canyon Bruins, which took you along the epic journey that was my 2015 season. If you read that story then you know that is when I was able to harvest my first black bear. On that morning, we were able to see 9 bears in about an hour and a half, all within 300 yards of each other. Everything from the shot to the packout was nothing short of an adventure. It took me 3 years to find a good bear spot here in AZ, so you can imagine how excited I was to get back to that magical hell hole that these Canyon Bruins called home for the 2016 season.
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