Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Do you carry a sidearm while hunting with your rifle?

Yes I always do. My Hillpeople gear chest pack is the most useful item I have purchased in the last 5 years. I always wear a backpack when away from the car in the backcountry. I can remove the pack w/out being separated from my Glock.


mike r

Well said man!

It depends.

If I'm going to be going back to home base at night, most times not.

If I'm camping, you bet. It crawls into the sleeping bag with me and we usually don't camp in one place two nights in a row.

I carry a rifle usually, only. Wife carries a 329PD or maybe a 10mm Glock this year.

I carry both if I'm by myself, just in case. But thats pretty rare.

I do strap on a pistol when cleaning game though, as I'm kind of out of pocket and such, and would at least like to feel better rather than trying to get back to the rifle and all.

All in all, I've generally thought, it better to pay attention than to carry extra guns. Buy you never know what might happen.

A pistol of some sort is in the tent all the time when in camp, as the rifle is there, but a bit not so handy in a tent.

I never have carried a sidearm hunting in Alaska.

I have a CPL so I carry a Kimber 45 ACP while hunting in MI for a couple of reasons.

JD338

there are areas that I've hunted here that I would not go again without a handgun along also, especially in bow season. Meth heads are some of the worst in teh bushes.....

Not like I can't handle em with the rifle, but with the bow... hmm...well one likley

Love the one you're with? What a novel idea. I like it, well, unless im hunting with a pal. But, i know what you mean. Many suffer through life without realiziing that valuable concept. Dead on, Ingwe.

Haven't in the past, don't expect to in the future.

It depends.

I've carried a K-22 when I was in grouse country, other than that I rely on my rifle!

The only time I pack my pistol is either when I'm bow hunting, hiking, ATVing, or fishing.

I hunt with ,bow or long gun or pistol, only one at a time.... the pistol is in the boat on the wheeler or in the truck tho ...cause she's like a good dog and wants to go with me

Only time I have a handgun, is when I have my pack-frame on. Oh yeah, don't forget the bear spray.

I usually am carrying a handgun when not hunting but I hunt on foot and don't need any extra weight and see no need for a hangun when carrying a rifle. If you can't kill it with a rifle than it's doubtful you can kill it with a handgun.

Phil,
What do you think about hanging moose meat in camp?

Not Phil, but the advise from a lot of people is not to do it. However, my hunting friends and I have done it a few times without any bear problems. Also, we have done such only if returning to the campsite late at night to sleep for a few hours before we ride the trail out to the trucks that are parked around 8 miles away.

We never leave a moose we have shot in the evening out there; just work on it and take all the edible meat and antlers away from the kill site. Since our campsite is the closest place to take a break, that's where we take the meat to. But if we kill a moose earlier in the day, we take the meat to the trucks, and have one of us take it home and hang it.

Absolutely YES -Always carry a side arm.

When I put down moose and caribou, spine shots, they still wiggle. I put a finishing shot in the neck with the rifle.

The side arm is essentially superfluous in most cases except bears.

None the less I AlWAYS carry because I like it. Doesn't matter if it is superfluous, innocuous, trivial, un-needed, foolish ad infinite.

I sleep with my .38 S&W fully loaded in my night stand every night and have for decades.

I never pack a sidearm and rifle together.

It depends on what you mean by "in camp" as we hunt moose in one of the densest populations of brown bears in the world. If we don't remove the meat from the kill immediately it is claimed by bears. We have had as many as four separate bears watching as we butcher and it is not uncommon to have to chase down a bear to recapture a lost quarter.
But in our main camp we have a meat shed with screen wire covered my Marston Matting and surrounded by an electric fence where we like to hang the meat for at least a week. It makes the meat a lot more tender.