Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Wall Tent Info

Hope everyone is having a good hunting season. I would like to get your thoughts on using a wall tent vs. a camper for hunting.

3 of us just got back from a 1st season elk hunt in Colorado (no elk but a good time). We camped at the trailhead in a small popup camper and rode in each day for the hunt. The popup worked pretty well for the most part but with 3 guys and all our gear and boots it got really cramped. I am kicking around the idea of selling the popup and buying a 12�x16� wall tent but I have a couple of concerns.

First of all is cold weather. This last hunt it only got down to 25 at night and we used a propane heater with carbon monoxide detector and plenty of ventilation and it was plenty warm but how would a wall tent work with temps down to -10 and the same type of heater?

The other issue is warm weather. How would a wall tent work for an early season pronghorn hunt? Would it be too hot?

Lastly, is 12�x16� plenty big for 4 people? Is bigger better or just added weight?
Also, do you recommend the aluminum frames or just cutting posts to use? What about a floor?
Any other suggestions or ideas would be appreciated.

Bigger is better if you have enough room between trees and rock to set it up and if you don't have to carry it farther than to roll it out of a pickup. Other than that, it's plenty big enough for 4.

You didn't say how big of a propane heater.

Whether you need a floor depends on conditions. If you shovel the snow off of frozen ground, you don't need one...until you fire up the heater and the ground melts. Then you're ankle deep in mud for the rest of the hunt. I know this for a fact. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> If the ground is dry when you set up, a floor is a luxury but you don't need it. If it's wet, well, don't invite me.

Dick

We use a 12x16, and by the time you have the "kitchen" set up, the wood burning stove, your gear(you could leave it in the pickup) it gets pretty cramped for 3 guys. A 12x16 with a 6' add-on would greatly help alieve the clutter, and 4 guys could then easily fit.
As to the cold, buy a good(effiecient) wood burning stove and you will be plenty warm. They do get warm in the warmer weather, but just open the flap and let em' breath.
As for the floor, we use a cheap piece of astroturf and it works better than you'd think. It keeps the dust down when it's warm and the muck/water out when it's not. Take a bail of straw and put it down on the muck and lay the astroturf on the top.
This has worked well for us.
--Mike

That size tent will be a bit crammed, but not as bad as the pop up. With a woodstove made from a barrel or even some of the commercial ones you can get it way to hot , bad part of the woodstove , they go out late at night.
I don't think floors in tents are all that good , there's always to much mud , dirt , and crud falling off of boots. Keep an indoor outdoor carpet or small canvas tarp beside the bed so you got something besides grass and pineneedles to stand on every morning.
Worst part of tents in antelope weather is the wind. Having a ridgepole snap in the middle of the night can really put a damper on having a fun camp.
When/if you get your tent it'ld be best to go with 5ft side walls, so a person has a bit more room to stand up.

My hunting buddies and I have gone from a 16x18 for 4 of us, which we found to be very tight when you get everything into the tent, up to a 16x42 for 7 of us. The tent is actually 2 tents placed together with the front tent being the "cook" tent. First of all, the tent is absoluty huge, it takes 4 of us about 6 hours to get the whole thing set up. However it is nice to have a seperate area to cook, and eat. We use 2 tripple burner heaters atop 100lb bottles of propane for heat at night in the sleeping tent, and the woodstove in the cook tent to heat it. When the woodstove it burning, it is very easy to heat us out of the tents even during the coldest 3rd season hunts.

As far as floors, the others are correct, it is nice to have if the ground is wet, but otherwise not necessary.

For the past 35 years using A-wall tents, I've never worried about a wood burning tent stove going out at night. I have a very good sleeping bag, as do my hunting buds so we stay warm no matter the weather.

What we do is have a schedule of taking turns for each person to get up and light a small fire in the wood stove before we get dressed. Different person each morning.

Because it's usually very cold at 4:30/5:00 AM, that person has a propane heater beside his bed he can light immediately so he can build the fire without freezing. Then after a few minutes as the tent warms, we get up.

As we're going out hunting, we do not fix large breakfasts, so do not need a long burning fire in order to hang around camp. Heating coffee, water for oatmeal, etc., we have three burner propane stoves anyway.

If you're gonna have four hunters in one tent with all your stuff, plus having a decent area with tables set up for cooking, drying clothes, relaxing, etc., I'd damned sure not go with a tent smaller than 16 x20 x 5 sidewalls!

For many years, I used a 14 x 16 x 5 A-wall, set up for cooking, tables, etc., plus a good good stove. My cot was in that tent, also. My three hunting buddies had a 12 x 14 x 5 tent with a wood stove, their cots, plus a couple of folding chairs, small folding table, and their stuff. Worked out fine for us.

A number of years ago we bought the steel angles for the tents from a tent maker in Twin Falls, Idaho, , using 1 1/4" electric conduit cut to fit for the internal frame. Can't beat it!!

Suggestion. As long as you have the popup camper already, you might keep it and buy a 14 x 16 x 5 A-wall tent, wood burning stove, etc., and use them both. You'll be more comfortable than everyone trying to pile into one tent, banging into each other, in each other's way, stumbling into someone's cot when you have to relieve yourself at 2:00 AM, going to bed at different times, and especially, crowding the cook, etc.

Just my suggestion.

L.W.

For a floor we take a bunch of sheets of 1/4 plywood (usually G1S spruce or fir. Whatever is cheap) that we lay down. We put little blocks underneath all the corners and screw the sheets into those so they don't move around and things are fairly level. It works pretty good. The sheets fit in the bottom of the standard p/u box and don't take up a lot of room. The only disadvantage is that you have to unload everything before you can get your floor out and set up. If a guy stood them up in the truck it might work better.

BTW, we had 6 guys in a 14x16 wall tent one year. The only way it worked was because we had bunk beds which saves a lot of floor space.

SS

16 x 20 wall tent with 5 ft walls. Any wood burning stove will keep it warm. I have both a Simms fold up stove and one of the old military small barrel stoves As the ash builds up,the fire last longer,but with a good bag it does't matter. In the AM , usually with 2 lanterns and a coleman stove going, it gets warm enough that you usually don't need the fire. If you do, the wood fire will warm it up quick. There will be days that you can't go out and hunt, and having a wood fire and enough room is a great attribute, to say nothing about having the roomto dry things out when needed. For years I have used nothing but a poly tarp as the floor and they work great, as well as a poly top for a top fly. I prefer the stove jack in the end wall so as not to weaken the roof, but it probably doesn't really matter.
You can even get a propane heater from Northern Tool for about 100 bucks and hook a 100 lb tank up to it.
I am selling mine right now as there are not enough guys left in my hunting party to need it. One year it was so bad snow wise that I had to bring two mules into the tent too.

My crew is usually 6-8 hunters, we have 2 15 x 15 wall tents, one kitchen, one bedroom. Wood stove in both tents. We also run a ridge pole between them & string about a 12 to 15 ft. tarp between to store all our junk in.

looks like everyone has about the same answers here but I will add mine.



1. 3 guys 12x16 tent (will be OK depending on gear etc can get a little cramped. four 4 guys I use two 12X14 tents one for cooking eating with table and chairs. the other for sleeping and geer.

2. Cold weather (not a problem tarp on the top for added insulation and will help snow fall add a wood stove and you will be in your long johns) also have propane heat like lonewolf said.

3. poles? I have a montana frame kit for one of the tents can be set up by one person a lot easier than poles. the other one I cut poles for. Depends on how much you want to haul and if you ever think you will be setting up alone.

4. Floor? I have had tarps, carpet, canvas floor liner. And have come to the conclusion that the ground is better than all. Once you get the tent up (even in 2ft of snow) you crank up the wood burner and the propane and in and hour or two the ground is like summer. The grass even starts to grow before we pack up. the ground soaks up moisture from snow or spills and dries a lot quicker. The others just seem to get muddy I find it cleaner for that reason.

And you can get them a lot closer to good hunting areas than you can a camper.

Guys, I just want to say thanks for all of the help. I have hunted around home (Kansas) all of my life but this elk hunting and camping thing is a whole new game for me!
Sounds like the 12x16 will be big enough for a sleeping tent. I will have to do some more thinking about a cooking area. I'm sure that the best solution is to have a second tent but I'm not sure if I can afford the expense of another full tent just for cooking so I may just have to use the stock trailer or maybe an awing for the cooking and just eat in the tent. This year we just had cereal for breakfast and snacks on the trail for lunch so we only cooked 1 meal per day. Just seeing those pictures of camp are already getting me in the mood for my next trip!!

Nothing like a good wall tent. I will be spending most of November in mine



regards
dan

here some inside pic's of a 12x16 set up for 2. I don't like floors so I put a old rug down.




you can due 3 real EZ but 4 is pushing it unless you put up a fly to cook in.

If you're camping by your trucks anyway, I'd still vote for a wall tent over that pop-up. We've put 6 in a 12 x 16, but it was cramped. We usually just have 2 or 3. I Second the notion of cooking outside. The tent we use has been 'customized' since purchase. The tent frame started with 3 ribs, front, middle, rear. My buddy punched 3 holes in the front of the tent to add another rib and we make a vestibule by stretching tarps over the tent roof plus out to the end of this extension. We then back a flatbed ATV trailer a few feet into this vestibule and have a near perfect cooking area. I wish I had pix to share, it's pretty slick.

Also a old tarp and old carpet or throw rugs for the floor. R2D2-style kerosene heaters that you don't have to fool with all night like wood. Just remember to fire them up and shut them down outside, that's when they'll smoke/stink for a few minutes.

And don't forget the trench around the tent for drainage...

SD