Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Tent hunting experience...Yay or Nay?

Tent camped with Cabelas dome, Northface domes, and wall tents for 50+ seasons. A Coleman lantern will warm up the smaller domes, and a small wood stove the wall tents. Never had any dampness issues (and it can flat out rain for days in Alsaka), but all of the domes had excellent rain flys installed and a form fitted plastic floor liner placed on the inside. Typically use the wall tents when outings are 7 to 14+ day events with two or more hunters/fishermen.

I prefer tent camping to the use of our 26 ft Winnebago Minnie travel trailer. The trailer's like living at home with all the attending chores and constant cleanup of the interior.

In this camp we sleep in the trailer solely because that's where the bed is. All of the waking hours, cooking, and entertaining of up to 6 or 7 visitors takes place in the wood stove - Coleman lantern - 3 burner propane equipped wall tent. If the trailer stays at home, we will take a dome tent for sleeping quarters. On pack in trips we'll sleep up to 4 in the wall tent, but gear has to be rolled/stowed for day use activities. We will cook on the wood stove on those trips.



We have kept the wall tent comfortable down to about -25° with plenty of room to hang gear that's gotten wet or damp. This setup gets about a month's worth of use each fall from mid Oct to near mid Nov. We tarp the wall tent if there's potential for significant snow. Heavy accumulations will not slide off canvas and can collapse an unattended camp. The addition of the plastic tarp lets the snow slip.

A buddy has one of the Alaknak tents, and we typically use it solely for sleeping. My wall tent will be off to the side for most of the daily camp functions. My sole criticism of the Alacknak is the integrated floor. One can't charge back in with wet, snow covered or muddy boots if he forgets some item. The wall tent (below images) has no floor, so spilled coffee, tossed peanut shells, dropped food, sawdust/bark from firewood, lawn chair/sleeping cot/or wood stove coasters are not needed, and muddy boots are non-issues. The wall tent also goes up and down a lot quicker with an internal frame.

The con to not having an integrated floor is that a raiding raccoon/skunk can slip beneath the edge of the wall tent and toss the place. Coons will climb everwhere/everything, tip over, and try every container/cooler.



Skunks are neat and quiet and pretty much confine their rummaging to what's on the ground.


Bear will ignore an open door, rip open a side for entry, and add another rip to the back as an exit.

Where shooting the little beasties in not allowed (like tended campgrounds), the edibles have to be stowed in critter proof tubs. Around most hunting camps, a 38 slug can rectify that issue if one can catch them on the way in.