Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire What does being a BackPack Hunter mean to you?!

CH its great to hear from you again! I hope all.is well!! And thanks for your insight into what is generally perceived as a pretty stock standard activity for alot of kiwi hunters - that is to hunt and gather for food (on foot) and spend days awsy in NZs native bush and mountains. I think perhaps we (kiwis) sometimes take for granted just how common backpack hunting is and how it is second nature to many kiwi hunters! Hearing your perspective made me smile (and miss home!!). Best regards, Jamie

What does backpack hunting, and being a backpack hunter, mean to you???

I am 35 years old now but I started backpack hunting at 14 years old with my hunting mentor - named Stan Lowe. He was in his 60s at the time and was a forestry colleague of my father's. Stan Lowe showed me places in the remote and rugged NZ mountains that took such a firm grip on me that i gave up all competitive sports to focus on backpack hunting. I lived and breathed it. And every backpack hunt was hard graft; every animal killed ended up in the kicthen pot and then spoken of on a Sunday night roast dinner where i would reflect on my adventures and share them with my family who were not huntwrs; but appreciated the venison or wild pork.

My first solo backpack hunt was an overnight trip into the Kaimais of new zealand (North Island) and I was only 16 years old. But by the age of 17years i had finished school and left home - and spent every breathing moment looking at maps for the next backpack hunting location. And at the time, I would backpack hunt in pursuit of wild pigs, red deer or sika deer - species all of which were scattered throughout the state forests and national parks of my region.

At 18 i moved out of the local district to go to univeristy and onto bigger and better pastures. The Southern Alps of Nz. A backpack hunters paradise. Chamois, Tahr, Pigs, red deer, Wapiti (elk)... all became part of the staple diet.

Fast forward to today and i am blessed with a beautiful wife and two beautiful daughters 6 and 4years old. And while I love them all dearly - with a love that has no finite end - I also have this burning desire to leave them for weeks during the year to quench my other endless passion - backpack hunting.

How can i be so selfish to leave my young family, i sometimes ask myself? But the call of the wild is strong. And i need it to feel complete. I need my family but i also need the remote wilderness.

Backpack hunting has taken such a firm hold of me that it is hard for me to place in words.

What does being a backpack hunter mean to you?

I am now trying my hand at self-filming my backpack hunting expeditions in hope that film will convey what words alone cannot.

Here is a recent backpack hunting adventure for Sambar deer into the Victorian Alpine National Park of Australia. My hunting films are generally not short action packed films that tell the whole story in the time it takes to play a rock song... They are intended to simmer away at what it means to me to be a backpack hunter.

day 1  https://youtu.be/MiBy-_w2NSY

day 2  https://youtu.be/630uF7oKYCU

Best wishes from the Southern Hemishphere and God Bless

MountainMan

What does backpack hunting, and being a backpack hunter, mean to you???

I am 35 years old now but I started backpack hunting at 14 years old with my hunting mentor - named Stan Lowe. He was in his 60s at the time and was a forestry colleague of my father's. Stan Lowe showed me places in the remote and rugged NZ mountains that took such a firm grip on me tat i gave up all competitive sports to focus on backpack hunting. I lived and breathed it. And every backpack hunt was hard graft; every animal killed ended up in the kicthen pot and then spoken of on a Sunday night roast dinner where i would reflect on my adventures and share them with my family who were not huntwrs; but appreciated the venison or wild pork.

My first solo backpack hunt was an overnight trip into the Kaimais of new zealand (North Island) and I was only 16 years old. But by the age of 17years i had finished school and left home - and spent every breathing moment looking at maps for the next backpack hunting location. And at the time, I would backpack hunt in pursuit of wild pigs, red deer or sika deer - species all of which were scattered throughout the state forests and national parks of my region.

At 18 i moved out of the local district to go to univeristy and onto bigger and better pastures. The Southern Alps of Nz. A backpack hunters paradise. Chamois, Tahr, Pigs, red deer, Wapiti (elk)... all became part of the staple diet.

Fast forward to today and i am blessed with a beautiful wife and two beautiful daughters 6 and 4years old. And while I love them all dearly - with a love that has no finite end - I also have this burning desire to leave them for weeks during the year to quench my other endless passion - backpack hunting.

How can i be so selfish to leave my young family, i sometimes ask myself? But the call of the wild is strong. And i need it to feel complete. I need my family but i also need the remote wilderness.

Backpack hunting has taken such a firm hold of me that it is hard for me to place in words.

What does being a backpack hunter mean to you?

I am now trying my hand at self-filming my backpack hunting expeditions in hope that film will convey what words alone cannot.

Here is a recent backpack hunting adventure for Sambar deer into the Victorian Alpine National Park of Australia. My hunting films are generally not short action packed films that tell the whole story in the time it takes to play a rock song... They are intended to simmer away at what it means to me to be a backpack hunter.

day 1  https://youtu.be/MiBy-_w2NSY

day 2  https://youtu.be/630uF7oKYCU

Best wishes from the Southern Hemishphere and God Bless

MountainMan

good luck up the greenstone CH!! i spent an unplanned night under the stars with just my day cloths and emergency blanket up there in late august and it was freezing. had to get a fire going to fight off hyperthermia. man was is cold. my head torches werr both flat from being on in my pack and so i couldn't walk out in dark

It means a higher level of appreciation and commitment to the sport as well as the best public lands found anywhere in the world. It also means hard won experiences that you'll never forget.

You should lobby the moderators to create a backpack hunting specific forum. They'd probably jump all over a great idea like that.

Well schitt, I guess it would mean five horses all died in the same year. And it would mean an epidemic had also wiped out the cow herd in the pasture. Cause I ain't never been hungry enough to carry meat out six to ten miles. I thought about it once, back in 1983. But quickly said phouck that! We went home and came back with the horses.

I tried carrying a back pack once. Fall of 1974. Three miles in, started at 10,000 feet, camped at 13,000 ft. Started with 30 lbs, ended up with 50 lb, because I and two other gents lightened the loads of three young women, all from coastal areas, who were suffering from the altidude. It ended up being a five mile walk downhill, coming home, with the fifty pound pack. It took ten years for the shin splints to heal.

Phouck that! That is why God gave us horses.

Yeah August can be cold up up there. I bet that was a long night.
Last time I got caught out overnight it was in the middle of a swamp, had a to crawl up on a bunch of reeds. Another one of my dumb decisions route finding. Just lucky it was summer.....There is snow forecast at some stage, but I am hoping to get three days of reasonable weather out of it. I just hope it doesnt rain - I have gone to a flintlock

It also means a long, healthy, and successful hunting career for those that truly make it a way of life.

These guys I hunt with have been packing elk out of designated wilderness their whole lives, and are all in their 70's.

The feeling of travelling alone and self sufficient in remote areas focuses the mind in the moment like few other things.


mike r

God willing, I also still plan to go backpack hunting well into my retirement. i am 35 years now

In my view, "Backpack Hunting" isn't dayhiking into hunting country, making a kill, and packing meat out on your back... that's normal hunting.

Backpack Hunting is going into the wild's - at least overnight - to however many nights out desired/required. It's self-sustained, carry-it-all on your back, multi-day hunting in the wilds. In my case I go solo.

I'm 57 years old and still doing it...