Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting Your Backpack Hunting Methods?

Looking to hear about your backpack hunting methods.

Most specifically, I'm wondering if you:

• Hike backcountry to a designated spot, establish base camp and scout the surrounding area?

-or-

• Act like a through-hiker and relocate camp every night, hunting along the way?

1 but I'm thinking of going to 2

Why? In hopes of seeing more game? More challenging? Just cause?

Camp is from vehicle base. Day hunts from there, with enough kit to spend a night away from base when the situation calls

Usually not more then one night per outing.

Prior to this was #1 but using pack goats to carry enough kit to have an extraordinary base camp.

In parallel with that was using a mountain bike with a "kid trailer" to haul into base from which day hunts were executed.

Flexibility is the key. Topo scouting mandatory, summer "pleasure" hikes needed to scout and establish camp locations. Miles on my mountain bike riding and glassing logging roads behind locked gates.

Further has not proven to be better. I've spent a lot of my life hiking to the ends of the earth going well past prime hunting areas. Sometimes the best habitat is under your nose.

One rule has paid off, when in doubt climb. Going higher has not yet proven to reduce success. Better visibility glassing, and for some reason game seems to move up and Down far more then back and forth. Maybe just this habitat?

Great info JJHack, thank you!

For me, it depends. First of all, I generally hunt in the early seasons so I can get by with less weight and bulk than in really cold weather. If I�m in a new area, I like the option of picking up and moving around. But I also like leaving the heavy stuff in camp because in steep country at 10K feet I feel like I can cover more ground effectively without a full pack. So I�ll go light with only a few day�s worth of food. I�ll set up in what looks like a good spot where I can hunt in two or three different directions, and day hunt from there for a day or two and then decide whether to stay put or move. The trade-off is, if I get far from camp and am on some animals at dusk, I need to go back to camp. But I also avoid humping all my stuff up a steep ridge that doesn�t pan out.

If I�m hunting an area that I know is good and/or have another person or two along, lots of times it�s worth packing in a little extra weight and having a fixed camp. Things like a thicker sleeping pad, a heated tipi, and better food. With a group, hanging out in a nice camp sipping some good whiskey after a long day is half the fun.

As to how far back in is good, IME there are a lot of guys who�ll day hike in 2-3 miles from the truck so I like to go in at least that distance. I think beyond the 3-mile mark you leave most day-hunters behind, which is the whole point. You just need to know who else uses the area, there�s no point in hiking further in if you�ll just be bumping into outfitter�s camps. Like JJ said, if you can put some elevation between you and the trailhead, all the better, but I like avoiding really steep or rocky stuff, just in case I have to come back down the same way with a pack full of meat.

Great stuff!

So I have a question:

I you're a beginner (never hunted) but you have a lot of backpacking experience, which method (of the two) would you suggest? Or would you suggest an altogether different method?

Both, sometimes during the same season and even during the same hunt. But, a lot depends on the specie that's being hunted and the trophy quality per the unit I'm in and/or whether a particular animal is being pursued.

I do both.

If I was advising a beginner hunter/experienced backpacker, I would probably suggest #1 for longer trips and #2 for 1 or 2 nighters.

You're going to have more stuff - rifle/bow, game care, etc so you need to work that into your routine. You've just added a bunch of weight to your kit when you add this stuff.

You'll also be trying to learn to hunt, which is likely a little easier without a full pack on your back. Some backpackers never really leave the trails, so you might find yourself doing more cross-country, etc.

And you'll need to work out how to get the animal out of the backcountry. So you're "hunting weight" needs to allow for how you'll move the weight of that meat. Having an already full pack does not make carry-out very easy. It might be easier to do this in stages - get the meat to basecamp, rest. get meat to truck. rest. go back and get basecamp stuff. rest. take basecamp stuff out. Obviously this is heavily dependent on the details of your situation.

Not earth-shattering observations, just thinking about the conceptual differences for me between backpacking and backpack hunting.

+1

Absolutely have nothing to add, well said.

I'm not sure about laws regulations or whatnot in every state or location. I don't always hunt in the USA.

One of the best ways I have found to do this especially for a lone hunter is to pre-stock the camp. I have some 5gallon pails with very tight "O" ring lids that were food grade. Packing in 3-4 of these on scouting trips during warmer summer months and cache them. This becomes your base camp foundation.

They are great camp stools and hold enough stuff that is used all the time. Fuel, water bottles, nylon tarp, sleeping bag, pad, tent, .22 ammo fishing gear etc etc. these staples are semi permanent. This makes your base camp solid with plenty of comfort.

I normally pack in a lightweight base camp, with possibly a bivy setup in case I decide to venture far from camp. Normally, I'm just not far enough from the road to do a thru style and usually have other limiting factors, such as water availability. Some of it has to do with regulations etc. For instance, in some of the wilderness areas you could do more of a thru style, but you would end up passing through several districts which are only good with a state wide tag. Besides, who wants to be 12 miles back with a big bull

LOL, or a big cow. I'd look at it like this: If you're a new hunter, hunting a new area, you don't necessarily want to be tied down to one spot (fixed base camp), because you won't really know if it's a good spot until you've poked around a bit. If it was me, I'd have a few different trailheads picked out where I could do 2-3 day loops that would take me back in away from the road a few miles but not more than say 4-5 miles from the road. I'd want to go light with only a few day's food. Hike in, set up camp, hunt near camp, if things look good hang out for a few days, if not, move on. If you get to a good spot and want to stay for more than a few days you can always make the short hike out for more food.

One other thing, you never know who else may be camped back in your chosen area in any given year, so it pays to be flexible and ready to move on if the spot you planned on hunting is occupied.

That sounds like some doomsday/SHTF [bleep]........I like it.

Illegal in the National Forest though, if they catch you. This might help:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/3036556/Special-Forces-Caching-Techniques-TC-3129A

It depends on the country....

I've got one spot that I love to go early every bow season. It's 5 miles to where base camp is, and an additional 3 miles to get to the head end of each drainage/basin from there. It's not unusual for us to live there for a few days and work each individual area until we find game. Then move camp closer to where the action is.

I've got another spot that's a FS trail that has a trailhead on each end, 7 miles apart. We park a truck on each end of of that and get the first 2 miles and 3000' elevation gain out of the way and leave all the other hunters behind.

If you're going to make the backpack thing work to your advantage, two things need to happen. Scout as much as you can, and have plan B and C hashed out. Once you're there DURING season find the pockets that the day hunters aren't working. Focus on those places. #2, have patience. If you worked yourself that deep into the country, don't get frustrated. Head back to camp for the unproductive times of day. Eat lunch, have a cup of coffee, take a nap, get wood together for the evening, look over your maps (write notes on [bleep].) Then go hunt your ass off until dark when you have the place all to yourself.

That last paragraph is damn good advice. One thing that can frustrate you during the early seasons (in CO anyway) is that you can get several days of rain in a row. Be prepared for that, as best you can.

That is a big challenge. Sometimes you think you a perfect place that no one goes to , because no one has been there, and you will find 3 other camps. Sometimes, you not go to a place because of how many people were there the season before, to find out no one is there later.

Unproductive times is a great time to take a nap and do camp chores.

Personally, I love hunting new areas, but it almost always takes me a day to figure out the game there. I'll usually look at a map, find the easy access parts and scratch of 1.5 miles from those spots, look at places with likely habitat. I'll usually go until I find decent sign or a limit in distance.

Here is a blog post I wrote a while ago on virtual scouting new areas
Virtual Scouting

When backpack camping and while right in the bedroom of the animal you're intent on killing, backpack camping chores predominately consist of eating a quick meal before daylight and then hunting all day and then, eating a quick meal after dark and going right to bed.

Of course, if camaraderie is what you're after and a lackadaisical approach to killing is the benefit while backpack camping, then by all means, spend as much time in camp as you need. But, have a weapon handy, just in case.

While backpack camping in the heart of quality game country, I've had various types of big game animals walk right by and even right through my camps.

If you're hunting hard in the mountains, day after day, some down time in camp to recharge is inevitable. Unless most of your hunting is on the internet.

It's not a "lackadaisical approach to killing," it's human physiology.

I down time on the days when I'm in town. Otherwise, it's dawn till dark, searching for animals to kill while in the field. I don't down time in camp. I don't need to, because I've kept myself in top condition all these years by hunting pretty much year-round. I get enough down time during the two or three months each year when I'm not hunting.