Bivy/ Backpack Hunting Mistakes/Advice

[mmac]

A lot of good information here, but I agree with those that say you need to get out and try various things. Everyone is different and values different setups when out in the woods. So it is important to get out and try. I would suggest a 3 day overnight loop where you set a time to complete so you have to get up in the dark and finish in the dark or at least late and tired. Then you will see whether for dinner you prefer a mountain house or a peanut butter and bacon sandwich. For breakfast in the dark- do you want the stove to fire up or a snickers bar and wait. Everyone has developed personal preference from doing the trips and everyone is different.

 

[George Hamrick]

A lot of good information here, but I agree with those that say you need to get out and try various things. Everyone is different and values different setups when out in the woods. So it is important to get out and try. I would suggest a 3 day overnight loop where you set a time to complete so you have to get up in the dark and finish in the dark or at least late and tired. Then you will see whether for dinner you prefer a mountain house or a peanut butter and bacon sandwich. For breakfast in the dark- do you want the stove to fire up or a snickers bar and wait. Everyone has developed personal preference from doing the trips and everyone is different.

That is something I have been planning with my escouting. I’ve been looking at areas I like and mapping big loops to have a good way to hunt the area and get back to the vehicle if I need to relocate after a day or two of hunting.

 

[TradLife406]

I'd really caution against hunting with your camp on your back each day. This will kick your @ss in short order. What may be better is to set a spike camp/base camp. Then if need be have the option to sleep away from it. This way you're not hunting with 50-60+lb on your back every day. I ran into a couple out of staters last year trying to hunt like this. They were from Tennessee and they were smoked.

I'll bivy like this in the summer. Or last weekend I did an over nighter for bears. I got off work late and got within a half mile of the glassing point I wanted to be on Saturday morning. I could have left camp and come back for it but I wasn't sure what'd happen the rest of the day so I loaded up and went the half mile to my vantage point. But I had no intentions of going deeper in or adding extra milage on other to drop down for water and hike back to the truck.

Smarter not harder.

The big thing too elk country looks small on the computer screen. But when you actually get to the trail head you'll get a little shock factor. It doesn't matter how much training you do. I always get humbled.

Good luck!

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[GotDraw?]

While I agree with the philosophy of training with your backpacking gear in your pack, a practical reality is that strategy puts all your gear at risk of theft whenever you leave your pack in your truck parked somewhere on the way to or back from a training hike. And you will leave your pack in the truck

Losing all your gear in one shot would be a very expensive and time consuming buzzkill. Backpack/training hikes with your gear a few time for sure, but not all the time.

Get a couple big bags of kitty litter or some-such and wrap them in duct tape.

JL

I would recommend packing it with the gear you plan on using. You aren't going to be carrying a sandbag on your hunt so why practice carrying one? Nothing beats practice with the gear you actually plan on using.

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[George Hamrick]

I'd really caution against hunting with your camp on your back each day. This will kick your @ss in short order. What may be better is to set a spike camp/base camp. Then if need be have the option to sleep away from it. This way you're not hunting with 50-60+lb on your back every day. I ran into a couple out of staters last year trying to hunt like this. They were from Tennessee and they were smoked.

I'll bivy like this in the summer. Or last weekend I did an over nighter for bears. I got off work late and got within a half mile of the glassing point I wanted to be on Saturday morning. I could have left camp and come back for it but I wasn't sure what'd happen the rest of the day so I loaded up and went the half mile to my vantage point. But I had no intentions of going deeper in or adding extra milage on other to drop down for water and hike back to the truck.

Smarter not harder.

The big thing too elk country looks small on the computer screen. But when you actually get to the trail head you'll get a little shock factor. It doesn't matter how much training you do. I always get humbled.

Good luck!

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If I do decide to hike with a camp on my back while hunting, it will definitely be a minimalist light 2 person tent/tarp setup. I plan on it being more of a hike and hunt while planning on ending back at the truck. I just want to be prepared to spend a night or two in a spot if I do run into elk quite a ways from the truck.

 

[Bighorner]

The best thing you can do is go and adjust down the road. Nothing will beat experience.

 

[GotDraw?]

Carry a good compass and learn to use it.

Get waterproof topo map(s) of your hunt area(s) at 1:24,000 (or whatever matches your compass baseplate). Or 1:40,000 if you want to carry fewer maps. You will burn far fewer batteries this way because you can reference your maps when you have down time in camp and are planning. I carry topos and mark them with general AOIs (Areas of Interest). I have carried color hi-resolution photo maps of my hunt area too sometimes. I have found that the maps that combine topo with aerial photo are very difficult to navigate with because the topo lines are too fine and hard to read within the aerial photo.

Set up your GPS so your home screen shows:

1. Azimuth (in degrees) to your next waypoint, camp or target area of interest
2. Distance to above
3. Elevation at present location

With the above on your home screen, you immediately have the info you most need to know all in one place. This will allow you to use your maps more and turn your reference GPS off as much as possible in between checking bearings/azimuth to next.

You will absolutely be navigating at night at some point, it will be pitch black and you will be exhausted. Get comfortable with it. Stop and eat a snack if you ever get really freaked out, it helps settle you.

Load your GPS with a map of your nearest forest to your home (in the mountains nearby if you have any) mark a couple waypoints in the GPS that describe a somewhat circular route that will take you an hour or two to navigate from a starting point. Do not mark an entire trail, make your points a several hundred yards apart. Be sure some of your route makes you contour at a consistent elevation for a couple points, others up and down in elevation.

Get a topo map of that forest and mark the waypoints on it too in with removable stickers. Make sure this forest is deep enough that you cannot see or hear roads or use city lights to cheat with.

Drive there, take out your flashlight and shine it close on your compass face to charge up the glow-in-the-dark capability. Get out of your truck around 10pm in the dark, turn on your GPS and navigate your route back to your truck. Turn off your GPS between points as much as possible. Use your compass to navigate as much as possible.

Do this a couple times. It will build your confidence a LOT.

If you end up hunting REALLY steep terrain, you may not be able to pitch a tent without hiking a long distance. This may not be an option if weather turns to crap, you're exhausted or have an animal down, etc. Consider a hammock, with a hammock you can hang anywhere. As mentioned by others, they have a steep learning curve. Once you get the "hang" of it, they're a breeze and very compact. Practice with your hammock several times it if you get one. If you get one, buy a down underquilt because a sleeping pad will not keep your backside warm- even a good one won't. Minimum 20 degree underquilt, 10 or lower if in Oct or later.

As mentioned by others, NEVER leave your bow or water bladder on the ground. Even when taking a quick nap. Mice will eat your string or chew on your water bladder mouth valve because it smells like the peanut butter you ate earlier. Ask me how I know. Always take your bow and rangefinder with you when fetching water or taking a dump. Ask me how I know.

Best,

JL

 

[trophyhill]

If I were set on 3 days, I'd take 3 days of food, 3 days of water if water is an issue. If it's not an issue, I'd take a filter or some sort of filtration. I would have an ultralight tarp, and raingear. Personally I'd take my UL tent & sleeping bag/pad over a bivy sack. Gamebags, Havalon, Ibuprofen and bow. I don't see hiking back to the truck to resupply an issue if you find elk. Going in any further than 3-4 miles doesn't make much sense if you are hunting alone unless you have someone on standby to help pack. Go out and have fun and learn by experience!

 

[tttoadman]

I have seen a few guys burned out carrying packs. One guy missed an opportunity because he tried to take his pack off to shoot. I will pick a spot a couple miles out and hunt from the spike camp. When it is time to move, you hunt the morning and pack up and move a few miles during the day. You can set up again in a few hours and be ready to hunt the evening in a new spot.

 

[George Hamrick]

If I were set on 3 days, I'd take 3 days of food, 3 days of water if water is an issue. If it's not an issue, I'd take a filter or some sort of filtration. I would have an ultralight tarp, and raingear. Personally I'd take my UL tent & sleeping bag/pad over a bivy sack. Gamebags, Havalon, Ibuprofen and bow. I don't see hiking back to the truck to resupply an issue if you find elk. Going in any further than 3-4 miles doesn't make much sense if you are hunting alone unless you have someone on standby to help pack. Go out and have fun and learn by experience!

That sounds about like what I would do. I don’t plan on going extremely far back as I’m not sure if I’ll have anyone else to pack with or not. Just want to be prepared to stay out 1 or 2 nights if I am in elk instead of spending a lot of energy getting back to the truck if I don’t have to.

 

[Moondoondude]

What would you say tripped you up about spike camping?

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It was a number of things, but it was my first elk hunt. I ended up setting up camp right up above the edge of treeline, about 12k'. I had to bring a lot in, and I'm not the type to do anything slowly, so I got up there really fast. I'm in really good shape, but then a rapid heartbeat and crazy fatigue, just overall terrible feeling set in (altitude sickness). There were elk nearby, a whole gaggle of them, at around 11k' on the way in but with nowhere to camp without sleeping right in them. I brought in about 2 gallons of water since there was no water up above 10k', it was a very very dry year. I blew through that water. I'm also a very large human and i tend to sleep terribly anyways, but the hard ground and overall terrible feeling i had made sleep impossible, adding to the troubles. I decided to bail off and go back to the truck, at which point hunting got a lot easier and so did my overall condition. Sleeping at 9k'- 10k', relative to 12k', is a huge difference, at least for me - for recovery and well-being, etc.

So, the entire experience of spike camp just didn't fit into my style. When i elk hunt, even when I'm into elk, I will move around a lot. Sometimes I'm into elk all day, but i will sometimes leave elk to give them a break. Most years, preferably, i hunt 4 or 5 different pockets of elk if I can find them (of different herd sizes). I drive around between those pockets and move in on them when it seems best.

 

[mwebs]

A couple observations from mistakes my buddies or myself have made: If you really want to utilize a bivy make sure you know the weather forecast, getting wet and then getting into a bivy wet to sleep SUCKS and I would much rather have a tad more weight for a tent then cold/wet sleep in a bivy just not worth the ounces. Going to bed cold and wet, barely sleeping then getting up cold and wet makes you a less productive hunter.

As others have pointed out make sure you have your tent site marked and make mental notes of the surroundings. Even having it marked on GPS we had a fun time at midnight last year trying to find our site after a longggg slog back from chasing a bull, when your that tired everything looks the same and you just want to get to sleep.

Funny guys have mentioned loosing their packs with everything in them, my buddy came out on his first hunt and was not prepared to actually hunt with his pack on. He dropped it when we were moving in on some elk and ended up getting separated from me as I was chasing a couple other bulls. Luckily we had dropped our camp stuff and set up earlier and he somehow made it back to the camp site in the dark, without gps, it could have been bad. Took a days worth of hunting away to find his pack that had his hand gun and all his day pack gear. Moral of the story is be comfortable hunting with your pack on!

 

[George Hamrick]

A couple observations from mistakes my buddies or myself have made: If you really want to utilize a bivy make sure you know the weather forecast, getting wet and then getting into a bivy wet to sleep SUCKS and I would much rather have a tad more weight for a tent then cold/wet sleep in a bivy just not worth the ounces. Going to bed cold and wet, barely sleeping then getting up cold and wet makes you a less productive hunter.

As others have pointed out make sure you have your tent site marked and make mental notes of the surroundings. Even having it marked on GPS we had a fun time at midnight last year trying to find our site after a longggg slog back from chasing a bull, when your that tired everything looks the same and you just want to get to sleep.

Funny guys have mentioned loosing their packs with everything in them, my buddy came out on his first hunt and was not prepared to actually hunt with his pack on. He dropped it when we were moving in on some elk and ended up getting separated from me as I was chasing a couple other bulls. Luckily we had dropped our camp stuff and set up earlier and he somehow made it back to the camp site in the dark, without gps, it could have been bad. Took a days worth of hunting away to find his pack that had his hand gun and all his day pack gear. Moral of the story is be comfortable hunting with your pack on!

Thanks for the info. After doing more research I’m leaning towards a light 2 person tent, or possibly a hammock and tarp at minimum. Seems to be too many horror stories of guys getting wet with the total bivy style. It also seems like more of a learning curve for the hammock style, so probably will go with the tent. My last trip I didn’t have any rain in CO, but I’m not expecting to be that lucky this time around.

 

[SonnyDay]

Dial in your water strategy for the area you are hunting. Water is heavy, time-consuming to process, and will freeze if not in your sleeping bag with you. Last fall I had a Sawyer Squeeze freeze up trying to process just above freezing water... which left us to melt snow (requiring a resupply of fuel).

As others have noted... train, practice, and prune weight. Only way to do that is getting out into the woods regularly.

Oh, and have fun! Elk country is some of the most beautiful there is... but sore feet or miserable sleeping conditions will cut into your ability to enjoy it big time.

 

[3forks]

It was a number of things, but it was my first elk hunt. I ended up setting up camp right up above the edge of treeline, about 12k'. I had to bring a lot in, and I'm not the type to do anything slowly, so I got up there really fast. I'm in really good shape, but then a rapid heartbeat and crazy fatigue, just overall terrible feeling set in (altitude sickness). There were elk nearby, a whole gaggle of them, at around 11k' on the way in but with nowhere to camp without sleeping right in them. I brought in about 2 gallons of water since there was no water up above 10k', it was a very very dry year. I blew through that water. I'm also a very large human and i tend to sleep terribly anyways, but the hard ground and overall terrible feeling i had made sleep impossible, adding to the troubles. I decided to bail off and go back to the truck, at which point hunting got a lot easier and so did my overall condition. Sleeping at 9k'- 10k', relative to 12k', is a huge difference, at least for me - for recovery and well-being, etc.

So, the entire experience of spike camp just didn't fit into my style. When i elk hunt, even when I'm into elk, I will move around a lot. Sometimes I'm into elk all day, but i will sometimes leave elk to give them a break. Most years, preferably, i hunt 4 or 5 different pockets of elk if I can find them (of different herd sizes). I drive around between those pockets and move in on them when it seems best.

I think your experience is/could be pretty typical for both residents and non-residents.

I say that, because it doesn’t do much good to get to where the elk are, if you’re too blown out to hunt them.

That’s by no means a criticism of anyone... I just mean that it takes a lot of energy to get into high elevation elk, and then you need to be able to effectively hunt them.

A guy could get lucky by getting some cooperation from the elk by either having them come to a call or by using a trail or water source you’re sitting on.

If you’re watching a herd and trying to get in front of them, or trying to get on them after you’ve seen them go to bed, it’s usually a lot of effort to traverse a basin or maybe ascend an avalanche chute to where they are. Factor in what the thermals are doing or the cover you have to work with, and it stacks the odds even a little more against you.

I‘ve found a couple of high altitude areas that always hold elk, but are very hard to hunt (which is why the elk are consistently there). I’ve only had success on those particular elk on a dry year and the grass has burned off enough that they move lower to use the wetter / timbered areas. When they move lower I can use less energy and be more aggressive when I hunt them rather than being completely reactive to what they’re doing because they’re so high that it limits my ability to really hunt them.

 

[OXN939]

Thanks for the info. After doing more research I’m leaning towards a light 2 person tent, or possibly a hammock and tarp at minimum. Seems to be too many horror stories of guys getting wet with the total bivy style. It also seems like more of a learning curve for the hammock style, so probably will go with the tent. My last trip I didn’t have any rain in CO, but I’m not expecting to be that lucky this time around.

This thing weighs like a pound and a half. Probably not the way to go if you don't fit into compact cars comfortably, but 1P tents these days are seriously flyweight.

 

[Northpark]

One thing I don’t think anyone has mentioned is if you have an inflatable pad MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A PATCH KIT FOR IT!

 

[Beendare]

So lets summarize:

Get out there and test yourself! Grin

—-

 

[GotDraw?]

@George Hamrick

Close engagement with elk can be rare and shooting opportunities even more so. Hunting is organic, be flexible in your thinking. Even without being really far back, plan that you will absolutely be anywhere, any time and that you will be a little farther back than you think.

You can "plan" not to go too far back in, but that plan can and will fall apart fast and for any number of reasons. Then you have to make the hard choice to walk away from the only shootable herd you've seen in a week. You may quickly end up farther back than you planned as a "limit".

Unless I am hunting right out of my camp, I always carry a sleep system and an extra day of food. I'm glad to hear that you are planning for a night or two out, bring at least one extra full meal and snacks.

JL

That sounds about like what I would do. I don’t plan on going extremely far back as I’m not sure if I’ll have anyone else to pack with or not. Just want to be prepared to stay out 1 or 2 nights if I am in elk instead of spending a lot of energy getting back to the truck if I don’t have to.

 

[Jagger0502]

I do the same with packing my gear but also toss in some extra weight while training. Get used to 60lbs if you plan to hike with 50lbs. Especially coming from the flatland out East like I do.

if you are looking to cut weight there is plenty of info out there to help with that. Someone mentioned water earlier, that’s usually a big mistake people haul in more than they need and cross a creek every 1/2 mile OR don’t bring enough water storage if they are hunting someplace dry. Throw in an extra smart water bottle if your hunting Somewhere dry Incase the walk from water to camp is a distance. Better to have an extra 2 ounce bottle empty on the way in but also be able to fill it up if you only cross water once a day.

If you sleep well without a pad go for it. For me, rest is very important to hunt hard and stay positive. I splurge on UL sleeping gear and even take in an UL pillow. If I am well rested I can hunt hard all day, if not it takes away from that and can turn my attitude and really take away from the hunt. If you haven’t slept out there on the ground try it a few nights first, and not in a nice level yard... not many of those in the mountains. to me it’s worth the weight in gold to sleep well and start fresh each day.