Ultralight hunting: toward a coherent definition.

[mfolch]

Found this article on BPL very interesting. It challenged a lot of assumptions I have had about a successful backpack hunting kit. In particular, he uses almost no hunting-specific gear--no camo--and relies on almost none of the hunting clothing lines popular on this forum and elsewhere.

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/ul-hunting-chenault.html#.VSpobBj3aK0

 

[5MilesBack]

After reading the summary article, I think I can safely say that I don't think I would ever want to have a conversation with that guy in person.

 

[Elkfitness]

Would like to read the whole article.

 

[DaveC]

After reading the summary article, I think I can safely say that I don't think I would ever want to have a conversation with that guy in person.

Now you're just hurting my feelings.

 

[5MilesBack]

Now you're just hurting my feelings.

Is that you? Were you ever a college philosophy professor?

 

[Poser]

The author is definitely Dave C

 

[JFKinYK]

he uses almost no hunting-specific gear--no camo--and relies on almost none of the hunting clothing lines popular on this forum and elsewhere.

Me either, and sorta proud of it. Didn't know that was a bad thing.

5MilesBack - i thought the exact opposite!

Agreed it would be great to read the whole article to form a full opinion.

 

[whacker1]

Dave would you post the whole article here? I don't want to have to join another forum to read it, but i am interested in what you have to say.

 

[Poser]

Dave would you post the whole article here? I don't want to have to join another forum to read it, but i am interested in what you have to say.

He probably can't post it here since Backpacking Light probably owns the Copyright. I, too, would like to read it in full. I have a email subscription to BL, but that does not appear to grant me access to the full article. I do follow Dave's blog.

 

[castandblast]

Having read Dave's posts on BPL, then seeing him pop up here, I have been intensely curious about how he might create a fusion between the two worlds. Just the prompting I needed to renew my BPL membership. I'm sure the article will be worthwhile, and it never hurts to have one's vocabulary expanded!

 

[Yellowknife]

Looks like an article I would like to read. Although I've never been one to attach significant importance to absolute numbers, I'm willing to look at another point of view.

Yk

 

[mfolch]

He probably can't post it here since Backpacking Light probably owns the Copyright. I, too, would like to read it in full. I have a email subscription to BL, but that does not appear to grant me access to the full article. I do follow Dave's blog.

I'm particularly curious about the possibility of ultralight whitetail hunting. It seems like a lot of the gear designed for backpack hunting is intended for use above the tree line, but everything worth hunting in my state is wooded. The idea of sitting in a tree stand or blind on the edge of a farm or off the highway--what David calls frontcountry hunting--has never appealed to me. So each year I lug seventy-eighty pounds of gear--including numerous layers of heavy camo specifically for standing or sitting for hours in the rain and snow--into the Adirondacks. I wonder if it's possible to go ultralight and go into the backcountry in the NE and still be a successful hunter.

Links are down or dead. An annual subscription to BPL costs about as much as a movie ticket and in my opinion these articles are worth the price of admissions.

 

[DaveC]

Mfolch, I would appreciate it if you'd take down the link. I am thankful for everyone's interest, and hate to make accessing the article more difficult, but paid subscription is what keeps the lights on at BPL and what pays me for my work. I'll let everyone make up their own mind as to whether it's worth money.

I have never been a professor of anything, but one of my degrees is a BA in Philosophy, which exacerbated but did not begin my tendency towards obfuscation and verbosity.

I don't know enough about hunting yet to write anything topic or technique specific concerning actual practice, but the question of a weight standard has been in my head for the past two years. Not so much because I put much faith in the hard number standards for ultralight backpacking (I rarely if ever actually weigh my pack), but because thinking about a weight standard is a good learning tool for the whole community. I look forward to alternate opinions.

I also look forward to hunting companies continuing to push the weight envelope. There are two reasons I didn't include many hunting-specific clothing in my sample gear list: I don't own much of it myself (already having a pile of outdoor clothing), and I still see "traditional" clothing companies as leading on the weight-to-functionality front. I also don't bowhunt, so camo is not a priority. Perhaps this will change in the future. Kifaru's new parka and Kuiu's newest rain gear strike me as examples of how companies could address the needs of hunters, mainly enhanced durability and wet weather function, while still staying impressively light. Kifaru should be commended for using Apex, as well as cutting out extraneous features. Contrary to Kuiu's claim, 9 ounces is not the lightest 3-layer WPB coat ever, but it is the lightest such coat I know of that has >3 ounce/yard face fabric. My favorite rain coat is a 4 year old Haglofs Ozo, a Goretex Paclite anorak which weighs 6.3 ounces after I cut off the chest pocket. It's held up to a ton of abuse in that time, including two trips to Alaska, and is still going strong. The fabric is just exceptionally good, and punches well above its weight, and much better than I thought it would. If the Kuiu Ultra does as well it should be a great option, so long as like me you can do without pockets. If they had made it an anorak I likely wouldn't be able to stop myself getting one.

 

[mrbillbrown]

After reading the entire article I guess I'm having a hard time understanding why you felt the need to take a shot at Aron Snyder to open it up. Seems like you could have written the article to reflect a different perspective on backcountry hunting without making yourself look like you've got a hard on for Aron. It definitely overshadowed the potential good info you tried to convey.

 

[DaveC]

It wasn't my intention to take a shot at Aron at all. The quotation I used at the start encapsulated the issue as well as any statement I could find, and was I thought very well put. The only other mention was a brief introduction, necessary given the intended audience at BPL.

 

[tipsntails7]

I can't read the whole thing because I'm not a premium member so I will refrain from judgment other then my hunting trips success at least to me is not measured by the take of animals. I've had trips that literally lasted 3 hours and I was tagged out, and last year I spent 10 days with my dad elk hunting and had tag soup. The later was much more fulfilling and "successful" in my eyes.

 

[djsmith46]

This isn't a knock on DaveC whatsoever but I swear when I read the summary of the article I thought to myself, this sounds like the type of wordy papers I had to write for my rhetorical conventions class in college. Then in his last post he states he's a philosophy major and has a tendency towards obfuscation, which explains why I couldn't understand much of what he wrote; because this was his intention I love philosophy.

 

[castandblast]

I will confess to having to open another browser with an online dictionary while reading some of Dave's work, but I see that as my shortcoming, not his.

 

[Aron Snyder]

I'm not smart enough to understand some of the words in the intro (only part I've read), so I'm not sure if he likes me or not.

I do know that I agree with a lot of what he posts.

I pm'd him my #, so hopefully we'll get a chance to bs a little.

 

[Poser]

I'm particularly curious about the possibility of ultralight whitetail hunting. It seems like a lot of the gear designed for backpack hunting is intended for use above the tree line, but everything worth hunting in my state is wooded. The idea of sitting in a tree stand or blind on the edge of a farm or off the highway--what David calls frontcountry hunting--has never appealed to me. So each year I lug seventy-eighty pounds of gear--including numerous layers of heavy camo specifically for standing or sitting for hours in the rain and snow--into the Adirondacks. I wonder if it's possible to go ultralight and go into the backcountry in the NE and still be a successful hunter.

Please let me know if you would like me to remove this link:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u...a Coherent Definition @ Backpacking Light.pdf

There are a couple of threads in the Whitetail forum about doing these types of hunts in the East/Southeast. Since I (recently) started hunting out West and got into backpack hunting, I have done a couple of backpack style Whitetail and bear hunts on larger tracts of public land in Tennessee. I suggest ditching the treestand and extra heavy clothes and basically take the same gear you would use out West. Sit on the ground using trees as backdrops like you would for turkey hunting. I have found that a bipod is nice for this type of hunting. As far as staying warm while sitting for hours, use a puffy the same way Western hunters use them for long glassing sessions. Use this style in East, you can really hunt some areas that receive 0 hunting pressure. The concept of packing deer out is just not even considered an option by most Eastern hunters, therefore, they won't/can't hunt deeper than they can drag/cart a deer out or won't hunt terrain that makes dragging or carting an impossibility.

Sorry to be off topic. I read the article while the link still exists.