hunting camps

venison · Sep 2, 2003

what does every one camp in during hunting? travel trailer,walltent ,camper,motel,etc. i need to purchase something for myself next year as i may go it on my own or find new partners,my buddies party so hard each night that they hardly ever kill any thing. im no expert but i provide about 75 percent of the meat and its getting old.

Steiny · Sep 2, 2003

Our group of six will utilize a 14' x 16' wall tent as the cook shack, cocktail lounge and dining hall. We also have a 12' x 12' Cabelas Alaknak and a 10' x 12' wall tent for sleeping quarters. We all take cots to sleep on, cook with L-P, plenty of lanterns, tables, chairs, etc. A darn comfortable set-up for about ten days of deer hunting in October.

Just bought the big wall tent and will be using it for the first time this fall. We kind of decided we needed a big tent to hang out in during inclement weather, a place to cook, eat, dry clothing, etc.

We've owned and rented campers, motorhomes etc., but are pretty well sold on tents anymore. With a 4wd pick-up you can get further off the beaten path if you're not dragging a camper, plus they don't take up as much space in your garage for theose 2 or 3 weeks use they see all year.

venison · Sep 2, 2003

thanks steiny,sounds like a nice set up.how long do they take to set up with one person? what kind of stove do you use?

7x7 · Sep 2, 2003

My son and I use a Cabelas Magnum Game Cart to pack back in seven miles on an old logging road. Our camp consists of a Northface VE-23 four season tent, zero degree bags, sleeping pads, a small one burner coleman stove, one kettle for boiling water, two metal cups, all the food and hot chocolate we need for a week. We camp at 10,800 feet and usually enjoy the serenity of an elk hunt alone. Every once and a while someone gets lost and ends up back by us on horse back. The nights are so quiet I swear you can hear an elk bugle ten miles away. We've been awaken by elk bugling within a hundred yards of camp. A couple times we could hear their hoofs pounding the ground as they walked pass camp. We try to keep a cold camp with the exception of heating water for hot chocolate. We also try to be quiet and only talk very softly when back in camp. We've developed our own hand signal sign language while hunting together. I can't think of a more enjoyable week in the mountains than that week I spend with my son. My son's in college now and this season might only be four days long due to his class schedule, but it'll be the best four days of 2003.

TheKnack · Sep 2, 2003

Looks like this year I will be roughing it.
Think I will stay at a Holiday Inn and catch a few
football games after the hunt.
Of course I will have to stop at a certain restaurant
and eat a giant burrito and maybe one beer.
Man it's really hard hunting in such horrible conditions.
Best,
Jerry

MartinHunter · Sep 2, 2003

Old army tents with cots most of the time. We also have a cheap 8 person fare weather tent for archery season. We have little dome tents to eat in and stor goods.
Michael

Steiny · Sep 2, 2003

venison -
That big wall tent weighs about 110LB and the poles weight 65LB, so you just about need help setting it up, takes about 1/2 hour.
I have a wood stove, but won't take it out west deer hunting because we don't want to mess with cutting wood, etc. and everything around there is pine anyway. We'll just light up the lanterns and a cook stove to take the chill off. If we need to dry some clothes we'll fire up both cook stoves. We utilize those L-P fush fryers for stoves.
If you've got a decent sleeping bag you don't need heat in a tent, and I prefer to sleep in the cold.

ICMDEER · Sep 3, 2003

I have a pretty wide variety of stuff and when lots of folks go, we take lots of different camps. Sometimes we use a camp trailer, sometimes the wall tent(s), and sometimes we set up the Cabela's 8 man tent. To me, all that stuff is more for camping. When I HUNT, I try to go like a coyote, even when it is cold. Lots of times, when the forecast is pretty good, I just take a sleeping bag and a tarp. I got rained on for 4 hours a week ago Saturday in the tarp, and got kinda wet, but it keeps my weight to a minimum. I also do not build a fire and tread lightly where I hunt.

You have gotten a pretty good list from the other guys. My only advice is to focus on the hunt and not worry about the camping frills.

Good hunting.

Jim

Craig · Sep 3, 2003

Last year we just had a three person dome tent and it was to cold. this year me and my hunting partner got a 14' X 20' wall tent. and all the goodies that go with it. No more sleeping in the cold.

kingfish · Sep 3, 2003

Venison,
We have a 14x18 white wall tent and metal frame. We use to heat with wood but it does take allot of work to cut enough wood to last a week so now we heat with propane heaters...Two 5 gallon propane tanks with a two burners heater on each one works really well no matter how cold it gets....JUST DON'T SLEEP WITH THE HEATERS GOING!!!. Turn them off at night and relite them about 1/2 hour before you get up...Make sure your tent is well ventelated when using propane heaters. The propane last a week easely even when the weather doesn't let you hunt....A good sleeping bag is always a must... Keith 46.

Montanahunter · Sep 3, 2003

I have an 8' Alaskan cabover pop up camper which keeps me mobile.After hunting if I am going to move to a new spot I do it at night, this discourages other hunters who show up the next morning and also gives time to go elsewhere if others are already there. Pop up campers let you take an instant camp where no trailer could go and no hassle of setting up a tent camp.When packing in I load my 2 horse trailer with 6 pack goats, saddles and tack. A few luxuries are an extra tarp, a lantern, small pack rod and reel.If you go light 1 goat can pack out camp while the other 5 can easily pack out a boned out elk.

oldoregon · Sep 4, 2003

a sleping bag, under some tree 20 miles from the nearest road!

bigbull1 · Sep 4, 2003

I set up a 10x10 four season tent with all the usually coleman stuff for a base camp. Then depending on hunt conditions, I will spike camp for 2-3 days with minimum gear (sleeping bag, bivy sack, powerbars and freezed dried dinners). I think if I was with a big group of hunters, I would go with the wall tent route. But for 1-3 guys, it seems like too much gear.

sampson · Sep 5, 2003

Wall tent with cots.

Sig3 · Sep 24, 2003

We've been rigging up our camp since 1990. We Have a 16x24 wall tent that has a wood burning stove but we adapted propane to get the fire going quickly in the mornings and for a quick warm up. We still cut the wood as needed. We put two 8' tables end to end for our eating and card playing. In additon, 4 people sleep in the tent, sometimes 5 and it allows plenty of room the wall tent has 5' sides and a 9 foot ceiling. We all sleep on cots. We made our own metal tent frame 8' on centers with metal spans from rafter to rafter across the tent. This allows us to use that for storage and supports the frame during heavy snow fall. We drive as far in as we can with all the gear and make a real comfortable camp. We don't hunt around our camp area. We have another 16x16 wall tent for sleeping with wood burning stove, plus a 12x12 cook wall tent. We fly all the tents. We use lanterns hooked up to several propane tanks. We leave camp hours before light each morning and don't return to well after dark, so we have developed a camp that will be very comfortable for us. It does take a couple of trucks to haul all the gear but its worth it for our kind of camp. All the equipment is then stored away until the next year. It has taken us years of trial and error to get it just right for a camp that has 10 to 12 hunters.

Tuffbucker · Sep 24, 2003

Well, I might catch some flack for this, but....

I hunt private property with a little hunting cabin on it. My best friends family owns the land, and I am trying to purchase some adjacent land. We hunt deer, elk, doves, pheasants, rabbits, coyotes, on this land. We also see the occasional turkey and have seen cougar tracks.

Luckily all the land around his in relatives of his, so we have a lot of land to hunt, and most of the other places we hunt are a short drive away to start our hike into the backcountry.

Guess, Im not as adventerous as others, but nothing beats a nice warm cabin with running water.....

Tuff

sampson · Sep 24, 2003

I use a wall tent, but a much scaled down version of the ones the other guys are telling you about. I have a 10 x 12 tent with 5' walls. I usually only hunt with one or two guys, so it works out quite well. I use an aluminum frame that weighs about 30 lbs, and the tent itself weighs around 50 lbs. I can set it up by myself easily enough, but two guys makes it go a lot faster.

I use a cylinder wood stove and burn wood, but I am thinking about switching over to coal.

Good luck finding a set-up that suits you. I know that my little wall tent is the best investment I have made in a long time. If My hunting party gets larger, I plan on suggesting that one of the other guys buys a kitchen unit to attach to the tent. Then we can store things and cook in the kitchen and sleep comfortably in the main tent.

Graycliff · Sep 24, 2003

If we stay at the bottom of the mountain we use an old camper I have that I put on a trailer, works great. If we stay on top then it's the tents and sleeping bags.

Hawkk33 · Sep 24, 2003

LAST EDITED ON Sep-24-03 AT 10:09PM (MST)[p]7x7- that kind of serenity sounds great. Where I live and hunt we get a ton of the out of state yahoo's who come, roadhunt, leave trash behind, and muck it up for the residents who hunt here.

ATV's are another gripe of mine and I am sure lazy resident are as guilty as lazy out of staters but damn . how much game do you really see on one of things. All's I know is the game around here are getting wiser and wiser to atv's trucks, and game calls time to get back the to primitive and walk, stalk and like me go home empty handed. ( Does the game really like beer breath in the a.m.? where does partying fit in with hunting ?)

Leave it in better shape then you found it !!

ELKMASTER101 · Sep 24, 2003

ear phones/ head set.
and wisper tone one tuch responce modulator is a great adder to these units.
no need to ever handle them in the field.
alos a secure caring case. that can be placed inside your coat/ pack.

kilbuc · Sep 25, 2003

Holiday Inn...just 2 things to remember, get a ground floor room and don't gut your deer in the bathtub......LOL

from the "Heartland of Wyoming"

Utahn · Sep 26, 2003

I use a little 2 person tent, a therm-a-rest, -5 degree bag and no cotton. For food I cook on a colman stove on the back of my truck. My setup is cheap, quick and I don't need lots of space.