just got done with a successful Montana spring black bear hunt hair just
couldn't be more stoked about the outcome of this hunt this is a bear I've
been after for a couple years now and we finally got it got it skinned out got
the quarter bag here with one hind quarter to back straps and tenderloins
so one question I get asked a lot is how exactly do these mystery ranch packs
work how do you pack out a load with all of this stuff after you're in the field
get something down so I'm just going to walk you through here really quick how I
personally like to pack a load out and how these packs work best this pack here
is actually the mystery ranch pintler this is the first year I've used this
particular pack a little bit smaller than the metcalf that I've been using in
the past got the new frame on there almost two pounds lighter than the old
one and really enjoy this spring so as you can see I'm just going to
separate the bag here from the frame first which is just a series of couple
straps here and some buckles what's nice about the mystery ranch
packs is that you can separate this frame from the bag is you know like I
said what I'm doing right now so you can keep the load all this way right tight
against your back you're not strapping it to the outside of the bag and it's
going to pull you back it's just a ton of fatigue on your shoulders and may
have lower back so I'll show you when this thing gets separated here fairly
awesome undo these buckles, just the side buckles here
see I got my water bladder the straw out of the way here okay
we'll see you here I'm going to just take the bag right up over the top of
the frame right here and separate it now you can see it opens that up you can put
the weight right here against you back so I'll show you there's a, right here
is the load sling portion that kind of slings underneath this crossbar here
I'll want to loosen this as much as possible and that'll allow me to really
pull that pack out get more of a shelf here in the bottom
set that load in and as you can see when I do that it's not going to allow
anything to slip out the bottom okay so now that I got the frame here separated
from the bag I'll probably put the bear like this
keep the majority of this hydrate down along the bottom
it'd be to just bring that bag back up over the top now I'll find these side
buckles here
if these buckled again I'd like to typically get everything sort of buckled
all the way around and then go back and tighten all the straps I've found that
if I tighten the buckle and then you know cinch it tight I end up needing to
loosen it so I can get the right amount on this side so I recommend doing all
your buckles first go around this thing as you can see not only do these help
you know suck the bag down tight to keep the load in without moving around but it
also is going to allow you know nothing to slide out the side of this load as
well once I get this off all buckle down here these are the last buckles these
are at the top of the bag we'll come back here to the frame again and that'll
help hold that head from one to flop around side to side as well and you know
this is a fair obviously but with an elk with a deer it's really no different I
like to keep the Cape rolled up sort of at the bottom like that sort of stretch
the neck up towards the top and then half the head kind of come out the top
of the pack like this I found that that works best unless you know it's an elk
rack or something bigger than I like to position it so the antlers are down and
the skull sits up right here every loads a little bit different this is
obviously ideal for their so get that done tighten that up got to put these
straps back now I'm almost done the other thing I like about this setup
is the fact that I've got all my rain gear I've got extra camera gear got
everything inside this pack that's you know it's not never going to get bloody
touch the load anything like that you keep them totally separate
so you can see here's the finish load brand-new nice frame on the Templar bag
new for 2016 we are ready to get out of here
You know this is just one way to load the
pack there's a million ways that you can load these things there's enough buckles
there's enough length and straps that there's really not one way to do it I
would actually love to see if you guys have other methods that are different
than this I couldn't be more pleased with how today turn out finally closed
the chapter on a bear up and after four years I couldn't be more proud to pack this thing out on my back