hey guys Scott Reekers here with EASTMANS' HUNTING JOURNAL and my season is over
and I wanted to share with you what's in my pack now this is not gonna be
comprehensive well we're gonna go through there's all the main parts of
what's inside this pack so let's get started and talk about this pack first
this is the Eberlestock Big Top pack this pack packed out an elk
and a mule deer this year as well as went scouting with me on two different
occasions and it performed very well the biggest reason I like this pack so I'm a
tall guy Eberlestock makes several options for tall guys and this is one of
them it's a style of pack where it's a big bag attached to an internal frame
that gives me functional shoulder lift functional shoulder lift is key for a
guy like me along with the belt that fits comfortably stays right here on my
waist that's why I picked the big top primarily next reason is I like this
panel loader the next piece that I like about it there's plenty of ways to strap
it down now let's take a trip inside my pack and find out what I took with me
this year on the 2018 hunting season
alright guys so here is all of the clothing that I have inside my pack now
most of my hunting would be considered mid to late season I'll start around
September 15th when the snow can start to fall and it really starts to get wet
all the way to that early November depending on the deer season or how the
elk season is playing out and with that I'll encounter a variety of things so at
any given point you may find me without one of these pieces or up to all of them
just kind of really depending on how the season is playing out so I'm gonna start
with some basics first of all I always have extra base layer underwear you get
wet sometimes you want to change it out that's important in the mid to late
season you start getting cold from the outside and most often this is one of
those things that gets overlooked a lot of times people don't don't change this
if you need to sometimes just one of the ways that you can actually stay warm
also changing out your merino base layers I use the core series from Sitka
that's exactly what this is so another piece what comes along with me I have
the liner gloves also of my thick gloves okay I've got my cold front gloves that
I wear with me just about all the time my hands get cold regularly that's you
know just nature everybody has their own their own issues with their clothing
system my hands get cold okay so I always want to make sure that my hands
are covered bringing these liner gloves from citko along makes a huge difference
in being able to keep my hands warm so those are always inside my pack next
piece is a favorite that I discovered last year those of you that followed
along on the Instagram story and saw me wearing this this was like one of my
favorite clutch pieces that I have this is the Kelvin Light Active jacket it is
I can't I can't speak highly enough about it it's just enough insulation to
keep you warm when you stop to sit in glass but then it also breathes and it
makes sure that you're not going to feel like a wet dog when you sit down because
you're not you're not completely soaked it's not insulation holding in all your
sweat there the next piece there we have is my Cloudburst rain jacket this is a
go-to piece that I use it is always in my pack a few years ago I quit carrying
soft-sell gel jackets with me because most of these breathable rain gear
systems function exactly the same and most of the time you don't when you're
being really active you're gonna wear something like the Kelvin Active jacket
you're not going to wear your softshell all the time because you're gonna start
sweating those don't breathe as well this function is exactly the same way
breaking the wind so you may as well cut the weight there then I also have a mid
layer insulation this is also the piece that we are giving away with our gift
subscription this year this is the core mid-weight t polygiene material it's
synthetic it dries very well is one of my favourite pieces I've worn it now for
about two years and it's it's fantastic I can't speak highly enough for its
weight to warmth ratio so that's one of the reasons I was in there especially
once I get passed out October 1st October 5th on timeframe because
generally the snow kind of comes in phases I'm sure most of you have seen
this tends to work really well as the ground starts to freeze and it gets
colder about 10,000 feet the next piece that I have is the Kelvin Down Hoodie
but this year you'll notice on Sitka's website a WS label which stands for wind
stopper this jacket is clutch when you're at your glassing point at the
very top looking for deer elk and you find it and there's wind stopper there
material that will take care of you and make sure that you are not going to get
frozen out on the very top of the hill so it's time to move on let's talk about
personal hygiene and your safety
I'm gonna start here with this because I'm a firm believer that one of the best
things you can do when you get cold get warm food inside of you so I will always
have some form or fashion of stove with me now the reason I am including this is
because this is the stove that Ike and I used on our mule deer hunt where we have
llamas so weight was a little less of a consideration but I brought this with I
hauled it all over but it has enough power to cook really quick for the both
of us and so that's why I chose this MSR Windboiler stove to bring along for the
majority of my hunts this year functioned very well for two people and
you can find options that are a lot lighter I've got a Jet Boil that I bring
along that is just for me that I use now you always have to make sure you have a
lighter with this this is not one you're going to be able to light without it so
you got to have a lighter to make that function and so some of them have an
option that gets you that but I'm gonna recommend that you bring a lighter
anyway next piece is this is my first aid kit if you're really interested in
seeing what's in this first aid kit and all the different pieces I'll gladly do
a whole video on it comment and let us know that's the type of material you
want otherwise I'm not going to bore you with the first-aid kit you can read an
article on backcountry safety first-aid kits and preparedness by Mike Glover and
the most recent issue of EASTMANS' BOWHUNTING JOURNAL now the next piece of
safety that I like to talk about is water filtration everyone jokes about
getting the beaver fever or the issues that you can have getting that bacteria
into your system you'll never get rid of it so I bring along a filter the vast
majority of the time and the reason for that is I know the conditions and I
repeat hunt places because when you know a place you know where the animals are
going to be so that's just my mentality a lot of guys hunt state to stay in
different places a filter is going to be able to take care of you more often than
the other methods of filtering your water droplets you have to have a way to
get the water into a container this takes a puddle and can get it into your
water containment system and you can see I use a MSR dromedary bag I've replaced
the lid with a regular Nalgene lid I've just that's the only piece that I
was able to get to to leak a little bit and I made this work in a pinch and so
the next piece of my safety equipment was I always have a gun cleaning kit and
this is a 30 caliber gun cleaning kit is really it's really lightweight and worth
the wait I went hunting with a friend who's actually a Special Forces operator
he brought this along and he got his rifle dirty my rifle got dirty I had no
way of cleaning it pulls this thing out he runs it through the barrel my gun is
ready to go I was a believer ever since so this is worth the weight penalty in
my mind and chances are you're going to have more than one guy in camp with the
either the same caliber or a 30 caliber rifle of some kind next up is when it
comes to safety equipment you always want to have a headlamp that is easy to
use and so I've got the Coast Seventy-Five FLR here and this has
become an office favorite we tested this a SHOT show last year got to see it for
the first time and just about every one of us here has put it through the paces
we've used it at multiple scenarios and we really love this headlamp this is on
the blog so we'll put that in the description of this video you could read
a review where we've got this on blog.eastmans.com and if you want to see
more more in depth review of some of this equipment we'll put it through the
paces on Youtube if you guys want to hear that so leave some comments if
that's something that you want to do next piece that I have is this is all my
food usually you want to have about 3,500 calories that's sitting in here
then I always have some type of freeze-dried meal another company that I
really like is Off-Grid food company this is Mountain House they make some
great meals some great entrees that you can use that'll really get you heated up
use this to get yourself heated up in those late season hunts because you
don't want to get cold your internal your internal system is a furnace will
get you warm so next I want to talk about what I use for my sleep system
this year now this isn't the end-all be-all there are multiple sleep systems
out there that you can use that are very functional that do very well and if you
want to see what some of the rest of the team here at Eastmans' is used go check
out blog.eastmans.com and I'll put another link in our description of this
video where you can see all the sleeping bags and the sleeping pads that we test
it out for 2018 and you can get a good idea of how they
perform but I'm gonna talk about the ones that I personally use and test it
out if you want to see more of that again leave comment let us know what you
want to see us review here on YouTube so first I'm gonna start with a sleeping
bag we got this sleeping bag from Therm-a-rest it is the Parsec 20 degrees and you
can see that right there and I was really impressed with the sleeping bag
this year I never got cold and I did hunt on some very cold conditions that's
also why I use this Therm-a-rest NeoAir 4 season bag and you can see you've got
the fast release we use this and we we tried blowing it up I was more
comfortable using this than this for blowing up I just felt like the foam the
focused energy right here worked a little better than this system but you
can try it you can blow into this guy and it'll work but it worked really good
for draining out all the air really quick and this is this is a four season
sleeping pad and so it worked very well worked down to some really cold
conditions and in conjunction with this and then my Kelvin down hoody wrapped
around my head used as a pillow I never got cold this year worked really well
finally what stops the rain from hitting me this year well I had several options
from Seek Outside this is the Red Cliff this is what I can I used on our mule
deer hunt and also on our week-long scouting trip where we located some of
the deer that we hunted and it functioned very well it is a teepee
style shelter even though it's got um it's got more of a rectangular footprint
than a round footprint like a lot of the teepee shelters do this thing shed the
wind incredibly one other thing I do want to say is there are several great
options out there as far as some double walled tents if you are not the
floorless type person I would recommend taking a look at some of the Hilleberg
options those those tents are bomb-proof shelters and if you are incredibly hard
on your gear I would definitely spend the money on the Hilleberg it's worth
looking into those tents to round out the gear that is a lot of times in my
pack or on my person because I don't want to say that obviously these were in
my buying a harness I use an outdoor vision
by no harness this year almost exclusively and it worked really well
but I had my Zulu Nines with me they worked incredibly well for spotting
some mule deer at distance they they held up really well I was really
impressed with the edge-to-edge clarity as well as the low-light condition
performance so if you're thinking about that that's a great option that's out
there there are some other obviously fantastic optics options but this is
just what I use this year so take that you know into consideration as you look
at it the next thing is these are one of the big you know if you get on any forum
and asked about rangefinder the Sig is going to be what a lot of people are
talking about this is the BDX model I did not have a BDX scope on my rifle
this year they will work without your BDX scope like it doesn't have to be
paired with it to work this works as a functional rangefinder and it worked
incredibly well again I'm hitting a lot on Ike and I's mule deer hunt in fact if you
want to hear that story listen to Eastmans' Elevated we talked about our
experience with llamas how that worked and then we also recap my hunt with
Brian Barney so if you want to hear how you know how we range the deer and the
elevation and things like that on how this thing performed that's a great
place to go do it next up on cold-weather hunts later in the season I
will always have a spare set of socks with me now these socks are you know
they're always gonna be the wool variety and there's a there's a lot of great
options out there but I always have extra wool socks with me because your
feet get wet and one of the easiest ways to get them dry really quick change it
out open up your boots change out and get your feet dry especially if you've
got a lot of snow a lot of rain a lot of ice you're gonna want to do that because
feet get cold you get cold that's just the nature how things work so next piece
is if you are in area that has a lot of changing conditions as far as ice being
they're on your walk in and walk out I like micro spikes these are a great
option that we've written several reviews on you look back in the journal
a few years and see these but when it starts to get really cold
I wear the micro spikes regular and they have saved me on more than one
occasion I was able to walk out actually a creek bed that had frozen up on me
that was like sheer almost on both sides I was able to walk on just frozen rock
basically if I hadn't had them I'd have been slipping like crazy next up is my
ammunition I always have a almost full box of ammunition beside was in my
magazine no I don't hike with one in the chamber
okay safety rule basic hunter safety thing you don't put one in the chamber
till you're ready to fire at an animal - ready - you know take that shot but I
always have enough with me the reason why I always have enough with me is I
don't care how good a shot you are you can have a bad day and knowing that you
have an opportunity even with a little extra weight then knowing that you have
that reassurance that oh man I've been gonna run out of ammunition if I take
one more shot you don't need that pressure make sure you have enough with
you and so that rounds out what's in my pack like I said this is not
comprehensive we could go through a lot of other little things but that is the
essentials of what is in my pack now here's I want to do I want all of you
who are avid youtube users to tag your buddy
who need some help figuring out what to put in his backcountry pack I know a lot
of you are heading into your either your first backcountry hunt or you're doing
your research on it tag a buddy in the comments who needs to see this video we
are going to list five of you and then we are going to put one of you in a
drawing for a hoodie just like this one and a subscription and so we will
announce the winner in the comments and we will private message you via YouTube
and make sure you have subscribed to the EASTMANS' HUNTING JOURNAL YouTube channel
and be watching for more tips and tactics just like this