hey guys Dan Pickar here with Eastman's bow hunting journal and hunting journal and Beyond The Grid TV
make sure you watch your beyond the grids got some awesome episodes out this year but we're
out here today we're going to do a pack dump what do I carry in the woods uh the elk woods
in particular so let's take a look okay we have the F1 Mainframe and attached to it today we
have the vapor 2500 bag from Eberlestock once again there's so many different options this is
a modular design so you can attach bat wings you could run with a satchel like a top I have that
here as well if I want to go ultra light I'll put my stuff in here take the vapor bag off and
put my tripod my Spotter and everything I need for the day in here that's like if you're just
skimping running and gunning maybe it's a short hunt or an evening hunt I want to go as light as
possible that's when I use the satchel but for like a normal day hunt if I'm truck hunting if
I'm hunting out of a camp that has you know all my my stuff back at camp then I'll run this Vapor
pack maybe during late season if it's colder I need more clothes I'll run the vapor pack
um but it just kind of depends I like many different combinations
so first thing with this F1 is you have the horizontal straps there's three of them
that keeps everything contained and then we're into the bag so this outer zipper I like
to put things in here that I I want quick here's my phone charger here's an elk call
my diaphragms I got a few diaphragms in here I might put my phone in here just
stuff I need to access quickly maybe a granola bar open up the pack let's turn it like this
I always have an extra shell depending on the the time of year of the hunt maybe it's early
season I'll just bring a light piece of rain gear or a light jacket if it's later season
I'll bring a puffy mid-season I'll bring a puffy or you know some sort of outer shell in addition
to a puffy but I always have an extra jacket I like the puffies because they're so light
and packable usually what I'll do is I'll wrap my spotting scope in my puffy and that's how I roll
with it when I'm traveling through country just to protect it a little bit so I have my spotter
and I always have a first aid kit growing up as a Boy Scout and I had some some hunters
that I took back when I used to guide there were surgeons and doctors and stuff and they
really hooked me up and I made this first aid kit you'll never know what you're going to
run into in the back country or in the front country out elk hunting but if you do injure
yourself where you run across somebody that's injured you want to have everything that you
you're going to need now I won't carry this every day if I'm doing a quick evening hunt
or something or I'm close to camp I'm going to leave this at camp just to save weight but first
aid kit's very important next I have game bags these ova sacks they're pretty cool they're
really lightweight and they're they're very very compact like I just got done using this
I mean you're going to have to bone your elk out but that's like one of their standard meat sacks
and I just like them because they're so compact once again I like to ounce count I like to cut
weight where I can but I have four bags in here plus like a camp meat bag which for you
know back straps tenderloins uh things of that nature just a little bit smaller so have those
I have my Smalls bag in this this is where I have my Keel kit my headlamp I got this
Peaks headlamp I like it I've got I always bring electrical tape that's always with me
I always bring a couple pairs of gloves I have two pairs of rubber gloves for cleaning
I'm not really worried about disease or catching something from a deer or an elk
but I just like that the cleanliness Factor especially if I'm in Bear Country it's nice
to be able to take these gloves off and have relatively clean hands so I don't have to scrub
fat and blood and stuff off your hands in the creek and like fat from an elk or or a deer it
really sticks to your hands and it takes a lot of scrubbing to get it off so I always bring gloves
a lighter is always with me these things are a lifesaver the potential to be a lifesaver I
like red needles for a fire starter so anytime I'm hunting anywhere out west for the most part
you're going to find red needles or red Juniper bows or something that's dead but those red
needles are are very flammable and probably my my favorite fire starter in the back country
of course a knife and an extra blade the lighter the better and then I'll bring
a sharpener to depending sometimes I bring a sharpener sometimes I just bring an extra blade
I also have water purification tablets I've used these quite a bit it's just an iodine
tablet with a neutralizer they're so lightweight and small so that's what I like about them the
downside is is you have to wait for 30 minutes before your water is purified you can also use
a steri pin you know that UV light is handy too and nice and lightweight and compact but I've
completely gone away from like pumps in the back country too bulky I just rather not carry them so
once again there's inconveniences of these but I've just I've kind of used them and I've stuck
to them and I've never gotten sick and so I just always have these in my pack for whatever reason
not for whatever reason but you don't want to get giardia in the backcountry and depending
on the weather have this kryptek backpack cover just like a waterproof system and I
usually bring this to if the weather gets nasty maybe the camera guy forgot his then we wrap the
camera in this to keep it dry so yeah just a simple backpack cover bag of food um it varies
what I take for food but I have a Ziploc bag full of food that I bring with me all the time
um nuts granola bars meal bars these uh Recon one MRE bars are good a lot of calories uh with 260
calories in this and it weighs like nothing so that's handy always have some candy some
Snickers stuff like that more granola bars I like to bring you know like salmon or tuna packets and
have crackers for lunch something like that kind of you know lighter weight it's not heavy food but
you're getting a lot of good quality nutrition you're getting your protein so that's handy and
then I have lots of nuts and seeds I bring I like almonds I bring those but my favorite pound for
pound ounce for ounce food is roasted and salted sunflower kernels these are ready to eat tons of
fat in these good fat 15 grams of fat 180 calories and a quarter of a cup that's like a mouthful so
that right there 180 calories
and this is energy that sticks with you for a long time
that's why I like it you have carbohydrates the fats when you're up in the mountains
burning that energy this is huge gotta have my sunflower kernels
now
that's about it I want to keep it nice and light I keep my water on the outside that's
what I like about this vapor pack that has pouches on the outside so I keep my
water in there I might put you know a bigger bottle of water you know inside the pack but
I always have two bottles plus like a Gatorade or a Powerade so this is like what I need for the
day to not get dehydrated if I'm doing an evening hunt I'll just bring a quart cruise out and this
is going to keep me good for the evening it also depends on what there is for water in the country
that I'm in if I'm deer hunting I'm probably going to bring more bottles with me because
there's less water into deer country especially the high country but for elk hunting there's
usually going to be water around elk like water it seems like where you find elk you find water so I
might just bring one of these for the day and then I'll just sterilize some water you know when I
run low it's always good to carry two though because you can purify one bottle and you
still have other water to drink and so you can rotate off that's if you're using the pills
so something to keep in mind there now the cool thing about this I have all my stuff
in here P chord in here always bring parachute cord never know when you'll need some cordage
so I'm going to put everything back in and be sure to you know to have a tripod as
well for your spotting scope when I'm you know getting digi scope footage and I'm setting the
spotter up I just borrow the tripod from the camera guy and I throw the spotter on this so
that just alleviates having to carry another tripod and if you're back country hunting
you know it comes in handy because this is a nice sturdy quality tripod and I can get nice
solid digi scoping footage on this tripod I do have a packable small carbon tripod too that I'll
bring if I'm ounce counting or we don't have a tripod for the day or whatever the case may be
it's in the truck but it might not always bring it but in reality it's too small for this spotter
but it works if you need it in a pinch so this is the tripod I use and sometimes I carry it
sometimes the camera guy is carrying it but it just spreads out the weight because this
thing kind of is heavy so those poor camera guys they carry a lot of weight out there so I like to
help them out when I can carry their tripod for 'em okay so get everything back back in the vapor bag
some water
elk bugle I'll throw this onto the outside clip it on have it somewhere on the outside where it's
handy I rarely put it in the bag just because you want it accessible that's the biggest reason
so that stays on the outside okay so this is why I like the main frame say I just killed
a bull and I want to take a load of meat to camp that night I don't want to have a wasted trip or
have you know a situation where I can't bring you know meat out that night and save myself a
trip the next day so what makes the Mainframe cool is the modular system you just unzip
the pack
you take the bag off
so the bag's independent put that to the side and then I can lay my hindquarter on here buckle it in
like that
and have my hindquarter buckled in and then I can strap strap my bag onto the outside of that
and get a big load down to camp in one fell swoop so okay so if I want to run ultra light
I'll put everything in this satchel that I need for the day
and I I find myself I I use the satchel quite a bit you'll see in a lot of my
episodes running this way so I'm going to put a quart of water and this is for like an evening
hunt this isn't like a multi-day hunt I'll leave this probably leave my first aid kit
headlamp food bag
game bags
bring my extra jacket I'll show you what I do with this
and lastly my Smalls bag with my knife
and if I have the room I'll fit another bottle in which usually you can fit another bottle in
so what I'll do here now
is I have the satchel and I'll lay this
across the top and
depending on if I'm carrying the tripod I may or may not be I'll wrap
my spotter in my jacket
and just bundle this up and then cinch it down onto the Mainframe
you have that load shelf down here it's not going to slide around as long as you have
that good strapage on there you're going to be in good shape it's not going to go anywhere
so I use one strap for the spotter down low one strap for the satchel up top and if I'm using
if I'm carrying the tripod with my spotter I'll use this middle strap on the Mainframe
oops I gotta get it out of here now
I'll use the middle strap to come around the top I can attach my bugle I can attach
my bow if I want to if I don't want to carry my bow or whatever the case may be
and on days that I use this sort of pack I might just like bring an outer shell like a raincoat and
in addition to the puffy and that'll help keep my puffy waterproof if the weather does come in but
that's my ultralight setup right there and this weighs nothing this is probably like 15 pounds
and so if you're running and gunning or you're making a quick day trip or you have plenty of
water up there like I'll I could run with this all day and I do that a fair amount if I know I have
water I have my purification pills with me I'll run like this all day and leave the heavy stuff
at camp maybe I'll bring like a small portion of my first aid kit with me um you know some tape
and Band-Aids and maybe some gauze and keep it very small but this heavy stuff stays at camp so
and that gives you the power too to once again you kill something then you attach
your meat to it and then you got your game bags there and then you can strap
you know this onto the outside I'll even buckle this around the top
quarter of an elk quarter you know the bone that's sticking out and strapping in tight and it'll suck
it down and be tight right there so pretty slick setup that way too so hope that helped there's my
elk pack dump for 2022. I feel like it changes so much it depends on the season I'm hunting whether
it's early mid or late and the species I'm hunting but for elk I always have the Mainframe with me