Packs are made to organize your gear, but they sometimes need a little help.
We all have different ways to doing things, as well as our own set of preferences when it comes to how we hunt and the gear we use.
One thing that seems universal is the more organized you are, the better you can handle the curveballs the hunting gods inevitably throw your way.
I have an unhealthy obsession about hunting packs, often switching from one to another in an effort to have the perfect pack for each situation. Spoiler alert: the perfect hunting pack doesn’t exist because every hunt is different.
That said, there are things you can do better organize your pack, and that organization will help you whether you use the same pack all season or if you switch based on the conditions or weapon used on a given outing.
One of the best things I’ve seen for organizing a hunting pack is to have a success kit in a smaller, soft-sided pouch inside your pack.
Mine is a zippered pouch that contains field-dressing gloves, a folding knife, a pelvic bone saw (I use a wire saw that packs down to nothing), a few zip ties to secure tags to a deer leg or ear, an all-weather pen, trail marking ribbon (for marking a blood trail), and a small AA flashlight. I keep the flashlight in there because I don’t want to have to rely on the same light I use to walk in the dark. It’s best to not install the batteries in that spare light until you need to use it.
Not only does having such a kit keep those items from flopping around in my pack, the pouch makes it super handy to just grab one small, light item that contains everything I need to track, field-dress and tag a buck.
The one I use was made by Fieldline, but it doesn’t seem to be in production any longer. The good news is there are plenty of other choices out there. You can pay anywhere from $8 to $40 at the major pack manufacturers or from Amazon.
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