Unless you’re on a gentleman’s hunt, spotting and shooting game from a motorised vehicle, you’ll need a pack full of gear, food and a rifle. Everyone has a slightly different way of organising their packs depending on personal preference, season, mission duration and objective.

For this article, I’ll be focusing on how I pack for a three- to four-day spring hunting mission. Most of the information provided is from my own experience and personal preference. Furthermore, I’m no pack expert, so take what I say as guidelines and suggestions only and integrate what you think would work best for you. Individualisation is a must when it comes to squaring away a hunting pack for any mission.

Layering/Accessibility

Layering a pack does come down to the pack you’re using and how accessible the lower, middle and top thirds are. For me, I love a pack with three points of entry, as this allows easy stowing and removal of gear. The Osprey Aether 85L pack is my go-to and has been for many years. Any pack around the 70-90L capacity is excellent for three- to four-day spring hunting missions. It’s always better to have more room for gear and meat than dealing with a ‘sardines in a can’ pack situation.

In the main compartment, I break things down into three layers. The bottom third is for sleeping quarters, middle third for clothing and top for food/cooking utensils. Although some say you should always have your heaviest items at the top of your pack to help with load comfort, this just doesn’t float my boat due to not wanting my food items to be crushed at the bottom of my pack. Additionally, I like having my food in the top third for easy access.

The good thing about my Osprey pack and those with similar designs is you’re able to access the middle third using a main compartment U-shaped zipper. This means when the ambient air temperature and/or precipitation levels change, garments can be extracted or stored away without having to pull either your food or camp gear out. Layering your pack like this only works effectively if you have three points of access into the main compartment.

Shooting Position

My pack isn’t solely for carrying all my hunting food and gear; it’s also my shooting platform.

Sidetracking slightly, I don’t like using bipods at all, because I don’t believe they offer a 100% consistent shooting platform. Bipods can be heavily affected by loading and surface tension, hence if one or both these factors are in play, your shots can either be bang on or missing by a mile. That’s why I like shooting off my pack – it gives me 100% consistency and relatively negates the need to thoroughly monitor how much forward pressure/loading you need on the rifle and how good your rifle’s surface tension is. When the pressure is extremely high, you want as many constants as you can get so that the shot hits its target every time.

Due to the fact my bottom third (sleeping gear: tent and sleep mat) is always solid and compact, I use this area of my pack as the rifle forend placement spot. For rear support, which is an absolute must if you want reliable rounds on target, I use my sleeping bag (located next to my sleep mattress and easily accessible for shooting via the inverted U-shaped zip). To manage surface tension on my pack, I use a textured rubber sling made by Slogan Outdoors in America.

Ultimately, the proof is in the pudding. Can you perform when the pressure is high, the family needs meat and the walls need memories? This pack shooting system has allowed me to shoot some absolutely ripper animals and put kilograms upon kilograms of meat in the freezer. If you’re going to take one thing away from this section, always use rear support!

Meat Storage

Seeing as spring is a good time to catch those hungry animals tucking into the lush new growth, carrying the meat out is going to be a high priority. How I do that is largely dependent on what pack I’m using.

If my Osprey pack is in operation, meat is always stored in the bottom third of my pack and everything else is pushed upwards. This is simply due to not wanting blood soaking through all my gear. Yes, game bags do help prevent blood from going everywhere, but because they’re designed to breathe, which is important to stop meat spoiling, they eventually allow blood to drip through.

Side note: never use rubbish bags for meat storage, especially in late spring/summer, as they’ll cause a lot of the meat to spoil.

In the pack department, another option I have is to use a modular system that has a meat shelf. Hunters Element’s Arete pack system is one I use for carrying out loads of meat. The beauty about a meat shelf is the ability to carry a lot more meat without having to shift your pack around – and it allows far greater ongoing cooling of the meat as you walk out. If you’re a passionate meat hunter, then I highly recommend you invest in a modular pack system!

Filming

At all times of the year, including spring, I like to capture the beauty of our mountain ranges, rivers and game animals. Most of my camera gear – along with other electrical devices like my smartphone, GoPro Hero 7 Black, head torch (SEO7R) and spare batteries – is kept in the detachable daypack. If it’s not raining, my Lumix ZX80 (good camera but I don’t like the nonadjustable LCD screen) is kept in an open camera bag, which allows for quick access, especially if a dream photo opportunity presents itself – e.g., if a red deer or chamois pops up at 40 metres. My ball-headed carbon fibre tripod is kept either strapped to the side of my pack or in the front left zipped pocket. Quick access is the goal here!

For those looking at getting into filming their hunts, I highly recommend buying/using a ball-headed tripod, which makes getting shots of scenery and game animals so much easier. You certainly don’t want to be missing golden filming opportunities on a moving game animal because your tripod is a pain to adjust!

Food and Water

Nutrition for me at any time of the year, including spring, is about two things: energy and morale. At a basic level, calories from food (carbs, fats and protein) give you energy, which in turn, fuels movement. To perform well, your body needs as many calories in as those going out. You can get away with caloric deficit if you’re travelling slowly; however, if you need to climb, carbohydrates are your best and only friend. This is because above 70-80% of your max heart rate, your body can only use carbohydrates to operate. Essentially, it’s a game of supply and demand. If you don’t meet the demand, then expect fatigue to set in and a lowering of intensity (heart rate).

With that being said, on a four-day spring mission that usually has between 1300-1600m of climbing, I pack in plenty of snacks like chocolate, biscuits, flavoured crackers and potato chips. As a general rule of thumb, I’d have one packet of each of those per day, because the more carbohydrate-rich snacks you have, the better you’ll perform on those big climbs. For breakfast and dinner, I typically go for a calorie-dense dehydrated or freeze-dried meal like Radix’s 800cal meals. I’ve found these meals are the best way to get the energy supply as close to optimal as possible. Radix meals are expensive though, so at times I’ll sacrifice carrying a little extra weight for saving a few bucks and pack in some tuna in olive oil and some ready-to-eat meals/soups. The beauty about fats is they have four times more energy than carbohydrates gram for gram. The only downside is that fats can’t support energy demands above 70-80%. Another breakfast option I choose is putting together a mix of sunflower, pumpkin, flax and chia seeds, granola and cocoa puffs. Depending on the type of mission, I’ll either pack some UHT milk, milk powder or just boil up some water.

Going back to the snacks and point made about morale … Throughout the week, I eat pretty ‘clean’, so come my days off, I’m frothing to eat some ‘junk’ food! I genuinely look forward to going bush so I can eat some chocolatey goodness or pop open a bag of potato chips. Food is morale, that’s for sure!

Waterwise, I use a 2L water bladder made by Platypus. Where possible, the goal is to carry as little water as possible in order to save weight. In spring, there’s usually plenty of water around, and if you’re up high, snow is readily available for melting. Each day, the goal is to drink 40mls of water per kg of body weight. I’m around 82kgs, so for me that number is 3.28L. If you’re interested in how to maintain adequate hydration, Google “urine colour chart”. This is the easiest and most individualised way to tell if you’re adequately hydrated.

To carry in the right number of calories is always going to be difficult when you’re burning 3000-4000 a day, which is a lot of food. My advice for a three- to four-day spring mission is to have fat- and protein-rich breakfast/dinner meals and consume high-carbohydrate snacks throughout each day. This’ll help to limit the caloric deficit and fuel performance when it matters.

Camp and Clothing

Come the start of spring, temperatures are usually still low, and four seasons in one day is still a possibility. That’s why I usually stick with a 4-season tent when hunting at the start of spring. They offer greater protection from the elements and higher internal ambient air temperature. In recent years, I’ve been using the MSR Access 2, which comes in at around 2kgs and performs exceptionally when bad weather hits. The only downside to this tent is the condensation issue on the tub floor and thermal inner.

Later in spring, I’ll use either a one- or two-person, 3-season tent like the Big Agnes Fly Creek 1 or Copper Spur 2, which come in at around 1.0kgs and 1.5kgs respectively.

Getting a good night’s sleep in the mountains is critical for performance and enjoyment. To help get some quality sleep cycles in the hills, I use a Nemo Astro large sleeping mat, Thermarest Vesper Quilt, Sea to Summit thermal liner and a custom-made memory foam pillow. Additionally, I use a Sea to Summit pillow as my knee pillow – a game changer for side sleepers! Lastly, always have a mesh inner for whatever shelter you’re using if you hunt in the South Island; spring is when the sandflies come back to life!

When it comes to clothing choice in spring, it largely comes down to whether it’s early or late spring. Temperature and precipitation are my key directors as to what garments I take into the hills. I’ll always have a base layer of either cotton, wool and/or synthetic followed by a polar fleece mid-layer. On the outside, I use a whole bunch of 650+ loft goose/duck-and-synthetic-down jackets.

An obscure thing I do is not take a rain jacket into the hills at any time of the year. Instead, I pack in and wear a synthetic down jacket made by Ridgeline: the Microtech Puffa. There are two reasons I do this. The first is to save weight/volume from having to carry a separate rain jacket, and second, I’d rather be wet and warm. Conventional rain jackets have very little insulation value, which means you have to wear a mid-layer to stay warm, especially at the start of spring, whereas synthetic down keeps you warm while you’re wet. Trust me, this setup works well in really wet spring hunting grounds!

Summary

Spring is a great ‘shoulder’ season to hunt with very few periods of high interest like the Roar, Bugle, Croak, and tahr and chamois ruts. Making it an enjoyable experience, in part, comes down to how you structure and what you put in your pack. Optimising your pack for a spring mission will require some trial and error.

In saying that, I recommend auditing your pack set-up and asking yourself, “Is this the best way to do things?”

The key metrics I always look at are accessibility, functionality and performance. Get those three metrics all sorted and you’re likely to up your chances of having a successful and enjoyable spring hunt.

Lastly, it goes without saying that personal preference is a huge factor, and your pack set-up shouldn’t deviate too much from season to season. The only major changes should come from the type of tent used, number of warm garments taken and gear (e.g., crampons, ice axes, etc.)

Hopefully this article has provided some food for thought. All the best for those spring missions!