Ok. So on the topic of the "all day sits" and one of the best way to get through is packing a lunch... at least for me. As I get older I have discovered a few much needed items for a long cold day in a tree: Tree umberella, linemans belt, coffee in thermos and what not. Anyhow. I was thinking how great this items have made my life lately and thought about a hot lunch while in stand. Any ideas of what best to put into a thermos and have for lunch? Years of cold sandwiches, granola bars and such may give way to hot soups, stews or spaghetti. What have you guys done in years past?
Does anyone else do freeze dried meals? Stole one from the elk hunting playbook...only issue is that I have to climb down from my lone wolf to prepare it, which more or less takes me out of the hunt for 15 - 20 minutes.
French baguette, pepperoni, cheese of choice. Nuke it. Wrap it in foil. Wrap that in a hand towel. Wrap it again in foil. Stuff it in your pack.
The cheese will still be melted when you're ready for lunch, which, let's be honest, is at 10 AM. Add mustard packets if you want.
It's amazing. I did it this season, adopted from my back country sandwich. Try it. It's good.
The hand towel is still warm and you can use it to wipe your hands/face after and wipe your nose the rest of the day while it runs. I just used the hotel's hand towel.
Make two 'relish' sandwiches. Boil four weenies along with a cube of beef bullion. Put the four weenies and the broth from the weenie boil into a Thermos. At lunch, simply separate the relish sandwiches and wrap one piece of bread around each weenie;...wash it all down with the hot beef broth. Not healthy...but really good and its a hot lunch!
I made a freeze dried once on the seat of a lone wolf hand climber with a small backpacking alcohol stove. It was kind of a cluster F and don't think I would do it again. Plus, it was really good and had a tough time staying awake after a hot lunch.
My go-to meal is: Wide-mouth thermos (Yeti), 4 hotdogs, boiling water, and two beef bouillon packets. Pack a plastic fork and napkins in a ziplock. Second ziplock contains 3-4 small tortillas. Add a small bottle of mustard to the lunch sack.
I heading back home or to the restaurant or better yet the bar for lunch. I shot my first deer in 1965 and over all those years I have never found doing all day sits to result in more deer kills. Now in a duck blind a nice bacon and egg breakfast with hot coffee is the bomb.
Thermos of coffee/hot chocolate mix, peanut butter sandwiches on hearty whole grain bread. And make three, you'll probably eat two before 9 AM ;-) In cold weather you'll burn calories like a nitro funny car, no need to skimp. A ziplock of cookies, couple candy bars, gorp (trail mix). Doesn't hurt to bring extra, you can share with a buddy.
Thermos and stew, chili, ramen. But don't add the ramen in the morning. They'll be caterpillars by lunch time and you've got no water left. Don't ask me how I know.
A little different angle but if things are slow in the treestand or duck blind nothing brings the critters in like breaking out a whole pile of crap, spreading it out, lighting a fire and cooking something. I swear it brings something into shooting distance every time! Then I usually spill my hot food or drink!!! And the critters leave unscathed!
Nothing very interesting or innovative for me. When I have brought something hot in a thermos, besides coffee, it was soup. Sure warms me up and stays hot well in my regular thermos, especially if I prep it right by filling it with boiling water beforehand and emptying it right before putting in the hot soup. Goes well with a sandwich and some trail mix, too, and maybe an apple.
Stanley wide mouth thermos and a can of Chunky Soup. Pre-heat thermos (with boiling water) and get soup to a rolling boil. Will stay warm for up to 8 hrs. 6 is usually perfect where you don't have to wait for it to cool to eat. Much easier than bringing a stove or even MRE's.
Really cold all day sits I have just boiled water for my morning coffee and oatmeal before leaving camp and poored the remainder of boiling water into a mountian house packet. I then wrap the packet up in a towel and then in my warmest clothes and bury it in the bottom of my pack during the hike to my stand. I put on the now warm clothes at the base of the tree. Then leave the towel around the mountain house in the bottom of my pack. by 10am it's still plenty warm and tasty. Been doing this for a few years now. works for me.
In all honesty by noon when it's cold my fingers wouldn't work well enough to do a MH meal or something. Last week while sitting the temps were 3F and windchills in excess of -22F. Unless you experience it it's a hard thing to describe to someone.
Every text you send out is like a 10 minute deliberation in my mind about checking my phone. Is it really worth that heat loss to the hands? Because once you lose it - it NEVER comes back! Do I REALLY need to videotape this small 8 walking by with my phone? The only saving grace is rattling every 1.5-2 hours. That's the only time a guy can start winning back in the war of heat loss to the fingers. But 20 seconds of swinging doesn't win you too much...
I do usually try and chug water before I head in and if I need to pee right away I'll save it for a couple hours because pissing off the stand warms up my fingers a bit, and oddly my core a bit as well. If a guy spaces his urinations and rattling in optimal time increments you might even last 5-6 hours! lol
A Canadian was just about to walk out of the washroom in a Texas bar. Texan says to him “sonny, here in Texas, our mamas taught us to wash our hands after we pee”
Canadian says. “In Canada our mamas just taught us not to piss on our hands.”
I tested the Ozark Trail vacuum bottle from Wal-Mart this year (YETI wanna-be). I was impressed as it kept coffee hot all day. I'm sure it would work for soup etc but haven't tried.
Over the hundreds of years of cold winters wearing thick clothing, Canadian men have evolved the necessary physical length to allow easy urination. We simply unwrap enough coils to meet the situation, being carefull not to drop a loop on a cold treestand.
I’m sure you southern boys have similarly adapted to you thin Bermuda shorts.