Contributors to this thread:
If we get some bad weather what do you guys reccomend to pass the time? Read, movies, or what? What to download? We are all pretty aggressive so a little weather wont stop us but if it gets to bad... its Alaska
I’m a podcast guy. I enjoy books but like plugging in headphones and listening to hunting related podcasts. MeatEater, Tyler Freel Tundra Talk (since you’re in Alaska), Hunting Collective is decent as is Rich Outdoors. I like listening to Randy Newberg from time to time. Kifarucast is one of my favorites.
I guess if you have Netflix, download all the available MeatEater episodes. I’m not sure how amazon prime works but they have a lot of Solo Hunter and Fresh Tracks as well.
Books- as always Sand County Almanac to pass time. Rinella’s “American Buffalo” is a freaking incredible read and it’s also Alaska based.
I like a book (in a ziplock bag) like Crow Killer - Jeremiah Johnson.
Sleep, eat, enjoy the nasty weather. I like reading in the evening anyhow. Lots of downtime in moose camp without bad weather.
Last year the first 5 days were solid wind and rain. Moose were not moving. My hunting partner had movies downloaded for evening entertainment. I had a good book. But we were too hard headed to stay out of the weather. A lightweight tarp to sit under to call and glass from. A small thermos for coffee. Were like gold. Once the weather broke the moose were covering a lot of ground.
I’ve started downloading 2-3 books on my phone to help pass long hours in a tent or in a stand. It’s really helped me quite a bit .
Always have a cribbage board, best 2 hand game to make time fly.
Don’t try “drinking a storm away” with Cnelk. It gets tough walking out of a wilderness camp in a storm to resupply. Or so I’ve heard.
I'll second the cribbage board. My dad and I always have a tiny travel size board and cards for when we're holed up in the tent. If you have a deck of cards you can even make do with piles of sticks and pebbles to keep track of your score LOL
I usually have 20+ books downloaded on Kindle at any one time. I’ll make it more before a trip.
Last year on a sheep hunt I didn’t have my luggage with the solar charger. Was afraid of draining my phone. I read the “Bear and the Dragon” by Tom Clancy 3 times(took it in paperback). Back to back to back. Was weathered in for 6 days
That’s not really a book you can read back to back to back. :). I’ve done something similar with The Godfather book.
I should add, I would watch series if I had the ability to recharge phone.
My favorite series recently:
The Americans
Yellowstone
Game of Thrones
Chernobyl
The Ranch
Klondike
Lonesome Dove
Deadwood
Homeland
3 guys. 1 stove. Rain & snow. Five miles in the Wyoming wilderness.
Damn straight I’m hiking out to get more booze. Saves on dry firewood
I'm still in the too stubborn stage of life. If it's bad weather that just means walking to keep warm, or pile on more clothes. Sometimes good things happen in bad weather. I generally don't bring auxiliary entertainment so that I am not tempted by it later. I may bring a book, but I'm only allowed to start reading once I've tagged out early ;) A guy can always spend extra time cooking.
I held APauls mentality up until the fall of 2016 when I was stuck inside a backpacking tent for about 7 days straight with a buddy in the Brooks. I will never leave home without a deck of cards and some books/podcasts downloaded.
Buncha Nancies.... :-)
I have never taken a book or listened to music or whatever in all the bush hunts I've done. Don't ask me why. I'm not opposed to it, but I don't need or miss it. I either busy myself working in camp or doing hygiene or editing pictures. I did 15 days solo and never got bored. On chillier or damp days I often turn on my poor man's tv set:
I've never taken anything before but just thinking ahead!!
I don't know if this ever happens to anyone else on a long remote hunt: Usually by day 2 I've got a song or two stuck in my head. And often, those songs stay right there the entire time....over and over again. By day (night) 3 or 4 I begin having odd or mysterious dreams which often continue to the end of the hunt. Being alone in the backcountry does funny things sometimes.
Got stuck in rainy days for 5 days with a co-worker in the tent in the Alaska range - man his feet stunk, so I went out in the rain and stood under the cook tarp. Did not read, just admired racks and babysat meat from the two caribou bulls I had down. And fished in the lake. No phone, no food, no pets, ain't got no cigarettes....
You could always pack a blowup doll:)
South Farm, WTH??? I'd just arrange a trip with a woman - there are plenty nowdays who hunt..
I usually bring a couple of Louis Lamour paperbacks. I’m going to try the whole download books, movies, series thing sometime. I don’t have a solar charger or portable charger so I have never done it.
I get the song thing stuck in my head constantly and not just in the woods.
“Pain, you make me a, you make me a believer, believer. “ This is the latest one and it’s not even the whole song. Lately it’s been a number of Imagine Dragons songs.
I can’t sit inside for very long. As the saying goes you can’t kill anything in the tent. I’ll sleep in because there’s a value to that. I’ll take the time to prepare better meals. Other than that I don’t bring rain gear and a tarp for nothing. I’ll set up somewhere to glass. Even if game isn’t moving there’s nothing wrong with looking at Alaska. Plus you never know.... if I was an elk or moose with 1 month a year to go on dates I’d make the most of it.
Trapper...Women wear stinky perfume, talk too much, and will put you over your weight limit...not to mention you can't throw 'em in the campfire when you're done with 'em.
On a serious note, I brought one of those little handheld Yahtzee games with me to Alaska and that kept me entertained in the nastiest weather. Weighs about 4 oz. and fits in your pocket. Cribbage is fun, too, but after you beat your hunting buddy the 10th. time in a row the novelty of that wears thin as does your friendship.
I used to kinda question the weathered in thing myself. "I'm tough enough to tough it out."
I learned differently on a sheep hunt. Weather was not just rain, it was a blanket of fog you couldn't see through. Not much sense to glass when you can't see 50 yards
My luggage was lost. Everything I had was on my back. So when we did go out in the rain, if we came back to camp in the middle of the day, EVERYTHING I was wearing was hung out over the stove to dry. And there I was. . . . naked. With daylight to hunt, but not really capable of it
Then there was the day we hiked to the ridge top, and the wind literally knocked us down. I have never before been knocked off my feet by wind. We had glassed the whole valley we were in multiple times. We glassed what we could from the ridge, but the plan to walk the ridge and glass multiple basins was not going to happen. We waited a while, then the fog rolled in. . . . I hate weather now . . . .
The only trips I've ever made that in and out were on time were 2 ocean drops and that only because of sat phones.
Laid in a 2 man tent for 5 days with vis of 50'. Read my book, my partners and then mine again. I like to bring one that's 4-600 pages. Subject not that important.
Oh and the book of all books to read is “Shadows on the Koyukuk” by Sidney Huntington
Bake bad weather and fog aren’t exactly the same. You can decide whether or not you want to hunt in bad weather. You can dress for it. Fog gives you no choice. You can’t shoot what you can’t see and I’ve gotten turned around in country I knew like the back of my hand in thick fog. That stuff shuts down everything.
Thx Danny I just ordered one.
