Gear Guide to Elevate Your Hunting Camp

I’ve camped three to a two-man tent in a two-day Colorado Rockies snowstorm and had more elbow room solo in a bivy tent in the Black Hills. I’ve portaged canoes and gear into the Canadian wilderness before heating pork and beans in the can beside a lakeside fire then sacking out in a blanket-and-canvas-tarp bedroll. When I say I appreciate a comfortable camp, you know where I’m coming from.

At the other end of the spectrum, I’ve packed a 16-foot trailer with wall tents, cots, cast-iron skillets and all the accoutrements of a home-away-from-home outfitter camp. After years of hunting camps, fishing camps and all kinds of other camps, a feller can’t help but come up with a list of comfort-inducing items.

No need to mention sleeping bags and other fundamentals; forgetting them once is all the reminder you’ll need. But there’s a handful of other things that’ll make camp run more smoothly. No, it’s not what you want to tote on a backpack hunt, but for a camp lasting, say, a long weekend or more, this stuff will help you camp like a champion.

Council Tool Hudson Bay Camp Ax

My favorite ax has long been a Hudson Bay, a centuries-old design thought to have come over with French explorers trading with Native Americans for furs. Council Tool’s ax is an improved version, handy for clearing campsites and chopping and splitting firewood, and it has an extended heat-treated poll for driving tent stakes and other pounding chores. It’s a real, working, made-in-the-USA ax, with a 24-inch curved hickory handle and a 2-pound head that generates abundant chopping power. $82.65; counciltool.com

Shovel

I prefer a long, straight handle but have used T-handled shovels, little garden shovels and even a backpack trowel on way-back-there trips. Just bring some kind of digging device. Cathole latrines are one thing; camp latrines are another. Rule 1 of latrine digging: Dig it deep enough the first time. Also, dig a scrode hole for meal scraps and dishwater, deep enough that varmints won’t dig it up. (You may not find the definition of “scrode” in the dictionary, but that’s the word for it.) True multi-tools in every sense of the word, I’ve also used shovels to flip cow chips, even buffalo chips, out of campsites.

Rugs

It’s much nicer to step off your cot or crawl out of your sleeping bag if you have a rug to soften and muffle noisy nylon floors and insulate your feet from the cold ground. Put one by the tent door to catch trod-in debris and store muddy boots. A garage-sale rug will do, but pick one that suits your camp feng shui.

ALPS Outdoorz Vanish MC Chair

If I’m wall-tent camping, I’ll bring larger camp chairs. But when minimalist camping, like in a dome tent not too far off the beaten path to pack a compact folding chair, I get double the bang for my buck with the ALPS Outdoorz Vanish MC chair. It’s comfy and sits low to the ground in the turkey woods, while back at camp it’s the perfect perch around the campfire for eating, storytelling and laughing at pals sitting in the dirt or on hard, wobbly stumps. $79.99; alpsoutdoorz.com

ALPS SideKick Table and Camp Table

Flat surfaces are handy but often too few in camp. The SideKick Table keeps phone (aka your alarm clock), glasses, headlamp, water bottle, etc., within easy reach of your cot. It doesn’t take eating many meals with plate balanced on knees to appreciate a Camp Table, which also serves for meal preparation, card playing and bird cleaning (see: cutting boards.) ALPS also has Dining Tables for larger groups. $29.99, SideKick; $69.99, Camp; alpsmountaineering.com

Riley Wrangler Pellet Stove

I’ve used the Riley Wrangler in our 16-by-20 wall tent for 20-some years, and it never fails to amaze newcomers. At 48 pounds, it ain’t for backpacking, though Riley makes an 8 1/2-pound wood-burning (not pellet) stove that fits in a backpack. The pellet stove has a hopper that gravity-feeds wood pellets to an ingenious burner that generates airflow via a patented jet air system. An amazingly small flame heats the galvanized steel box and, in turn, the tent. You can switch the stove to firewood-burning mode, but it’s nice to fill the hopper and enjoy the warmth without frequent stoking. $889; rileystovecompany.com

Lion Energy Summit Portable Generator

This 18-pound unit provides electrical power to run camp and keep your phone and other devices charged via multiple outlets and ports. No excuses for a dead phone battery and missing daybreak in the woods. Light your tent with the optional LED set or string ’em up to light the whole campsite.

Camp Chef Cutting Board

It took just one buddy cleaning ducks on the lid of my cooler, leaving slashes and smears that won’t go away, for me to get a cutting board. Camp Chef has 14- and 26-inch bamboo cutting boards that serve wonderfully for meal prep, too. Plastic cutting boards, once marred with cuts and scratches, can harbor bacteria that’s hard to scrub away; wood-based boards, however, draw moisture in, drying the surface and killing bacteria. $39.99, 14-inch; $81.99, 26-inch; campchef.com

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• This article was featured in the 2024 issue of Public Land Hunter magazine. Click to subscribe.

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