BowCast Blog

Gear Review- MSR Hyperflow

One of the reason Bowcast was started was to give honest and comprehensive products reviews.  If you pickup any magazine or watch any tv show you will see so called reviews.  The only problem is that many of the people reviewing the products are sponsored by the company.  When I see this I always question the review. 

I have been down the sponsorship or pro-staff road a few times and luckily I have been able to to stay independent.  This affords me the freedom to call it like I see it.  I don't have to help sell a product.

As many of you know I have been reviewing a BLACKHAWK! Blacktimber pack for a few months.  My goal was to really give it a workout.  I didn't want to do one of those reviews that you see in the magazine that just list the specs.  I wanted to be able to say that I really tested a pack and want to feel comfortable with the review that the pack EARNED.

My wife and two girls and I headed up into the high country of Colorado this past weekend for a family camping trip. For my efforts in loading up my truck with pink camo sleeping bags, Dora the Explorer trikes, 3 different sets of wiffle ball bats and matching balls, 14 extra blankets, special pillows and stuffed animals, and probably a whole lote more crap that I don't remember and we never used anyway - I was rewarded by meeting up with my good friend Matt Hogue on Saturday morning to spend several hours scouting the area we hold both elk and deer tags for this upcoming 2008 sesaon. We hunted this area 2 seasons ago, and Matt was able to take a bull. I had my 5X5 elk opportunity spoiled by a hail storm followed by a blizzard, but I'll post my additional excuses in another blog entry.

   Adding extra weight to your pack is something we all try to avoid.  If a piece of equipment can be omitted from your pack and it doesn't effect the outcome of your hunt, then it takes a pretty strong argument to carry the extra weight.  For some, the stove is one of those items.  Many make the argument that they'd rather just eat MRE's and ditch the stove.  While I'd agree that we're hardly out there trying to have a resort experience, keeping your body fueled is a very crucial part to your success in the field.  I've written more in depth about the weight trade-off for MRE's vs. freeze dried in past issues of Eastmans', and Cam Hanes included a couple of those pieces in his book Backcountry Bowhunting.  The jist of it is, you can carry heavier food (MRE's), or carry a stove and lighter freeze dried food and oatmeal.  If you have ever lived off of MRE's for a week, you'll certainly feel for our troops.  While some of them aren't bad at all, the diet gets old pretty quickly.  A hot meal from the wide variety of freeze dried meals available, plus the bonus of coffee or hot chocolate in the morning pretty well seals the deal for most of us backcountry hunters.