What is the least amount of stuff you can get away with?

[deerbasshunter3]

What is the least amount of gear that you can/do take on a hunt and are still successful?

I will start off with my gear for the three scenarios I will be hunting this season.

By myself/field hunting: backpack, two decoys, blind, chair, shotgun, two mouth calls, slate call, MRE.

By myself/run and gun: backpack, shotgun, two mouth calls, slate call, MRE, maybe one decoy.

With a hunting buddy: backpack, shotgun, two mouth calls, slate call, MRE.

I was looking at vests but figure if I get one, I will just want to buy more stuff to put in it.

[deerbasshunter3]

I forgot to mention the all important Thermacell.

[reynolds243]

if i am going bare min i just take my vest (has a kickstand seat built in), gun, shells and a mouth call pouch.  easy peasy

[hoyt]

When I first started spring gobbler hunting many yrs ago all I took was my shotgun a pocket full of high brass no. 6 shells and a cedar box call a friend of my Dad made. Now I feel like I'm roughing it when I don't take a seat cushion on my vest.

[dejake]

If I'm ambushing: gun and one shell.

[TauntoHawk]

Stuff does not make the hunter, it just makes things a little more comfortable.

Being honest, I "could" go out with nothing more than a single mouth call, shells, shotgun, and a good pair of boots and still fill my tags. But where's the fun in that

When you start out you will buy buy buy thinking each thing will give you a little edge and it might. Sooner or later you will realize that a lot of it is unecessary and start leaving it all at home and just go hunting. Half my turkeys are dead becuase of scouting or roosting.


I buy calls because I like calls

I have decoys, hardly use them maybe 10% of my set ups involve decoys.

I have turkey chairs, again rarely take it. Only carried it last year becuase my wife was 7months pregnant and sitting on the ground made it difficult to stand back up lol.

I have a blind (used it once in the pouring rain with a youth hunter).

When it gets hot I leave the vest at home and just take what fits in my shirt pockets and box pouch on the belt.

[Rio Fan]

There have been lots of days where all I needed was my gun, a pot call and one shell.  But I like to carry a variety of calls because you never know which ones the birds might respond to.  And I always carry a pair of ratcheting clippers to trim limbs/brush if needed.  Oh, and I always have some TP in my vest in case I have to do some paper work in the woods. 

[jblackburn]

Gun, shells, camo, and a call you are comfortable with is all you really need.

Not far from that for me would be therm-a-cell, TP, and my turkey seat.

A small saw or pruners are also good to consider for clearing limbs from a tree that poke you in the back or even building a quick natural blind

[Bowguy]

License shotgun and one shell would be pretty much minimum. You can call em by mouth or whistle a kee kee. I've done it many times without camo. Now this is not my first choice but it'd work at a minimum regardless

[Gooserbat]

Gun, shells, camo, your go to call, seat cushion, owl hooter.

Thermacell, 2nd diaphragm call, and baby wipes make the short list of extras.

[zelmo1]

  Gun and ammo, vest, power bar, water, glass call, mouth call, owl hooter , old faithful decoy, hat bill light, compass, watch, knife, TP, orange bag. Besides my clothes and boots, I think that is it. Al Baker

[nativeks]

I've killed a lot of birds with camo and a shotgun. See them along a creek, drop down into the creek. Ease up the bank...boom

[jblackburn]

Gun, shells, camo, your go to call, seat cushion, owl hooter.

Thermacell, 2nd diaphragm call, and baby wipes make the short list of extras.

baby wipes are a life saver!  Anti-monkey butt is another good thing!

[chcltlabz]

I wear a vest and fill it with stuff because I've got space for it.  I've gone down to the smallest vest because I'm going to fill it if I have space for it.

In my vest now that I don't hardly ever use:

spare face mask
spare gloves
flashlight
compass
owl hooter
crow call
slate call
2 strikers
probably 10 mouth calls (that I don't use much)
decoy

Stuff in there that I do use:

2 mouth calls
shells
face mask
gloves
box call

When I was hunting the Black Hills, I found out real quick that I didn't want to lug all that crap up those hills all day long.  I went down to my gloves and face mask in a pocket, gun with the 3 shells in it, a mouth call or two and a box call to cut the wind.  Everything else wasn't needed and was more of a hindrance than help.

[Dr Juice]

Gun, ammo, facemask, gloves, vest, seat cushion on vest, calls, TP, and water bottle.