Recipes and food ideas for 10 day Alaskan drop hunt

[mcseal2]

I'm going on a 2 man drop hunt for moose in Alaska in 2018. I'm sitting inside watching it rain, cooking dinner right now and got to thinking about the menu for that hunt. The outfitter provides the cooking gear including a 2 burner Coleman stove and skillet, pots, plates etc. We have a 100lb weight limit for our personal gear not including what the outfitter provides.

I'm planning to take a lot of Mountain House meals, enough to eat them for the entire trip if necessary. I figure they are light and having enough of them for the whole trip gives me extra in case weather extends our trip. I don't plan to eat only Mountain House the whole trip though. I've got my gear list pretty much done on an Excel program and it looks like my buddy and I will have about 10-15lbs of extra weight apiece to use on food each not including our Mountain House meals.

I've done trips where I was limiting weight as much as possible and I've done trips where weight wasn't an issue and I could pack a cooler of cold or frozen stuff. This one falls somewhere in the middle. I'm looking for ideas for hot meals, probably evening meals, that can break the monotony of freeze dried food for 10 days. My buddy that's going has issues he thinks is from the build-up of sodium eating to much freeze dried stuff for to many days also. Hopefully we will have fresh moose meat early in the trip to eat but I don't want to plan for that. I don't know that our weight restrictions and the logistics of getting things to the little town we fly out of in Alaska makes bringing a cooler of food that needs refrigerated the best option either.

There is a little grocery store in the town we fly out of we can get basics and some fresh/frozen food in. Probably shouldn't plan on anything to fancy from there but it sounds like we can fill in a few things that need refrigerated or frozen from there before leaving.

Anyone have some good hot meals they use that have ingredients that don't need to be kept in a cooler? Thanks for the help.

 

[mgorm16640]

http://www.theyummylife.com/Backpacking_Food

great info here.

 

[missjordan]

You could also make your own dehydrated meals/snacks too. There's a company called Heathers choice that makes a healthier alternative to mountain house. Might be worth checking them out

 

[tim]

you want to be in the 100 cal per ounce area for food. if you are packing for 10 days and you have 3lbs of food perday, that is 30lbs right there. 2 1\2 to 3 lbs of food probably wont go over 3000 calories. just some food for though.

if you are humping hard and have lots of packing, your body will welcome the salt in the freeze dried.

 

[mcseal2]

This hunt sounds opposite of most hunts I do in some ways. People who have been on the hunt in the past I've contacted have said that doing a lot of walking and exploring country is counterproductive. It spreads human scent in an area where human scent is rarely encountered. They almost all say to stay close to camp and call periodically, be ready when something happens. Travel by water is different and something I plan to do. Travel by land it sounds like something we should limit, the area is heavily wooded and we may do more harm than good. If staying put works our trips packing meat should be fairly short and our calorie expenditure fairly low. Moose are huge and things don't always go according to plan so this might change. A trick I plan to try it putting out cotton pads soaked in estrus moose urine near the water so that we have a draw to get moose to move into areas where a shot can be taken, or calling can occur. Its something that can be a constant draw while we are in another area, maybe get a bull to come to or stay in an area we will hunt another day or time. It's all new to me, just doing all the research and reading I can at this point. We are hunting late September when the rut should be going strong but weather may be rough, if we have sites with moose estrus urine set out even when we are limited by weather we have a little attraction still working. Rain will diminish the effectiveness of those sites quickly but its better than nothing but calling at one spot.

 

[mallardsx2]

I can tell you first hand that calling is going to be your best bet during the rut (unless you can glass for the moose). I would also tell you that if you hear a bull respond some quick moving around to get the wind in your favor is going to be necessary. Check the laws about attraction scent. Where I hunt it is prohibited.

 

[Casey Gepford]

Heathers Choice is coming out with a dehydrated cook book in the near future.