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Clean-up

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Clean-up

Postby Swede » 09 13, 2019 •  [Post 1]

Cleaning and repairing everything I used on my hunt is a bigger job than packing and getting ready to go. Setting up camp is big of coarse, but taking it down is too.
My truck will take all day to clean enough to get my wife to ride with me. My sleeping bag got a couple of mouse or squirrel holes when I was out hunting. They are repaired now. I am blaming my pillow named Blizzard for allowing that damage to occur, but he said he needed some sleep too. I threw my table in the recycle and a cot too. The table will get replaced. I have an old army cot that will do. I have been cleaning things for two days and putting things up and I have at least three days more to finish.
I am wondering if clean-up is as big of a job for you guys as it is for me, or are you one of those that abandons your junk in the forest and drive off? That is the easy answer for some folks. :D I know there are some that must do that based on what I see at numerous dispersed camp locations.
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Re: Clean-up

Postby >>>---WW----> » 09 14, 2019 •  [Post 2]

Here is a tip for replacing that recycled table. Can't remember where I saw it! But it seemed like a good idea at the time.

You will need a walker like older or disabled people use. They fold up and can be compact. All you need to do is place some sort of a top on it that is removable and WALA! you have a portable camp table!!!!
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Re: Clean-up

Postby Swede » 09 14, 2019 •  [Post 3]

They would be both light weight and strong. Thanks
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Re: Clean-up

Postby saddlesore » 09 25, 2019 •  [Post 4]

Since I am leaving again in about two weeks, not much is getting cleaned. Mostly reorganized. Clothes washed and repacked,saddle pads washed, meat butchered and froze. Might wash the truck and trailer
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Re: Clean-up

Postby Tigger » 09 26, 2019 •  [Post 5]

You are a little hard on your equipment! I do not have anything that needs to be repaired and other than washing clothes and sweeping out the trailer that is about it for cleaning. Oh, I guess I cleaned out the freezer too.

Wait a second....there is me. I need to be repaired! It usually takes a solid week before I feel normal physically!
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Re: Clean-up

Postby 7mmfan » 09 26, 2019 •  [Post 6]

Luckily I haven't had to do any significant repairs on anything in a long time, but the process of cleaning, drying, and organizing everything takes time. Between work, wife and kid time, it takes me a full week usually to get everything situated.
I hunt therefore I am. I fish therefore I lie.
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Re: Clean-up

Postby Swede » 09 26, 2019 •  [Post 7]

Tigger wrote:You are a little hard on your equipment! I do not have anything that needs to be repaired


I hope this is not seen as making excuses or the like, but rather a demonstration of what I see as part of the total hunting experience. If I go out for a short hunt, I rarely have anything to fix. After a week of scouting plus over three weeks of hunting, I sometimes have things to repair or even replace.
I had a mouse or squirrel chew on my sleeping bag. It is now patched. The zipper flob on my old hunting vest broke off, and I decided to replace a light weight table. When I was unpacking at home my wife took one look at the boots I wore hunting and said, "throw them in the garbage". I purchased them in 2003. I remember that date well as they were the boots I got when I retired from the Forest Service. I would have liked to had another year with them, but they were pretty well trashed.
I wash, vacuum, change the oil, the oil filter and air filter in my pickup. The truck gets cleaned up stem to stern even under the hood and in the bed. I use Mobile One synthetic oil. I had a 2006 trailer tire go bad so it is now replaced. I set my tent up at home and washed it with a hose to get the splattered mud off that came from a violent thunder storm. Last but not least, I have a fairly large pile of laundry to clean and repack. I keep my hunting clothes separate from everything else.
I guess that when you add it all up there is quite a bit of clean-up associated with getting ready for the next season. I am prepared now and looking forward to 2020.
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Re: Clean-up

Postby Tigger » 09 26, 2019 •  [Post 8]

Swede, I hope you are not done hunting this year! We haven't even hit October yet, please say it isn't so! Lots of things to hunt besides our favorite critter!
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Re: Clean-up

Postby Swede » 09 26, 2019 •  [Post 9]

I wish I could go on the rifle deer hunt starting Saturday, but I have too much church work to go. This afternoon and tomorrow are my study times. Our pastor retired in August so another elder and I are managing the works now. I used all of my points for a quality deer tag this year, but will stay home and think about 2020. I did not draw a late season elk tag, so I can't hunt those pests either. Go get em for me.
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Re: Clean-up

Postby Tigger » 09 27, 2019 •  [Post 10]

Swede, How about a local hunt or some birds or something? Don't hang them up yet! Get out there! Find that old scattergun and go for a grouse or pheasant walk.
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Re: Clean-up

Postby Swede » 09 27, 2019 •  [Post 11]

Let me borrow your shotgun. I have never been a shotgun hunter. I almost never fish either.
I have never had a shotgun, except I stored one that was Heinrich Himmler's (name engraved on barrel) for a few years. My uncle who was an officer with the 101 Airborne took it when they went through Hermann Goering's castle somewhere in Germany during late WWII. Apparently Himmler kept some of his things at Goering's place. I don't know much. Was the place a "castle" as we think of it, or was it just a description signifying it was a high end home?
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