In my mind, the best hunting gear is not ultra-specialized gear. I prefer kit that can handle a wide range of scenarios—and if it also fills some niche roles perfectly, all the better! And after hunting this fall with the Sitka Tool Bucket, that’s what I say this daypack has to offer: It’s well-suited to the needs of most deer hunters, but if you’re a run-and-gunner, specializing in saddle hunting, it’s perfect for your niche needs.
The Sitka Tool Bucket design
The name sounds like Sitka maybe took a 5-gallon pail and added a coat of camo and backpack straps, but this daypack is fairly standard in its layout—at least, it looks like that at first glance. A bag, with straps and pockets. Nothing too different. There are 17 storage compartments in total; internal capacity is 1800 cubic inches, and the pack weighs just under 55 ounces.
Look closer, and you’ll see the pack’s lid is kept closed by a toggle through a hole through the top of the pack. Easy and quick to open, hard to break… and when the pack is open, you can hang it from that hole. And when it’s hanging, you take another look, and hey—undo a couple of zippers, and your backpack has turned into a bucket, sort of, with a whole bunch of organizer pockets keeping your gear nice and tidy.
This might be a nice feature if you’re climbing mountains for elk or busting brush and looking for moose, but it’s not a game-changer. Lots of packs have pockets. But if you’re a mobile treestand or saddle hunting specialist? This is very desirable, because the Sitka Tool Bucket lets you access gear quickly, if you hang it next to you in a tree, without requiring that you rummage through a stuffed pocket or pack in order to grab a cloth to clean your scope, or to find your backup grunt tube, or a snack—whatever gear you need on that all-day sit. It’s like adding a shelf to your mobile hunting setup.
My experience with the Tool Bucket
I spent a lot of time using the Tool Bucket this deer season, but I wasn’t hunting out of treestands or mobile setups for very long—most of this year’s whitetail setups were based on ground blinds. But when I was in the trees, the Tool Bucket was a very handy organization tool. Even in the darkness of a tent blind, I appreciated the Tool Bucket’s filing system, to speak—cartridges in one pocket, skinning knife in another, licenses filed away in a Ziploc baggie in a pocket in the top of the pack, and so on.
The Tool Bucket’s wide-mouth design makes it easy to stuff larger items like a warm jacket into the interior for your hike into the stand or blind, too. I will often bring some extra clothes or maybe a woobie blanket for those cold late-November sits, wearing less clothing for the hike in so I don’t overheat. The Tool Bucket’s design works well for this, as the internal organizers keep all your equipment in-place so it doesn’t come spilling out when you remove your warmer clothing. That’s a Very Bad Thing when you’re in a tree saddle 20 feet in the air.
Along with time in a blind or up in a treestand, I also used the Tool Bucket on walking/stalking hunts this year. I found the pack was mostly very, very good in this role, although you have to realize its limitations.
This is a frameless pack without the ability to detach the pack from a frame, like the original Tool Bucket had (they changed the design around 2020). You can still attach a stand to the pack’s exterior to haul it, but you can’t slide the stand between the pack and the frame like the original Tool Bucket. With that in mind, saddle hunters with their streamlined equipment may like the Tool Bucket more than treestand users. But pack carefully; the pack’s design doesn’t close the lid tightly, so if you turn it upside down when you’re up in a tree, you might have to return to the ground to retrieve something that fell out, if you didn’t stuff it tightly inside the bag.
As well, if you’re stillhunting, the Tool Bucket is very streamlined and tidy, and doesn’t easily catch on things when you’re sneaking through the woods. It moves with your body (which is also nice when you’re riding an ATV into your hunting spot). But if a branch or brush scratches the side of the Tool Bucket, the synthetic material makes unnatural noises, which might scare off some game. I don’t really hold this against the pack; you’d have to buy a wool pack to avoid that problem. That’s pretty hard-to-find kit, and I have never seen a wool hunting pack with features remotely close to the Tool Bucket’s capabilities.
The bottom line
The Sitka Tool Bucket showed up mid-season, so I only got to explore its capabilities for a few weeks of deer hunting, and then some post-season camera work mixed in with rabbit hunting.
I wouldn’t say this is revolutionary or game-changing, but it’s a piece of gear that will make life a lot easier when I’m mobile hunting, letting me carry exactly what I need, and storing it for me while I’m up in the trees.
So far, the Tool Bucket has been a high-quality piece of kit and I expect years of service from it, based on the build quality. I’d highly recommend any deer hunter look at it, but especially if you’re the run-and-gun type, dealing death from above. The $259 MSRP is in line with other quality packs, and many of those don’t offer the same convenient practicality of the Tool Bucket. I’d say it’s well worth checking out as a result.
