A team of Cabela's professionals recently spent three weeks hunting caribou and black bears in Alaska and put the new Jim Shockey Signature day pack and frame pack through the paces under severe conditions. And these pros, who've seen and tried every pack out there, came away thoroughly impressed.

"I love the new pack/frame," said Cabela's marketing pro and TV host Mark Nelsen. "The spotting scope attachment worked great, and I took photos of those features as well to write up a field test report for our Web site. I found the pack very comfortable to wear all day. On the first hunt (black bear and fishing out of Homer, Alaska), I carried the Shockey daypack and found it very comfortable and easily accommodated all my gear, extra clothing, food, etc."

Joining Nelsen on the adventure was Curt Dinges, Cabela's backpack expert and category specialist. "Jim's idea on the spotting scope attachment was a home run," Dinges said. "We had a compact Leupold spotting scope and glassed the hills for caribou for five days. Great feature and eliminates the need for a tripod. We also got three kills using the shooting "v" off the top of the pack. This was also a home run feature."

The Jim Shockey Signature frame pack from Cabela's, loaded with caribou meat, antlers and cape.

For anyone concerned with the toughness of this super-light pack and frame, the Cabela's guys say, "don't worry."

"We packed out several caribou and the frames worked well. We had no issues with the production frames we used for 100-plus pounds of caribou," Dinges said.