Ho Ho Ho, its Christmas shopping time again, and having been christened by the North Pole as a certified outdoor gift advisory elf, I’m here to tip you off about what’s new and what’s hot this year for the outdoorsmen and women on your list.
Ozone is the naturally occurring gas found in earth’s atmosphere that cleanses the air we breathe and is used commercially to sanitize hospital rooms and to purify drinking water. The Ozonics Company located in Mason City Iowa makes small portable battery powered ozone generators to hang in hunting blinds.
About the size of the old clock radios they work by producing ozone that cleans the air around the hunter, helping to eliminate human scent. They also make a garment bag to hold your hunting clothes that eliminates human odor on them by placing the generator inside and sealing the bag. They are a bit pricey; the generators star at $369 and the garment bag is $129, but Brandon at Smoky Valley Shooting Sports near Lindsborg who uses one himself, says they are flying off the shelf and the company is struggling keep up with orders. Check them out at www.ozonics.com.
No diehard trophy deer hunter is complete without a fleet of game cameras, and the latest & greatest development in trail camera rigs actually transmit photos to a PC or mobile devise in real time as they are taken. As with anything else, the quality increases with the price. If you already happen to have a Moultrie brand camera made in 2015 or 2016 you can purchase just a transmitter for $200. The next step up is a Covert brand Blackhawk for $359, and then a Spartan brand for $329 – $429. Since Verizon is the predominant cellular company in these parts, most cameras available locally will operate on their plans which range from $5 to $30 extra monthly. Check them all out on their respective websites.
For the outdoorsman that likes to film his or her adventures, Go Pro cameras have become very popular. Brandon showed me a new outfit called Tactacam which he says is fast overtaking Go Pro’s popularity. Its claim to fame is that videos taken with its new “True Vision” technology appear as actual distances, whereas Go Pro’s videos always seem to distort distances, often making images look much farther than what they actually were. Tactacam also boasts “Infinite Focus” which automatically keeps images in focus. Each kit contains a camera and all necessary accessories to mount it to a gun or bow. Kits are $189. Check them out at www.tactacam.com.
If you’ve been considering buying a crossbow but can’t justify the often exorbitant price tags, have I got a deal for you! Crosman, famous for their pellet rifles and BB guns now offers their Center Point line of quality economical crossbows. The Center Point XR 175 recurve crossbow shoots at 245 feet per second (fps) with a draw weight of 175 pounds and costs $189. Their Center Point Sniper 370 has a 185 draw weight and shoots at 370 fps and can be taken home for $299. These are great crossbows for young or beginning hunters and Crosman is another old standby American company headquartered in New York. See more at www.crosman.com.
For you preppers and survivalists, Utah based Augason Farms, leaders in the prepackaged meal and food storage industry has a line of prepackaged dehydrated meals called Grizzly Ridge. Heartland Outdoor in Hutchinson carries the Grizzly Ridge Lunch and Dinner Pail. Housed in a sealed plastic 5 gallon bucket, the pail contains dehydrated apple slices, honey coated banana slices, orange delight drink mix, creamy potato soup mix, stroganoff and pasta alfredo; 6 varieties of food to make 86 meals. Inside the sealed pail, the meals will keep 20 years, once the pail is opened, they will keep for 5 years and an opened pouch will still be good for up to 1 year; at $89 that seems like a deal to meal. See all their products at www.augasonfarms.com.
New for 2016, Drake Waterfowl Systems offers a line of polyester fleece vests, their claim-to-fame being a newly designed pocket with a special magnetic closure made for carrying duck calls, rangefinder etc. Jenny at Heartland Outdoor says they sell more of them to carry a concealed weapon than for anything else. They come in 3 colors; camo priced at $119, black for $109 and heather (olive green) for $89. Check out www.drakewaterfowl.com.
Now for my personal favorites, gadgets and stocking stuffers; every hunter uses optics of some sort, whether a scope, binoculars or a range finder, and it seems the lenses are always dusty or they fog up on cold days, making them useless. Eyes It Inc. from Florida makes a kit called Fog Zero Clear Optics Treatment and Cleaning Kit to solve those problems. It’s about the size of a large felt marker with a clip to carry it in a pocket. It contains a brush to remove dust, an applicator to apply the anti-fog solution to the lens and a small buffing pad and polishing cloth to clean the lens. At a cost of $11 it seems like a great price to help put meat in the freezer.
As the owner of a few trail cameras I know the routine of removing SD cards from them, then going home to view photos on my PC. A Wisconsin Co. called Bone View makes a slick little SD card reader that plugs into the charging port of any android devise or I phone. Simply remove the SD card from the camera, plug it into the card reader and views photos there in the field standing right beside the trail cam. The app for viewing the pictures is free and the reader costs $20 for android devises and $30 for I phones. They also make a cool adaptor that allows you to mount a smart phone to binoculars or a spotting scope and take pictures or make videos of what you see through the optics. More than once I’ve wished I could take photos of what I witnessed through binoculars. The cost for this adaptor is $30. Find all their products at www.boneview.com.
Lastly, this Christmas season Heartland Outdoor is one of a handful of venders in Kansas carrying special Christmas .22 caliber ammunition. Yes, you read that right; Idaho based Cascade Cartridges, better known as CCI, the self-proclaimed leader in rimfire ammo is embracing the Christmas spirit by offering specially adorned “bricks” of .22 caliber long rifle ammunition. Each brick contains 10 boxes of 50 rounds each for a total of 500 .22 shells. The outer case and each individual box inside are adorned with wintry Christmas scenes. A brick is $45, a good deal, but maybe a little too heavy for a stocking!
Well there you have it, a few suggestions to make Christmas shopping for your outdoorsman a little less painful. If you have questions or need more suggestions, please contact me and I’ll be happy to help you find something a little nicer than their usual lump of coal. And remember to keep Christ in Christmas as you Explore Kansas Outdoors!
Steve Gilliland, Inman, can be contacted by email at [email protected].