ATA Day 1 - 1: ALPS OutdoorZ - Tree Stand Buddy

ATA Facebook live product interview with ALPS OutdoorZ – ALPS Brands established ALPS OutdoorZ in 2007 with the mission of developing affordable, performance-driven hunting gear. Years later, after releasing their first group of hunting products, ALPS OutdoorZ has grown to offer packs, furniture, gun cases, sleeping bags, and ground blinds.

Tree Stand Buddy – The Tree Stand Buddy® was designed to provide for a much safer installation of a tree stand. The hoisting feature allows you to climb your tree without having to worry about carrying your tree stand with you. Enjoy a much safer hunting experience since the bracket system provides greater safety and stability — No More Wobble.

PRADCO Hunting – PRADCO Outdoor Brands is the largest company in the world that manufactures and markets major hunting and fishing brands and products under one parent organization. It is a leader in producing game calls, scents, attractants, game feeders, game cameras, tree stands and fishing lures.

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Listen to the episode here:

ATA Day 1 – 1: ALPS OutdoorZ

I’m with Colby Smith at ATA 2019. Colby, welcome to Whitetail Rendezvous.

Thanks.

What’s so special about ALPS?

ALPS, for our product side, we strive to have not only feature-driven products but products that hunters can rely on. We don’t design anything that we wouldn’t go out into the woods and hunt it with ourselves.

Everything you have is based on, “If it works for us, it’s going to work for you.”

We do extensive testing on all of our products. We use a lot of this stuff. We know it’s going to last. That’s why we offer it to everyone else.

I’ve had one of your mountain tents at 40 miles per hour up above 10,000 feet. Folks, they do work and that’s not a paid promo. Colby and I work something out, but it does work. When you take a look at your company, what’s keeping you busy in 2019?

We are always looking to do something new. There’s always something like whenever you’re out in the deer stand, whenever you’re out predator hunting, ideas always come to us. We’re always constantly trying to make hunting not just easier on the back but a little more comfortable.

What’s the one big thing you want my audience to know about ALPS brand products?

A lot of people I feel that if they have questions, they might be a little hesitant to give us a call. If you call in, you’re going to be talking to the product team. If you have any questions at all, you’re just going to have to give us a shout. We’re more than happy to help you out or see what we can do to make our products better.

Do you ever take input from other people in the field saying, “You’ve got to change these zippers. It’s on the wrong side of the tent?”

Unfortunately, we’re not able to get out there as much as what we’d like to. It’s the people that are better using our stuff now that we listened to them and we take advice from our customers.

How do my audience get a hold of you on social media?

You can go to ALPSOutdoorZ.com. We have a list of all of our social media. We’re on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. If you type in ALPS OutdoorZ, make sure it’s got a Z behind it and you’ll be able to find us.

What’s the one thing you would offer a person if they’ve got to your pack? If they’re going to use it for the first time, what should they remember?

The only thing that they need to remember this 2019, we’ve got ElimiShield Scent Control on all of our extreme product. You won’t have to remember to wash it after the season because there’s no residual smell that’s going to be left on it. Maybe sometimes remembering is forgetting.

Explain that a little bit more. That’s a new feature for 2019. How does that work again?

It’s all through our mills and our factories. It’s a bath that the fabric goes through. It’s actually into the fabric. It’s not going to wear out. It’s not going to come off. It’s in there and it’s an odor eliminator.

Is that a carbon-based product?

No, it’s a liquid form that there is no special lining. It’s infused into the fabric.

WTR Alps | Hunting Gear — Hunting Gear: We’re always constantly trying to make hunting not just easier on the back but a little more comfortable.

It’s like a sun shield. You call it ElimiShield. For folks who are looking for good gear, where do they find you?

ALPSOutdoorZ.com.

You guys have been in business for how long?

ALPS brand has been in business for 25 years. We started ALPS OutdoorZ years ago.

Introduce me to some other products.

This pack is going to be new for 2019 as well. This is our Enforcer Predator Vest. We’ve taken our same design for our Turkey Vest with a kickstand frame. Get up on a field edge or on a fence row and throw the legs out. You’d be able to sit all day, all night, whatever you’re doing. Another good feature about this is the frame is removable. If you don’t want the extra weight or don’t need that much or have a place to lean up against, you can just take that out and be completely comfortable. It’s got a nice pack bag on the back. Most game calls will fit in there. You get some that are a little bit bigger than this.

How about my spotting scope?

You could put your spotting scope in there as well. Whatever gear you need will be able to fit in that.

I’m thinking of a long-distance scouting either in the Rockies or in the Midwest where I hunt whitetails. If I’m setting up on a hillside, that looks comfortable. What else you got?

More of our basic day pack. We’ve had a lot of good luck with this. This is our Pursuit X with the veil camo now. This is the wildland pattern which we like. Molded foam suspension, so it’s got all day comfort in this. Padded waist belt, total strapped, a bunch of internal space, organizational pockets up front. This has been a good pack for us. This is our Hybrid X. This pack we came out with last year. It’s more of a day pack size, but the pack bag itself is removable and you can also hold meat, stand if you’re doing public land hunting. You can put a stand in there with your sticks and stuff. It’s able to carry more than probably what you’ll be able to carry. We try and make it just for everyone.

Sometimes remembering is forgetting. Share on X

Colby, thanks so much.

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ATA Day 1 – 1: Tree Stand Buddy

My name is Nick Sampson and we’re in the Tree Stand Buddy booth. We’re excited because we have a new product this 2019, the Ladder Stand Buddy. Peter is the designer and inventor of Skyline Safety System. We’ve come together and now we have the Ladder Stand Buddy. It’s the easiest way to take your ladder stand, set it up to the tree and be able to strap it in with our arms and have it secured before you climb the stand from the ground. It’s less than five pounds and it’s efficient. It’s safe and there’s not a better way to do it without having to do the death crawl of the tree.

I’m at ATA 2019 and I’m talking with Peter Brown and Nick Sampson from Tree Stand Buddy. Where are you guys out of?

We’re from Long Island, New York and we’ve been in the industry with the Tree Stand Buddy, this is going on our tenth year. With the addition of the new product, things are exciting. The nice thing with us is we protect our dealers. We don’t sell in big box stores. We sell directly to the small dealers. We give them great margins and we protect their investment when it comes to online and stuff like that.

What’s the newest thing that you’ve got right now that you want all my audience to know about?

It’s going to be the Ladder Stand Buddy. Our traditional bracket lets you set up basically any lock-on stand the safest, easiest and fastest way possible. With this new product, we can do the same thing when it comes to all your ladder stand.

What’s the stats on people doing dumb things or stupid things or falling out of the tree and reckon themselves, not killing themselves but just trashing themselves?

The newest stats, I don’t even know from PMA right now. I believe one in three people will fall from a stand.

I’ve fallen from a stand.

I’m a big guy when it comes to having a safety harness. That’s great, but I don’t want to fall if I don’t have to. If you can have a product that helps you not have to worry about falling or making your life easier by not having to climb up your ladder sticks, you can pull your stand up from the ground. It doesn’t matter if you’re ten or 70. There’s no reason to struggle setting up your stand.

Where can people reach you on social media?

It’s Tree Stand Buddy on Facebook and Instagram and on our website, TreeStandBuddy.com or the Ladder Stand Buddy, they both go the same place. It’s got all our videos. All the stuff about our hunts, our pro staff and we’re always updating the exciting stuff.

What’s the one thing that people should know when they use your product for the first time?

Your life becomes easier when you read directions. Share on X

Like anything I would say, read the directions. If you read the directions, it will save you a lot of time and other than that, it makes your life easier.

Anything else you’d like to add?

We love the outdoors. We want to promote every man, woman and children hunting and our product helps make all that safe for everybody to do it.

Let’s take a little tour.

We’ll start off with our initial flagship product, the starter kit. The Tree Stand Buddy setup is nice because it doesn’t matter if you’ve got a single post or a double post lock on stand. You can take that stand when you add our bracket system. We give you hardware for single or double post, it’s all included with it. What you’re going to do is when you get to your stand, you also get your stand bracket. Instead of having to try to climb that tree and put a cumbersome tree stand up, all you got to do is put this little bracket up and you put your pull-up rope through the hole. When you get to your stand, you tie your stand to your pull-up rope, and you pull your stand up from the ground. Now your stand is all the way up the tree and hanging below the bracket just a little bit. You can climb with two hands. You’re not trying to stand up the tree. When you get up to the top of the tree, you lock in your safety system and you slide your stand on both the platform down and you’re ready to go. Here’s the great thing with it is you can buy extra tree brackets and set them up in multiple locations. Now if you don’t want to leave your stand out there for safety or if you’re worried about somebody taking it, you could spend more money on one good stand and spot the spot.

Does it have a locking feature on that bracket?

You can run one cable right through it, right through the same pull-up rope as well. We also have holes in here, so if you’re on private land and you want to lag bolt you’re base-in, you can lag bolt your base-in as well.

Two important facts because I have lost stands myself. One, you can cable in, people will take cable cutters and cut them off. Secondly, lag bolts are great but they will expand when the tree grows.

What I use lag bolts for is in the offseason. I pull my straps off my bracket and I leave my stand to sit there. This is our new product, the Ladder Stand Buddy. This is a universal bracket system as well. This unit can go on just about any ladder stand there is, and you can put it on the lower side of your ladder stand if you want to leave and set it there permanently. If you put it on the top of the ladder stand, once you’ve set your stand up, you can actually take this unit off the ladder stand and use it for another ladder.

I can put that all the way down. Just show me how that would go.

When this stand’s all the way down, we have it on the bottom right now. It’s going to be set for a permanent situation, but I take the same here and I put it on top. When I get the stand on secure, I can just unbolt the bolts and take this off that. We’re going to pull this up. You’re going to see how this goes right to the tree with the T. Normally, you’re going to have to climb your ladder stand with somebody holding it and try not to die with the stand falling off the tree. What we do now is we’re going to ratchet this ratchet and block around the base of the tree. You put your ratchet in it, pull it tight, and as I ratchet this, you’re going to see the teeth up there and the arms are going to close up. It’s going to close right up around. I can cinch that uptight and you’re going to see the stand also pull against the tree. Not only am I wrapping the stand all around, but I have it locked and you can see PVC pole. This stand isn’t coming off that tree as I climb it up.

How long does that take to put it up there?

When you have a unit on, it shouldn’t take you more than five minutes. It takes a couple of minutes to set up a ratchet here, and then put your ratchet on there and ratchet it tight. It’s very simple, a couple of minutes. It’s a lot less time consuming than having to try to take ropes and cross them and have somebody else hold the ladder. It makes it very simple. It’s less than five pounds. You’re not adding a lot of weight and it’s all aluminum and quality part, it’s not going to corrode and break down.

Nick Sampson from Tree Stand Buddy. Thank you so much for showing us what’s new at Tree Stand Buddy at ATA 2019.

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ATA Day 1 – 1: PRADCO Hunting

I’m with Mark Olis of PRADCO. Mark, what’s new at PRADCO?

Here at PRADCO, we cater to all the hunters. We’ve got Moultrie, Summit Treestands, Code Blue Scents and Knight & Hale. We’ve also added on Texas Hunter and Whitetail Institute‘s seed. We cater to all hunters whether they’re hunting public land, whether their land managers, planting food plots.

When you think about your company and the lineage with Elton B. Stephens, he was a hunter. He was a conservationist. What makes you proud of coming to work every day?

The thing that makes me proud is working with the team we got there. We are an EBSCO company, Elton B. Stephens. That’s a whole history that speaks for itself. A great company to work for, but mostly it’s the products we make. To see those go out into the field and hunters use those and see the enjoyment they get, the success they get by using our products, that’s what drives me to come to work.

How do people reach out to you specifically or your different product division?

They can go to any of our websites. The easiest way would be to google Moultrie. You could do that for Whitetail Institute, Summit Treestands, Knight & Hale, Code Blue, all those you can google and get the websites. We’re on social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. We’re all over. We’re easy to find.

Is there one place they should go to get started?

It depends on what they’re looking at. We have such a vast product array. If they’re looking for game cameras, they need to go to MoultrieFeeders.com. If they’re looking at feeders and stuff like that, Moultrie has got them covered there and then the other sites. If they’re looking for tree stands, Summit Treestands would be the site to go to.

We’re going to take a little tour around the ranch and we’re going to look at the different areas. We’re at Moultrie. What’s new at Moultrie?

In Moultrie, we’ve been busy. The cool new product at Moultrie is we’ve got Moultrie Mobile, which is a cellular camera system. You can set it out in the woods. It will send pictures via cellular coverage to your computer or to your phone. You get the images delivered right to you. You can click on images, scroll through. They’re always there, always cloud-based storage. You always have access to your images. You get notifications when those images come in. We got some new products out this year. We’ve got two new modems that you hook to a Moultrie camera. Those run on Verizon or AT&T. This 2019 we also have two new integrated cameras. The camera itself has the modem built in and that’s on AT&T and Verizon as well. Both are cool project products. The integrated cameras got a twenty-megapixel picture, 0.3 seconds trigger speed. Excellent cameras and they’ll send those photos directly to your computer or your smartphone.

Thanks so much, Mark, for sharing what’s new with PRADCO and specifically with Moultrie tree cameras.

Thank you.

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I’m with Mark Olis and we’re on a specific product. What are we talking about now, Mark?

The big news in Moultrie this 2019 is our cellular cameras, Moultrie Mobile, and we’ve had the modems out. These are our new modems. This is the MV2, which runs on the Verizon 4G networks. We have an MA2, looks identical but it runs on AT&T 4G network. These are out this 2019. They hook off with this USB cable directly to the camera. If you have existing Moultrie cameras, you can pull it right in and your camera starts sending you the images via your cell phone. These MSRP for $119, they’re very affordable. Hook them up to your Moultrie camera and you’re good to go. We’re excited about these. These are our integrated cameras right here from Moultrie Mobile. We’ve got a twenty-megapixel camera. This is the XV-7000i and then we got the XA-7000i. The only difference is the V is on Verizon’s 4G and the A is on the AT&T 4G network. Great cameras. These are all in one unit. You don’t have to have two cameras and a modem. The modem is built in. Put the camera up and it’s ready to go. These MSRP for $179.

Let’s take a look at your other product groups.

Another thing for Summit that’s brand-new product line is we have a series of ground blinds out. We’ve got four different models and they have varying sizes; two, three, four persons. You’ve got your basic ground blind model, $139.99. It gets you on woods hunting. You start moving up the line and you get some advancements in it. If you get on here to the far stand, we have a true view mesh so animal can’t see in, but you can see out of it. That’s a neat addition. Also, we’ve got some that you no longer have to zipper the door, it’s got a hinge door system. That’s quite silent slide windows. These are some great ground blinds from Summit. We’ve got Moultrie feeders. They are well-known for those. They’ve been making those for 30 years. This is our newest attachment. This is our 30-gallon hopper. This is our staple feeder. We’ve now added the gravity feeder so you can feed protein out of this. We also have a combo kit. It comes with a spinner to automatically feed and then in the summer or spring when you’re ready to feed protein in your deer, you can just quick lock attach this and you could feed protein.

How about Whitetail Institute?

Whitetail Institute got a whole product line. I’m not sure if there’s anything brand-new out this 2019, but Whitetail Institute is well-known for their seeds around the country.

That’s part of PRADCO. We got to go to Code Blue.

You advance when you start moving out the line. Share on X

Code Blue, we’ve got a few new things out for hunters to deal with the scent. You’re keeping your clothes scent free. We’ve got new forward pack compression bags. These have a one-way valve. You don’t need a vacuum to use them. You simply put your clothes that you’ve washed in our D/Code, so they’re scent free. Put them in the bag and then you simply roll that bag down and it pushes the air out so you can condense those bags down. No need for a vacuum. If you’re at the hunt camp or something, you probably don’t have a vacuum there. You can just roll it down and put it back in your bag. That’s new for 2019. We’ve got bar soaps.

You’ve got the whole product line.

Anything for scent control, Code Blue is where it’s at. Then we’ve got obviously our whole line of scents.

Personally, and this is not paid for, but Code Blue works. I’ve had bucks inside of feet, not yards and it definitely works. You have to know how to use it. It isn’t just hang a wick and hope.

If you go to Code Blue’s website, there’s a Blog tab on there and we’ve got articles that talk about how to properly use those scents.

With that, Mark, anything else you’d like to share?

There’s a lot going on at PRADCO, a lot of great products. I encourage you to go check them out and go online, look at them, reach out to us. We’ve got something for all the hunters out there.

Thanks so much for tuning in to ATA 2019.

Important Links:

About ALPS

ALPS Brands established ALPS OutdoorZ in 2007 with the mission of developing affordable, performance-driven hunting gear. Years later, after releasing their first group of hunting products, ALPS OutdoorZ has grown to offer packs, furniture, gun cases, sleeping bags, and ground blinds.

ALPS OutdoorZ is made of hard-working individuals that live the passion and lifestyle that encompasses our gear.

Our dedication to conservation mirrors our dedication and loyalty to our customers. Wildlife conservation, habitat protection and safeguarding our hunting heritage for future generations is an integral part of the foundation of ALPS OutdoorZ.

About Tree Stand Buddy

The Tree Stand Buddy^® was designed to provide for a much safer installation of a tree stand. The hoisting feature allows you to climb your tree without having to worry about carrying your tree stand with you. Enjoy a much safer hunting experience since the bracket system provides greater safety and stability — No More Wobble.

About PRADCO Hunting

PRADCO Outdoor Brands is the largest company in the world that manufactures and markets major hunting and fishing brands and products under one parent organization. It is a leader in producing game calls, scents, attractants, game feeders, game cameras, tree stands and fishing lures.

PRADCO Outdoor Brands’ powerful portfolio ranges from top lure brands Rebel, Yum, Booyah, Lindy and Bomber Saltwater Grade to top hunting brands such as Moultrie, Summit, Code Blue and Knight & Hale.

PRADCO Outdoor Brands’ heritage in the outdoor business goes all the way back to 1894, when Heddon Lures was founded on the banks of the Old Mill Pond in Dowagiac, Michigan. PRADCO Outdoor Brands’ have been reaching consumers for parts of three centuries, which gives it a rich heritage to set it apart from its competitors.

PRADCO Outdoor Brands is headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama, and has manufacturing locations in Alabama and Arkansas.

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ATA Day 1 – 1: ALPS OutdoorZ – Tree Stand Buddy – PRADCO Hunting