KillerGear - Will Downard

Covering multiple kinds of hunting, we dive into the turkey hunting industry with Will Downard of KillerGear. He shares what they have been doing in their company while offering the latest promos and products for your hunting experience. He shares one of the biggest hunting industry secrets in the turkey world and offer the kind of products for this specific kind of hunting. Will also demonstrates the many ways you can go about hunting apart from turkey like the elk, presenting decoys and more.

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KillerGear – Will Downard

Welcome to a special Iowa Deer Classic podcast with Whitetail Rendezvous and KillerGear with Will Downard. Will, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me.

WTR Classic 3 | Killer Gear — Killer Gear: It’s hard to come up with an old coil that’s light and packable enough that someone’s actually going to want to stick it in their back up in the mountains.

We want to promote your company, KillerGear and also Iowa Deer Classic. Why don’t you jump right into it and tell the folks what your products are all about? What kind of promos you’re going to run up the show and why they should show up at Iowa Deer Classic?

An idea could be worth a million dollars if you do something with it. Share on X

We’re a five-year-old company based out here in Des Moines, Iowa, the home of the Iowa Deer Classic. We originated a few years ago with our flagship product, the TurkeyFan, which is becoming a household name now, especially here in Central Iowa. We started with the turkey decoy called the TurkeyFan. Since then we’ve moved on to a second generation TurkeyFan, which we call the JakeFan. We are starting to get into Western big game decoys. We now have an Elk and an Antelope decoy. We will have them all at the Iowa Deer Classic. We’ll be running a show special. I believe everything is 20% off of retail at the show. For anyone checking out this blog, if you want to mention it at the show, we’ll give you another 10% off of that. For a full 30% off at the show. Come by and check us out. We will be at Booth 910. It’s a pretty big booth. You can’t miss us. Swing by, say hello and let us know you read about us on the blog.

You’re going to get 30% off if you mentioned Whitetail Rendezvous to Will and the crew at KillerGear at the Iowa Deer Classic coming up March 1st, 2nd and 3rd in Des Moines, Iowa. Why did you start the decoy company?

I’ve been in construction my whole life. I’ve always owned my own businesses. Somewhere around the late ‘90s, I came up with the way of fanning or reaping in turkey hunting and stumbled on it by mistake. Here fast forward several years, I come to find out a lot of people knew about it, but everyone kept it hush-hush. It was one of the biggest hunting industry secrets, at least in the turkey world. There really weren’t any products or nothing marketed towards hunting that way. I had a lot of family and friends always tell me I should do something with that idea because I was always told it was a million-dollar idea if I did do something with it. We spent a couple years of perfecting it and coming up with an actual working prototype decoy that can actually be sold to the consumer in the commercial space. Up until that point, we used all kinds of different ways to hunt this way.

We used cardboard and plywood cutouts and you name it, we did it, spray cans the whole nine yards. We came up with this umbrella-type system. It does a lot of different things. When you’re turkey hunting, it actually mimics a tom turkey going in and out of strut. It can break down. In fact, if you’re not familiar with it, when it’s broke down, it opens up very quickly to mimic a bird going in and out of the strut. From across the field, a bird sees that or even the human eye sees that. It looks very similar to a big old gobbler just popping in and out.

That always triggers something to those dominant toms. You do that a couple times and you see their heads turn that glowing white and they puff up. They get their dominance coming on and they’re looking for a fight. That’s what it’s all about. We designed it like that for a couple of different reasons. I come to find out in testing it and everything else. It functions for a lot more reasons than we originally didn’t even design it for. It worked out really well. We launched it back in 2013. It went viral. We were very overwhelmed with how people took it and perceived it and jumped on it. We’ve been running with it ever since. It’s been good times.

I’m not a big turkey hunter. It’s no surprise that I hadn’t seen it before, but I like it because of the portability. You don’t have to worry about breaking anything down. Basically the shape of the umbrella, you can stick it place in your pack. The way it pops out because anybody has seen turkeys strutting and it mimics that. That’s impressive.

We came up with the elk and the antelope. For elk hunters, there aren’t a lot of products on the market for elk decoys and that’s for a couple of reasons. It’s really hard to come up with an elk decoy that’s light enough and packable enough that someone’s actually going to want to stick it in their back and hike up in the mountains with. There are a couple of companies out there that make some silhouettes. They’d been around for years. I’ve used them for years. There’s just not a whole lot of selection out there. When we came out with the elk, again, it weighs under two pounds. It will strap to the side of your pack and when it’s go time, it takes little effort, little time to get it out and have it ready to go. We have a unique staking design that’s built into the handle. This is on the antelope, the elk and the JakeFan. The stakes pulls out of the handle and stakes into the ground. You can’t lose it. It’s always there.

I set up my elk decoys away from where I’m calling. I’ll throw my call towards them, but they could be 20, 30, 40 or 50 yards away from me to catch your eye. Depending on the wind and everything, I’ll throw my voice towards them and the elk when it comes up, we’ll be looking at them. They won’t be looking at me. You’ve got to figure a way to attach it, to a tree or to a bush, bungee cords or whatever. There are a lot of different ways to do it with clips but with the integrated stake, that’s pretty slick.

That’s one of the things we wanted to accomplish. The existing decoys for elk hunting, they’re on the market now. They do pose some issues. They are lightweight and very packable, but they have somewhat of a clumsy staking system or you have to be near some trees or bushes to clip them or hang them up. They don’t do well in the wind. We’re pretty proud of the elk fan. It’s as packable as lightweight and it can be staked down in an open field and open meadow just about anywhere you want. You know, as well as I do, if you’re solo hunting, you’re going to want to stake it down and be upwind of it, that 30, 40 yards because that’s where that bull elk is going to come in and get the wind anyway. Put it somewhere in your lap and if you have a partner in your shadow calling, it’s as easy to stay behind calling. We use it a lot that way too and we’ve been very successful with it.

I’m glad we got together to do this promo for the Iowa Deer Classic with KillerGear. It’s innovative. What do they run? What’s the retail on them?

The original TurkeyFan runs at $99.99. The Jake and the Antelope is one $139.99 and the elk is $169.99. Those are all MSRP retail prices. At the show, we’ll have show specials and about 20%, 30% off on all products.

Anything else you’d like to add about the Iowa Deer Classic?

This one is a great show. I’ve been attending it for years even way before I started a business and started being a vendor myself. I’ve always loved walking the aisles and meeting the people. I know a lot of people there. It’s the one time out of the year I get to see a lot of faces and meet a lot of people that I really see once a year. If you’re there, come stop by. We’re at Booth 910. You can’t miss us. We’re a great big booth. Stop by and say hello and come check out the decoys in person.

With that, thank you so much, Will. We look forward to seeing you at the Iowa Deer Classic on March 1st, 2nd and 3rd in Des Moines, Iowa.

Thank you.

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About Will Downard

Growing up being raised, taught, and groomed to hunt and kill giant whitetails left little room for life to take Will anywhere but the great outdoors. Being an entrepreneur it was only natural for Will to find his niche in the hunting industry.

Between coming up with new ideas and taking them to market, creating brands, running businesses, and raising a family, Wills passion lies in adventure and bow hunting. Whether traveling to far off unknown places or chasing whitetails and turkeys behind the house like he did growing up, Will finds himself filming and writing these days, turning his hunting exploits into an art form to be seen and shared in short films.