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Why hasn't saddlehunting become more mainstream?

The idea that saddles take some work and effort pretty much sums up the reason why crossbows, and the soon to come airbows, pop-up blinds, and pre manufactured shooting houses are becoming so popular. Yep, just take your camo pop-up out and plop it down...no need to prep it or brush it in. Climb in and fill your tag. Good luck with that here in Pa.
On one hand, the direction of the mentality and laziness that so many modern hunters possess makes me wanna puke. On the other hand, I don't mind when they stay locked in to their little stationary world.
 
Pats1512 said:
So when I was at TC it was very similar in the muzzleloader world. You would show people how it worked and how to clean it and they couldn't run away quick enough. A few early added seasons later and some celebrity backing and we were neck deep in making enough.
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I hesitate to put you on the spot with this question, because reading your post in full I suspect it's 99% truth and not much else. But...

How much of "early added seasons later" was wheels greased by lobbyists?

It may be an impolite question, I know. Feel free to ignore or answer by PM.
 
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sureshotscott said:
I hesitate to put you on the spot with this question, because reading your post in full I suspect it's 99% truth and not much else. But...

How much of "early seasons added later" was wheels greased by lobbyists?

It may be an impolite question, I know. Feel free to answer by PM.
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No issue with that. It was really headed up by Tony knight of knight rifles and everyone else saw the benefits of it. From what I know Tony was very grass roots and worked with the state's to show the financial gain of adding a muzzleloader season while reducing deer populations. It's very similar to what is going on with crossbows now. It makes more money for the state to add a season then to give out more tags in most instances. Unfortunately for the muzzleloader companies some of the herds got too big and states just opened up more rifle seasons in the last 5 years.

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I’m late to this post but in the last few months you’ve had mark Kenyon from wired to Hunt buy one and demonstrate its use. I had never heard of saddle hunting until Mark interviewed John E on his podcast. I thought John was kind of crazy because he couldn’t list one downside of saddle hunting. I was intrigued. But then lo and behold Mark goes out and buys one and had some success. Now it’s not my aim to imitate everything Kenyon does, but it did make me research it more. Maybe the big-name TV guys won't want to get into it, but the YouTube stars and podcast giants might. I agree with what’s been said though, it is expensive to get into. In order to afford it I have to sell my climbing Treestand, a nice range finder, and a nice safety harness. And I’m hoping that I like using a ring of steps because I’m not sure I can afford the platform.
 
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had never even heard of it until this year is why because i have been tired of lugging treestands around in the mud and up hills for years.
 
SheddingLightTravis said:
I’m late to this post but in the last few months you’ve had mark Kenyon from wired to Hunt buy one and demonstrate its use. I had never heard of saddle hunting until Mark interviewed John E on his podcast. I thought John was kind of crazy because he couldn’t list one downside of saddle hunting. I was intrigued. But then lo and behold Mark goes out and buys one and had some success. Now it’s not my aim to imitate everything Kenyon does, but it did make me research it more. Maybe the big-name TV guys want to get into it, but the YouTube stars and podcast giants might. I agree with what’s been said though, it is expensive to get into. In order to afford it I have to sell my climbing Treestand, a nice range finder, and a nice safety harness. And I’m hoping that I like using a ring of steps because I’m not sure I can afford the platform.
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Interesting you bring this back to the fore front. I just listened to the most recent Wired to Hunt podcast with Mark discussing his Montana trip and first experience with a saddle. He doesn't spend a ton of time discussing it, but he does say about the saddle "I love it. I mean I really, really like it." I'd be shocked if web traffic isn't on the rise with people hearing that.

http://wiredtohunt.com/2018/09/07/w...1-my-2018-montana-public-land-deer-hunt-more/
 
Pssshhht Mark Smenyon. It ain't mainstream until the instahuntresses catch on and next thing we know we're discussing ultralite eyeliner and the best selfie saddle poses. I say over/under until that occurs is October 42nd.
 
Sorry im late to this thread but i will agree with most have said on here. I live at the bow shop and the owner goes to the shows year after year and always tells me they have one of your diapers there!! Hunting for the most part is like a culture where the way their dads did it is the way they do it. Really there is little to no deviation from this!! We on here are just an exception.

I started with stands and it became ridiculous to lug and rehang 30 stands a year!! I found saddle hunting via John E. then i found this site. Now I don’t hang anything but i work my tail off harder than ever to find new ground and scouting!! I hunt a mixture of both private and public and being mobile is key but its labor intensive because you are always changing.

The way we climb is also different than the traditional guy!! We spend so much time figuring the safest way to climb because saddlehunting not only develops you as a hunter seeing new ground but we become pseudo arborists at the same time addressing trees and treating each climb with the utmost safety.

Back when i was setting all those stands i was unproductive and had very hit or miss seasons. Since saddle hunting my success has nearly tripled and has produced much more consistent seasons.

Initially the cost is minimal because $300 for a saddle and another $150 for a climbing method vs the mass amount of lock ons and climbers i have bought!! I can hunt this way for a long time but alot of the older guys are now switching to ground blinds because they don’t have the energy to carry 20-30lb stands plus gear.

This will most likely be a niche market. With aerohunter and tethrd we now have options on saddles. There has been some member growth but time will tell because so many just revert back to their traditional stands and use the saddle occasionally because of the points several made earlier in this thread.

I like my advantages over the others but to the rookies you do still have to work at this and sometimes you may have to shed a little blood and sweat in the process.
 
The guys at the Hunting Public ordered saddles(not sure which brand) but havent received them yet. If the company really wanted to take off they would push their orders to the top of the heap, thats a lot of free publicity. I decided to try a saddle after hearing that Kenyon and THP guys were going to go with it. I had listened to Eberhart on the W2H podcast prior to all that but he came off as so incredibly arrogant that a saddle was the best thing ever with ZERO disadvanatges and you are an idiot if you arent hunting out of one that i didnt want to use one just because there was no way I was going to use the same method as him.
 
I started looking at saddles after seeing a fair number of guys on the hunting beast talk about them. Specifically I pulled the trigger after talking to @BassBoysLLP about tethrd and the ability to combine the saddle with my tree stands. Eventually some money robber (not gonna say names but we know who it is) put up great videos of the predator platform so now I have that as well. :tearsofjoy:

It’ll take off. Once it gets more publicity with the hunting public it will grow. Look at the beast in the last year. Insane growth. The mob is a coming
 
I think there are a lot of guys like me (newbie) who have been hiking 30 something pounds of gear every hunt for years and years. Every few years I would lookin into "the sling thing" but didn't really understand it. I didn't know of anyone around me to show me the ropes. I found all the info that finally converted me on youtube and Im so glad I did. I think more and more people are converting because of videos. Its the closest you can get to having someone walk you through the ins and outs. I think there is a lot of guys out there that will convert that enjoy climbing. I think its also the natural progression to end up in a saddle after climbing with sticks for years, and being someone who moves every hunt. I also think that what makes hunting fun is different for everyone and having all these different types of hunting styles is a good thing.
 
I dont think it’ll ever be mainstream due to a number of reasons. I definitely think it can grow though.

1. Statistics show the number of hunters are declining. Of those numbers, I don’t think there is a large percentage who truly “hunt” (go find deer vs trying to attract deer to a particular spot already set up). For the record I’m not bashing that style of hunting but there is a difference.

2. I don’t think cost is a big factor but cost combined with a foreign concept is. If you look at cost comparison between loc on set ups and saddles there isn’t much difference. Now between climbing stands and saddles there is quite a bit of difference. To me the biggest portion of the population you will convert to saddle hunting are the loc on users. People transitioning from climber to another method are naturally going to switch to loc on before saddle because the loc on is somewhat more familiar. I know there are exceptions.

3. If it’s going to be mainstream it would need to be sold in stores unless you had an unbelievable marketing campaign. I don’t see it being sold in stores because I don’t think there are enough people who are looking to get into “hunting” (going find deer vs attracting them) I think if there were more people looking to “hunt” we’d have already seen treestand manufacturers trying to get stands lighter. My observations are they have been getting heavier or staying the same (around 11lbs on the light end) trying to meet the needs of the majority.
 
BayouBeauxhunter said:
I dont think it’ll ever be mainstream due to a number of reasons. I definitely think it can grow though.

1. Statistics show the number of hunters are declining. Of those numbers, I don’t think there is a large percentage who truly “hunt” (go find deer vs trying to attract deer to a particular spot already set up). For the record I’m not bashing that style of hunting but there is a difference.

2. I don’t think cost is a big factor but cost combined with a foreign concept is. If you look at cost comparison between loc on set ups and saddles there isn’t much difference. Now between climbing stands and saddles there is quite a bit of difference. To me the biggest portion of the population you will convert to saddle hunting are the loc on users. People transitioning from climber to another method are naturally going to switch to loc on before saddle because the loc on is somewhat more familiar. I know there are exceptions.

3. If it’s going to be mainstream it would need to be sold in stores unless you had an unbelievable marketing campaign. I don’t see it being sold in stores because I don’t think there are enough people who are looking to get into “hunting” (going find deer vs attracting them) I think if there were more people looking to “hunt” we’d have already seen treestand manufacturers trying to get stands lighter. My observations are they have been getting heavier or staying the same (around 11lbs on the light end) trying to meet the needs of the majority.
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Dan's stand will probably come in as easily the lightest stand on the market when it launches, but the price will keep it from being mainstream.


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Pats1512 said:
Hey guys,

I've been looking at this forum for information for a while and haven't posted much but the more I saddle hunt the more this bothers me. For a long time I worked in marketing at Thompson Center (at that time the masters of marketing) and have been around the hunting industry a long time. There is too much that makes sense about where the industry has gone with companies like Sitka and Kuiu that the modern day hunter who is often more athletic and looking for the best way to hunt would not quickly jump on this. So I've come up with two theories:

1. I think a big pocket marketing company has not told the story of saddle hunting benefits to this point that make people interested.

2. With Tv cameras in play and often not so Professional Pro hunters they are not willing to get into a saddle.

3. Saddles don't have exposure with Big Box (Cabelas, Bass Pro)

It frustrates me because I do feel this industry is one campaign away from being the next big thing. But I believe it will take someone creating a Sitka like campaign and not throwing Michael Waddell in a tree saddle. Glad I got that off my chest, hopefully in the next few years someone sees the opportunity here and saddle hunting becomes the next big thing.
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Pats1512, I agree with your points, I work for an apparel company Grunt Style and we Pride ourselves in being a marketing machine in the Patriot and Veteran community. I agree the Sitka and KUIU demographic is the more physically active type hunters, but I see more hunters as being stand hunters. Working with the OSG I'm sure there is room for a new style of hunting to be shown, but don't know the way to crack the code. I don't think it will be long till you see more TV hunters giving it a try. Just gotta find the right ones I guess.
 
Just some observations that may influence participation in saddle hunting:

1) There is a learning curve w/ saddle hunting. It takes time to figure out what works best for you and your hunting scenario.
2) Saddle hunting is comparatively expensive as others have pointed out already.
3) Lack of availability of "full package" deals. A basic starter package w/ harness (ropes and saddle bags included), climbing system, and platform would greatly reduce the learning curve.
4) Lack of partnership w/ stand companies (stand companies already manufacture the climbing systems, could probably develop a safe, light-weight, and economical platform, and they already have good marketing strategies/connections in the business)
5) Lack of retail availability - Everything needs to be ordered online, meaning there are shipping charges, and if you don't get the right size, you're shipping stuff back rather than bringing it back to the store.
6) Hunting situations/access - Hunters who hunt public land are often looking for mobile, light-weight options because they may need to pack their gear in and out a half mile or more, whereas private land hunters can get most places on their hunting properties w/ an ATV and leave their gear up all season.
7) Pre-set stands are just easier, even if you remove the climbing system after each use.
 
I don’t think it ever will I think it will have highs and lows by never mainstream


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