• The SH Membership has gone live. Only SH Members have access to post in the classifieds. All members can view the classifieds. Starting in 2020 only SH Members will be admitted to the annual hunting contest. Current members will need to follow these steps to upgrade: 1. Click on your username 2. Click on Account upgrades 3. Choose SH Member and purchase.
  • We've been working hard the past few weeks to come up with some big changes to our vendor policies to meet the changing needs of our community. Please see the new vendor rules here: Vendor Access Area Rules

Saddle saturation?

Fl Canopy Stalker said:
The market is insanely saturated. And for some reason or another everything is patent pending yet none of it is actually new or innovative in my opinion, just the patent offices inability to do actual due diligence. As word spreads about saddle hunting, I believe there will continue to be more companies popping up but I also believe a lot of them will be bigger companies partnering with the smaller ones so that the products they bring to market will be good (see how RNR worked with CGM, and trophyline’s collaboration both with novix and now TX5). I believe many smaller companies will either drastically change or close down once some of those patents are granted and enforced. I also believe that even more still will change, cost more or close down once there is standardized testing and a requirement to carry liability insurance for hunting saddles. I say that as one of the smaller guys, who both speaks to some of the other smaller guys, and also who is big enough to have went through the hassles and the costs associated with testing, cease and desists, as well as just looking at what the true profit vs time margin actually is. All I can say is, I personally won’t ever get rich from saddles BUT I have made some awesome acquaintances, friends and hunting buddies from this endeavor. That has made it “worth it” to me
Click to expand...
As usual...nailed it. We (CGM) Will never be much bigger than we are (still in my basement) and never had aspirations to be a real competitor in the big game. I think that will help companies like us. Hell, all of us have day jobs. Just in the corner pickin up scraps and happy to do so. What doesnt help is we don't have much interest in re-inventing the wheel. We make some one off items that sell in low quantities, and we make pretty basic saddles. As long as us micro makers (Woods, Overwatch, TX5, CGM and others) stay focused on our niche, keep testing/proofing and keep quality and customer service in the front, I think we will have a spot in the corner. There are now trends within a trend and I think those will fall off after a season or 2.

Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk
 
always89y said:
As usual...nailed it. We (CGM) Will never be much bigger than we are (still in my basement) and never had aspirations to be a real competitor in the big game. I think that will help companies like us. Hell, all of us have day jobs. Just in the corner pickin up scraps and happy to do so. What doesnt help is we don't have much interest in re-inventing the wheel. We make some one off items that sell in low quantities, and we make pretty basic saddles. As long as us micro makers (Woods, Overwatch, TX5, CGM and others) stay focused on our niche, keep testing/proofing and keep quality and customer service in the front, I think we will have a spot in the corner. There are now trends within a trend and I think those will fall off after a season or 2.

Sent from my SM-G998U using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Thank you for articulating my ramblings so eloquently Jerry! I couldn’t agree with you more. The quality and craftsmanship of your builds, are definitely reasons why companies like RNR (ape canyon) reached out and worked with you. Honored to even be mentioned along side CGM, Overwatch, or TX5. I don’t care how saturated the market is, I believe you and I will always have the support of loyal customers that decide to get away from the hyped up bigger guys.
 
That made My head hurt.....ifs for that reason i just share my tricks with the homies on here.patens and revinuers who use them just slow down the progress as a sport.cant catch up to the ultra light backpacker hippies carrying lawyers.there is no excuses.all hunting gear should be soft silent superlight more compact and fully camo by 2024 you would think.no f ing excuses.we live in the time of space x.it shouldnt take elon to figyer it out.its for this reason i make all my own gear and even the cloths i buy have to be modified......lazy product desighners .....the market is just pittifull.
 
Last edited:
Oh.the homie made à dope guitar peddal and got a patten on it.he showed it to Joe Sat. Who then just had a china company make it a little different.think they care about pattens in china?someone will be selling your ideas soon enough.so what..its just a hustle to them.to them i say hustle on player.thank you for your part in advancing our sport.
 
I think the market is definitely saturated, and I get asked about saddles every day that I’ve never heard of. But I meet people all the time that ask what I do for a living and I have to explain saddle hunting (normally with pictures involved) to people that have hunted their entire lives and never heard of a tree saddle. I guess there is over saturation for people like us that are already into this style of hunting, but there is still a huge untapped market even in the hunting community. It’s going to be the larger companies that market well that reap the benefits of that untapped market (initially anyway). Us smaller guys are selling a different kind of thing in my opinion. I take phone calls every day with guys that are buying their second or third saddle and with guys that over analyze every purchase. The over analyzer is the person that usually finds their way to the smaller companies because of quality/innovation. I don’t sell a ton of saddles and I am back to making each one myself now that I have the time. I think Jerry is right, it’s our niche within the niche of saddle hunting and as long as we stay true to what we are currently doing us smaller guys can stay relevant. I think Robert is also correct in that the smaller companies that are able to obtain liability insurance and testing are more likely to make it. That stuff eats up most of the money I make but I think we’re reaching the point that you would be taking a huge risk not having it.
 
I think the past 2-3 years and possibly the next year or two will be seen as the golden age of saddle/mobile hunting innovation. The time when business was booming the most. I suspect things will start to plateau over the next year or two, and then begin to wane, especially on the saddle side. The main reason I think this is because the vast majority of people I know that have finally given in and decided to try saddle hunting over the past year or so, have not taken to it and largely give up on it. It’s a niche market for a select crowd that was given a ton of exposure over recent years. That has brought in money, but if hunters don’t adopt saddles long term then things will start to decline. So, I have seen people throw some money at it to try it, but it doesn’t stick for a lot of them. Eventually that will catch up with the market and we will see the signs of it.

Just my thoughts based on my observations.
 
Spartan said:
I think the past 2-3 years and possibly the next year or two will be seen as the golden age of saddle/mobile hunting innovation. The time when business was booming the most. I suspect things will start to plateau over the next year or two, and then begin to wane, especially on the saddle side. The main reason I think this is because the vast majority of people I know that have finally given in and decided to try saddle hunting over the past year or so, have not taken to it and largely give up on it. It’s a niche market for a select crowd that was given a ton of exposure over recent years. That has brought in money, but if hunters don’t adopt saddles long term then things will start to decline. So, I have seen people throw some money at it to try it, but it doesn’t stick for a lot of them. Eventually that will catch up with the market and we will see the signs of it.

Just my thoughts based on my observations.
Click to expand...

This is an interesting comment and I'm curious what other folks' experiences have been with introducing others to saddle hunting.
I don't have many bow hunting buddies, but the two that decided to give saddle hunting a try have stuck with it and now no longer hunt out of any other type of stand.
 
I think companies like Overwatch, Wood, and CGM are sitting in the Catbird seat. When the purchasers of mass produced saddles realize there is a way to be comfortable when hunting in a saddle, they will go to these guys with open wallets.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I’d like to see the market research XOP has done over the last year or 2. They are relatively new to the saddle market, yet they put out a new saddle, and platform this yr. A company that size looks at numbers before mass producing. It may not be as saturated as you think.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
okccj said:
This is an interesting comment and I'm curious what other folks' experiences have been with introducing others to saddle hunting.
I don't have many bow hunting buddies, but the two that decided to give saddle hunting a try have stuck with it and now no longer hunt out of any other type of stand.
Click to expand...
I have shown a decent handful and some picked it up, some didnt. Most of the ones that didnt that I know personally seldom if ever hunt more than a quarter mile from a vehicle. It's an awesome tool for folks that want to be really mobile but it comes with a learning curve. Lots of folks that hunt are simply put, lazy. In effort and in learning. It is awesome to have so many options now.
 
okccj said:
This is an interesting comment and I'm curious what other folks' experiences have been with introducing others to saddle hunting.
I don't have many bow hunting buddies, but the two that decided to give saddle hunting a try have stuck with it and now no longer hunt out of any other type of stand.
Click to expand...
I have had a tough time converting my buddies to saddle hunting. Now that may be because we are an older demographic and to them it just doesn't look as comfortable or as easy as it really is. I don't think the cost of entry is an issue with any of them, its more that they're comfortable with their climbing stands and don't see a need to change. The one buddy who at least has shown some interest is the son of one of my lifelong hunting buddies so he's a young guy (~22). I set him up with the gear and showed him how to use it but I still see him with the climber most of the time.

An interesting historical fact though. I was the first of my hunting buddies to adopt a mobile hunting style. When I bought my first climber and started hunting out of it they all looked at me like I'd lost my mind. "You're going to carry that in and out of the woods with you every day???? Not me brother, you can have it!" After a few year they began to see the benefit of being mobile. Now, they're all hunting out of climbers almost exclusively. There's bunches of unused fixed treestands and heavy stick combos sitting in the back of all their garages. It's possible they'll make the switch to saddle hunting yet . . . only time will tell.
 
Like me, many of my hunting buddies are or used to be professional arborists, so we all quickly adopted saddle hunting. Some of My other friends that are dedicated hunters have only recently heard about it and don’t consider making the shift to a saddle because they already have tons of other tree stand options.

Speaking of a saturated market, AeroHunter has left the scene. While there are any numbers of reasons behind the why, it certainly speaks to market condition when one of the founding companies, who was beloved by so many goes away.
 
okccj said:
This is an interesting comment and I'm curious what other folks' experiences have been with introducing others to saddle hunting.
I don't have many bow hunting buddies, but the two that decided to give saddle hunting a try have stuck with it and now no longer hunt out of any other type of stand.
Click to expand...

I introduced no less than a dozen folks in my close huntjng circle to saddle huntjng. Three of them tried soft saddles the rest laughed. All tried the JX3 hybrid eventually, and 7-8 of them use it almost exclusively when elevated. Only one of that group still uses a soft saddle.

For what it’s worth, I’m one of two members of this gang that aren’t classified as obese.
 
Aside from my hunting buddies, most of the hunters I know only hunt on weekends during the one month gun season, and we can’t hunt on sundays. Those guys aren’t going to engage with a kind of hunting that requires practice, preparation, and requires some amount of physical exertion. They tend to either walk around with a shotgun hoping to get lucky or they have one or two treestands that they might sit in for a couple of hours. My guess is that the casual weekend warrior are the majority of the market.
 
Bwhana said:
Agree with most of the posts so far, but will add a couple that some won’t like.

It is a simple fact that people are getting bigger in this country on average, and maybe even more so in the hunting community based on what I have observed walking around at hunting shows and stores like Cabelas.

I have always questioned whether anyone over 200-225 should really be climbing trees unless a ladder stand or stick ladders are involved, and at 300, probably should stay on the ground or in a tower type stand. I am generalizing here and recognize there are exceptions to every rule and there are some very athletic guys over 225, but only talking about the norm here.

I have watched reactions at the shows and most of the bigger boys that are not already into mobile simply laugh and move on when they pass a saddle related booth. People size is a huge limitation for how far the saddle market can and will grow and the answer is not an improved weight rating on the products.
Click to expand...
There’s something to that larger body thing.

God willing, 2023 will mark my 20th season of hunting more-or-less exclusively from a saddle. I’ve noticed that of the hardcore saddlehunters I’ve known, those who hunt a primarily from a saddle and have done so for a number of years, I can't think of more than a couple that go more than 160 or so. Guys like Eberhart come to mind.

I'm sure we're close to the saturation point, insofar as there are now a number of competing products and the potential customer population is either static or in decline. I am gratified that in the last few years, the little guys(Wood, CGM, Overwatch, TX5) have really been kicking ass in producing excellent products, and I hope they're able to continue to do so.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top