You're listening to the Sportsman's Empire Podcast Network.
You're home for real, relatable outdoor podcasts.
Interstate batteries offers a wide variety of batteries for your everyday needs.
Stop into one of their thousands of retail locations and talk with a battery specialist
about batteries for your truck, trail cameras, and even those weird batteries for your rangefinder.
Interstate batteries even offer cell phone repair in certain locations.
For more information, visit InterstateBatteries.com.
Interstate batteries outrageously dependable.
What's up everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the Hunting Gear Podcast.
I'm your host Dan Johnson and we got a good episode today.
First off, before I even get into today's episode, I do have to say this.
It is bright and sunshiny in the temperatures here in Iowa are increasing and I'm pulling.
Well, I don't even think they have school tomorrow because of Easter, but I am taking my daughter on her very, not her first hunt ever,
but there's an opportunity for her to pull the trigger on a deer or a turkey this weekend.
I'm freaking excited.
I know she's excited.
I'm going to have my stepdad with me.
He's going to be back behind us, basically calling for us so I can focus on her and the gun and get in the shot lined up.
He'll be calling and I'll probably signal to him, hey, call more, call less.
I got a couple decoys that we're going to be out.
I'm just really looking forward to this.
This is the stuff that I really like.
I like going out and helping other people get turkeys.
I like to call for people.
I like to help people put people in position to be successful for turkeys.
I honestly don't care if I ever shoot another turkey.
I just love being the guy who gets to watch it all unfold.
I love that about turkey hunting and I'm really looking forward to sharing this experience with my daughter.
She's jacked up about it.
With that said, we've got a really good episode today.
I'm going to be talking with Greg Godfrey of Tether.
Really, what this episode is is an update on all the new products that they've introduced over the last year.
They've introduced some accessories.
They've introduced a new saddle.
The big one that they've done is they've worked in collaboration with the hunting public crew to introduce a new turkey vest.
He breaks all of that down for us as well.
It's a really fun, exciting, entertaining, informational episode that you guys are going to be sure to enjoy.
Please go to iTunes, leave a five-star review.
Let everybody know that there's a lot of information here on the Hunting Gear podcast.
Then tag the Nine Finger Chronicles when you share this online and I'll share it back.
I think that's all I have to really say today.
We do have to do some commercials here real quick.
Where we got going on?
We got Hunt Stand.
If you're looking on planning and at a state hunt, you've got to at some point find the ground that you want to hunt on
and you can't be there every day.
You might not even ever be able to scout it before you hunt it.
That's where a hunting app like Hunt Stand really comes into play.
You mess around with access.
You look for access.
You look for edge.
You can look for a whole bunch of terrain features and whatnot.
All of that's available on Hunt Stand.
You have the available, there's so much functionality along with Hunt Stand.
Go to huntstand.com.
Check it out.
While you're there, read up on all the functionality and then check out the Pro White Tail platform as well.
That's just recently been introduced this past year.
I think if you're a serious bow on or a serious white tail guy, you're going to find that interesting.
So, huntstand.com. Next on the list, we have tethered, of course.
This whole episode is about tethered.
I'm not going to get too much in there, but I'm really looking forward to becoming more of an efficient saddle hunter this year.
I'm going to be doing less western hunts and more tree stand type hunts if I do in fact draw Kansas this year.
I'm going to be doing the whole tree hunting, which means I'll be in a saddle.
I'm looking forward to that.
Go check out tethered's website and listen closely today about all the information that Greg Spitz.
Last but not least, we have... what's the last one here?
I'm in like an organization mode, so I got stuff spread out all over, and that's tacticing.
If you are looking to document your hunts, I think for a hunter anyway, mounting a camera to your gun or your bow is one of the best options.
Every time I would bring a GoPro with me and put it over my shoulder, I would forget to press the record button.
And so I just basically brought a camera into the woods with me.
Having a tactic cam on your bow and on your gun, it's right in front of you.
All you got to do is reach and hit the button, start it up.
They have the new 6.0 version.
The new 6.0 version has image stabilization, has an LCD screen, it can record in 4K.
It's pretty badass, and that allows you to document your hunts and bring the footage home and show your kids, your wife, your dad, or grandpa.
And so go check out tactic cam.
That's it for the... that's it. That's it for commercials.
That's it for the intro.
Hopefully you guys enjoyed this episode.
Feel free to share it wherever you... you know, on social or on...
wherever you message people, you know, spread the word about the hunting gear podcast and enjoy.
All right, on this episode of the hunting gear podcast, I'm joined by Greg Godfrey of Tetherd, Greg.
Man, what's up?
Man, getting ready for turkey season.
My season opens on Saturday here in Georgia.
And so later this week, just a few days away, pretty excited about it.
Yeah, man, I tell you what, I'm a little bit jealous of those guys who get a turkey hunt early in April and even in late March,
because Iowa's season doesn't open until mid-April.
And I feel... I don't know about you, but I feel like all the toms are end up at that point.
And it's harder to get on a bird, especially with the low numbers we're experiencing.
Well, Georgia just did us dirty this year.
They moved it back, you know, 10, 12 days.
So we used to open in March.
Last year it opened in March.
And this year it's opening.
They even switched it up a little bit more.
So private land this year in Georgia opens up on April 1st, which is Saturday.
But then public land guys have to wait a full other week until April the 8th, I guess, before they can go in.
So yeah, that's a problem and agreed here.
I mean, I've got birds gobbling and strutting in February here.
So they start really early.
Now the other thing is, I mean, travel.
So I travel down to Florida not every year, but frequently to get that really early March opener.
And I went this year, I already shot an Aussieola this year.
So I'm rolling.
My turkey season is moving.
So if you knock out an Eastern, then are you going to head west and try to do the Grand Slam in a single year?
I'm doing it next year.
I got the, I got the okay from my wife for next year to do the whole thing.
To include the one in Mexico, the ghouls.
Oh boy.
So you're going for the North American one.
I'm doing it all.
And so I'm not too concerned with it this year, but next year for sure.
I'll start early with an Aussieola.
The Eastern should be fairly easy and then head west to get the Rio and the Mariams and then pop down into Mexico for the ghouls.
Maybe I can do like drop down, hit the ghouls in Mexico and then just hop across the border and pick up a Rio in Texas.
Hey man.
So I'm lucky.
You know, I get to do this for a living.
I get to travel and, you know, have time in the spring.
So.
Man, I tell you what, you guys have been crazy busy.
It sounds like with Tether, not just from the growth and expansion of your brand, but just like a big move.
You guys took a, you guys recently took a big move.
Into Nashville, Tennessee.
And that's kind of where you've placed your headquarters these days.
I'm interested in why Nashville and why a move in a world today where you can really work from anywhere.
Why did you guys decide to, to plant a headquarters in Nashville?
There's really a couple of reasons.
First of all, probably the main reason is I always mess up this stat, but it's something like 50% of the US population.
Lives within a days drive of Nashville, Tennessee.
So as far as the, you know, direct to consumer shipping business, like we are, we just made a ton of sense for us to relocate to a really centralized area as opposed to our warehouse used to be up in Michigan or Minnesota rather just south of the Twin City.
So relocating down to Tennessee gets us, wake, it gets us a lot closer to the people that want to order.
So it saves money for the customer, saves money for us.
It's just a good move from a logistics perspective.
Plus the corporate and government climate, climate in Tennessee is much more small business friendly than Minnesota.
Not to get into politics and stuff like that, but like Minnesota is like a blue state and they tend to be more heavy into regulation and taxes and et cetera.
And then Tennessee being, you know, more of a red state, they're typically a little bit looser on that type of stuff.
So when we move, we save the lot of money in taxes and the stuff that you have to do being a small, small business.
So those two reasons really kind of made sense for the overall thing. But then the third reason is the plan is to get everybody there. So all of our people in one location.
It was, that was a harder, harder thing to sell to get everybody to move to Minnesota. It's much easier to get everybody in Nashville. Plus, you're at a half days drive from, man, all the really good white tail.
I mean, I can be in Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Indiana in like half a day. So it just makes a lot of sense for us to be located there.
I'm still in Georgia just because I haven't been able to make the move yet, but that's the plan is for me to get there and then everybody eventually to get there.
Yeah, I didn't know if you guys were going to be dropping an out a tethered album because you were going to be moving to Nashville and I didn't know if that was on the, if that was on the plate.
Yeah, we do. We plan to drop an album. I'll be the lead singer. It'll be the, we're selling record of all time.
Of all time. Of all time. Oh, that would be funny. So making the move to Nashville and not just that, but man, it's been over a year, I think, since I've talked to you.
And you guys have introduced what seems like a ton of new products. And this is one of my favorite questions to ask people in your position. And that is, how do you guys determine what new products to bring to market every year?
Man, it's not easy. So we'd probably have, I don't know, 15 new products in various levels of launch, some are ideas, some are prototypes, some are in manufacturing, some are finishing up. You know, you have all these different stages, you have to meet.
And it can be really difficult. A lot of what, what dictates when we launch a new product is manufacturing. Because, because of our supply chains, you know, we make some stuff overseas with partners.
We make a lot of gear here domestically. And when you make it here in the US, you can typically go from idea to launch way faster because you don't have all these gigantic lead times from getting stuff on a boat and whatnot.
But then some products, they don't really make sense to make here in the States because you'd have to charge three times and people don't want to spend $65 on a tiny little pouch that's US make.
So it really depends on manufacturing a lot. And then it also depends on the other thing I would say that kind of pushes a timeline out is our testing.
We like to test everything. And a lot of times we'll go through multiple iterations of gear before we finally nail it. And we think it's ready for, you know, hunters.
So real, I would say those two things, manufacturing and testing are the things that can slow us down. But we like to move fast. I mean, there are times where we will have an idea.
We will all get together and go back and forth in just a matter of days or, you know, maybe a week or two. And then we have this product kind of fixed and it's ready to go.
Then it just jumps into the manufacturing pipeline and it could be out very, very quickly. But that's the exception as opposed to the rule.
So, where are you guys getting your feedback from? Like, hey, it would be cool if Heather had this, or are you guys just reading the market and saying, well, let's try this as opposed to getting information from the end user.
I'd say it's a mix. It's a it's a healthy mix of both. I mean, there's always talk on social media forums on Facebook on wherever that you know you can kind of listen to the feedback from from customers and non customers.
You know, you hear feedback from haters, you get feedback from fanboys, you get feedback from just regular Joe's, you get feedback from everywhere.
And then, you know, our network of guys inside of tethered is pretty phenomenal. I mean, we've got some guys that work with us who are straight killers.
I mean, you got guys like Andy May and Jared Shafer and Garaprol and the THP boys and the untamed guys. And, you know, there's just a lot of people that we work with that have really, they give us really good feedback on gear that we're prototyping or testing.
And then, you know, tethered employees. I mean, we got all great guys work with tethered because we essentially hired all of our friends, all of our buddy's and that's who runs tethered for the most part so we kind of lean heavily on our close network of people, but then, you know, filter through
what we see on social media and forums and stuff like that. But you also have to take that stuff with the grain of salt, the stuff that you see on social media because so many people just, they just talk and they just don't know a lot of times they don't have a clue.
So you're gonna have to take that stuff with the grain of salt.
Yeah, I'll tell you what, whenever I talk, you know, like we are partners, you guys are advertising partners on the nine finger Chronicles podcast and one thing that I always say when I do my ad reads is, you know, the product is awesome.
But it's the network that you guys have created in the community that you guys have created where people are really open to sharing ideas and sharing strategy and, you know, DIY type, you know, like guys, guys like to tinker with things and things like that.
And I think tethered has done a really, really good job of using that community to promote your product in a way that allows people to like really flatten a learning curve. And because, to be honest with you, one of my main hurdles before I made the jump into a saddle, you know, and I'm not even in a saddle I would say full time yet.
But there was, there was some obstacles that I've mentally had to jump through in order to, you know, get on board with a saddle with get on board with saddle hunting and guys like Garrett and Andy and Parker.
They all made it.
It very simple to reach out to and just be like, Hey, what about this? What about this?
And so that's pretty sweet that you guys have created that community.
Thank you. Well, we work hard at it. And it's, you know, it's, it's kind of easy for us in that regard because that's who we are. That's where we came from. I mean, for anyone listening that doesn't know the tethered story.
The, the, the elevator pitch of that is we were a bunch of dudes who met in a hunting forum. And so we were just, I didn't even know the people face to face that started the company with then.
So it was all about this kind of DIY mentality and ethos where we kind of got a business going out of that and it's just carried on.
We hit our five year mark in June, this, this June, 2023 tethered has been a business for five years. So it's, you know, we're new or essentially a startup. And we've just kind of kept that ethos since the beginning of the community driven DIY focused.
It means a lot to us and that's really who we are. So it's not a stretch for us to kind of foster that mentality in the company. Right. Right.
In that, in that last five years since you guys kicked off, what have been some of the biggest obstacles that you guys have had to overcome as a company?
You know, for sure manufacturing. I mean, for sure. I mean, we, we were a bunch of guys who, like I said, we're a bunch of DIY public land dudes who were just kind of pounding the pavement, hunting.
And none of us were manufacturing experts. So my partner, Ernie, who handles the logistics side of tethered, he has a little bit of a background in that stuff. He's an engineer. But when it comes to cutting.
So we didn't know, we didn't know how to do that on a large scale. And then tethered kind of blew up so fast that we had to learn very quickly. So for sure manufacturing and supply chains have been incredibly difficult to learn.
I mean, and we have international supply chains and that's a whole nother beast. And then we were fortunate and unfortunate in that when we were only two years old, you know, COVID hit.
And that through the entire logistics supply chain out the window. And so that was kind of a nightmare. So I would definitely say, I would definitely say supply chain management logistics has been the biggest hurdle we've had to figure out.
It's not like it's incredibly complex. It just takes a lot of time and you can really waste a lot of money. Me and Ernie call it our idiot tax.
We make a really stupid decision or, you know, we're just ignorant about something. We've had to do it so many times. And I don't remember which product it was, but there was one we messed up our timelines.
And we had to end up airlifting a whole bunch of stuff from overseas and it ended up costing us like $65,000. And we just called it an idiot tax. It's just like, you know, we're idiots we learned, but that was our that was our educational tax and
I hate a lot over the last five years. Yeah, but it sounds like you guys are getting more efficient as time goes on and you learned from those mistakes.
Yeah, we're getting better and then, you know, co locating all those, all that logistics in one place, which is what we did in Tennessee. It kind of helps reduce those mistakes and poor planning and educational points.
Yeah, that's awesome. Okay, so, um, you guys, I'm gonna, I'm probably gonna come back to the saddle hunting, but in just a moment, but because it's turkey season, I want to, I want to touch on this new product launch that you have and it's a turkey vest.
And it sounds like you're rolling it out with the hunting public crew. And so my question to you is, how did that whole idea spark off to where a saddle hunting company is going to put out a turkey vest.
I don't remember who called who if I called war, but if war called me I can't, I can't remember because it started about two and a half years ago.
We actually the first time we met about it was in your neck of the woods we met at the Iowa Dear Classic in in one of the rooms, I don't know, two years ago, three, two, yeah, probably two years, two years ago.
And that's when we had kind of our initial, you know, idea generation brainstorming session and it really just came from those guys wanting a durable turkey vest that was lightweight and simple.
And then kind of us wanting to do the same thing we wanted to bring in some turkey products to help reduce the seasonality of tethered because, you know, once white tail seasons over it's like, you know, it's really slow.
So we wanted to get some stuff happening in the spring.
And it just kind of made sense, the way that it worked out, but those guys are awesome. They brought all the turkey chops, you know, we don't.
We're all turkey hunters that tethered but not like those guys. I mean, they spend 60 days in the woods every year, you know, just dirt bagging it for Turkey. So they knew exactly what they wanted.
They took us a few iterations to get there. And then, you know, we worked the deal with Mossy Oak for, for using the bottom land pattern and we actually created a proprietary fabric with Mossy Oak.
Their engineers laminated a two piece fabric together that we call whisper tough. And it's really quiet. It's got a really quiet exterior, but then the back is made the backing is made with a really durable.
You get really strong and really quiet. So kind of boring, but we put a lot of thought into it. And, you know, it's an expensive vest. It's like 300 bucks, but it's made in America and it's infinitely modular.
And I think we were really the first made in America, Turkey vest there. There are some other companies like marsupial makes an upland vest that's kind of similar.
It's made in the USA. And I think there's maybe one or two others that kind of make like a modular, more upland focused vest. They're really similar, right? I mean, there's modular pockets.
It's not a new concept. I mean, I wore what we call the L.B.V. which is the load bearing vest when I was on active duty for that for years. And that's really similar to our M2 Turkey best.
It's a load bearing yoke and waist belt and then you have modular pockets, not like a crazy new idea. We just kind of put in camo and made it work for turkey hunters. And, you know, as far as I know, think we were the first ones to do that and make it in America.
So there's trade offs, right? I mean, you can have it made in America and support American workers and have super high quality materials and the price goes up or you can make it overseas, like every other Turkey best company does and make it way cheaper, but then you're going to sacrifice durability
and maybe you're not going to get it exactly like you want it with maybe not quite as high of components. So it's just trade off. It's not for everyone.
That that vest is definitely not for everyone. You don't need to spend $300 on a turkey vest to kill turkeys. You just don't go out there with a couple calls in your pocket and kill turkeys. But this one is really made for the guy that is serious about it.
And he wants the best.
Man, I keep having these conversations with people about like I don't I think people's mind frame on an expensive made in America.
America product is so short term that they don't think of the long term benefits of having a very high quality expensive product.
I'm looking right now at a Western mountaineering sleeping bag. I paid 680 bucks for it or something like that. Made in America. If I take care of it, it's going to last me 20 years.
Okay. And you divide 650 out by 20 years. We have like whatever that math is, that's very, very affordable. Right. And so, you know, I hear made in America high quality Turkey vest.
I instantly think and because I know your brand, I feel like that's going to last me 15 Turkey seasons. You know, so you take 350 divided by or whatever your cost is 300 divided by 15.
That's like that's really affordable. And so, I just get I kind of get fired up when people, you know, it's like, oh, it's just too expensive. It's too expensive.
Everything's too expensive these days. Everything is. And so why not put that money to something that you actually love doing.
Yeah, and it's all relative, right. So 300, 300 dollars for a Turkey vest is really expensive to some guys. And it's not so expensive to others, right. There's a range of people and finances and jobs and all that stuff.
So, again, it's not for everyone. You don't have to spend 300 dollars on a Turkey vest. We know that we're not saying you have to do to kill turkeys. That's not what it's about.
But to your point, if you want one that's going to last you a really long time, that you can really customize for the way you hunt. And you can add or remove stuff, add pockets, take away pockets, make it super minimalist, make it super lightweight, make it super bulky and carry everything.
You can do that. And there's not a lot of options out there for people that want to have that kind of flexibility. So if you want the best, spend the money.
You know, we like to say buy wants, cry wants, and it'll last you forever as opposed to spending a hundred bucks every turkey season or every few turkey seasons on a new vest.
Right. Elaborate a little bit more in the customization of this bag and how it can fit a person's individual needs.
So the cool thing about it is we made it. We made it on a with a molly compatible load bearing vest or load bearing belt, I should say.
Again, this is not a new concept. The US military and the army has been using this. They call it the L.B.V. load bearing vest.
And it's just a really well made heavy duty structural vest that carries a lot of weight. So we kind of just took that concept, trimmed it down and turned it into a yoke system instead of a full vest and then put that load bearing belt on it.
And it's all molly on the side. And with, if you're familiar at all with with molly, it's just a series of webbing straps that you can attach and detach gear as you see fit.
So we've got, we've got horizontal pockets. We've got all pockets. We've got a hydration pack. We've got bird bags. We've got working on bino adapters to go on the front.
So you can really kind of mix and match. Think of it almost like his legos where you just kind of get the pieces you want. And then you just stick it together for the way you want.
So you might be a really minimalist guy and really all you want is those pockets on the side for your calls and you might like, like the guys at THP are a perfect example of this Ted at the hunting public.
He basically set his up as minimalist as possible. And then Greg, who carries a lot of cameras and he does all the self filming stuff. He maxed his out so he can carry tripods and all that stuff that he takes.
So I think that's the cool part about it. That's what those guys like so much about it is, is that it's, it's made, it's made for the mobile hunter and the guy who likes modular.
That's where the name comes from. So it's the M2 Turkey best for mobile and modular. So you can change it however you want it. And then, but it's really made for the guy that is covering a lot of ground.
If you're hunting in a blind pretty much all the time, you probably don't need this thing. You know, it's probably not for you. But if you're covering a lot of ground, maybe hunting a lot of public land, maybe you hunt a lot of even private land, but you bounce around to a lot of different farms or acres, acreage.
Then this would probably be a really good product for you. Gotcha. Why do you think really serious hunters gravitate towards tethered?
I think it's because of the thought we put into things. I mean, our crew, man, I could name names, but all the guys that kind of started with tethered and then like our partners that we've started to expand our network with.
We just put a lot of thought into stuff. And we really use our gear. I mean, there are a lot of, there are a lot of gear manufacturers that are owned by big corporations and they're owned by people who don't really hunt and they don't use their gear.
They don't believe in it. They don't stand behind it. It's just a product that they offer to fill a niche in the market. Right? That's not who we are.
We are guys that sleep in our trucks and travel out of state and hunt all over the country. And that's how we do it. So we build the gear selfishly for us.
And I think that I think that hunters out there see that and they believe that we truly stand behind our gear and that we're actually using it.
I think that makes a big difference. We're constantly looking for ways to make things lighter, better, faster, stronger. And, you know, we constantly iterate on our product.
So a lot of the stuff that you might have bought two seasons ago, like let's say the phantom saddle. That's our best selling saddle of all time.
Well, that thing has gone through multiple iterations and, you know, we will update the materials. We'll update the bridge. We'll update the storage. We'll update the comfort.
You know, whatever, we kind of iterate our products. And that's just because we use it. You know, we'll be an Illinois hunter in the rut and we'll figure out, man, this, this webbing started making noise when it got really cold.
Let's change that webbing to something that's quieter and softer. So we're constantly doing stuff like that. And I think that I think that hunters respect that.
Yeah, give me another example of a time in one of those iterations that you were talking about where you got feedback from maybe a real serious guy, serious bow hunter.
And you're like, Oh my God, you're right. And you made the change.
Yeah, so the hist strap is a perfect example of that. And the hist strap is the HYS strap. It's that it's the hang your stuff strap.
And what that is, when you're up up in a tree, you put this strap around the tree, and that's how you hang your pack. You hang your bow, you hang your drunk call. It's just a little daisy chain strap.
Well, we started out with a really heavy duty.
Kind of it was really overbuilt webbing. So it was kind of bulky. It was really long. We made it like 10 foot long. And that was our first generation. I think it was Andy May.
That was using it. And he said, man, I like it, but it's just bulky because for what I needed to do, you know, I think the webbing was rated to like 1000 pound.
And it was totally overbuilt. And he's like, man, I get it like it's super strong, but I don't need it to toe my Jeep. I just need it to hang my bow and put my pack on.
And we were like, man, you're right. So what we did is we went back to drawing board and we reduced the size of the webbing and the strength rating. We reduced the length of it. We added a little extra length to all of the little loops.
So it's easier to get your stuff in and out. And, and then that went into into production. So I could probably give you three or four more examples if I thought about it for a minute. But that's, that's the first one that came to mind is that we do that stuff all the time.
Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. So I've noticed that, you know, based off of the first saddle that you guys put out, then you had the, I call it the fat boy, the one that I have with the extra large, you know, saddle for the bigger dudes.
And then you went to like, this might be new this year. It almost like a, it has suspenders almost or shoulder straps that connect to it. So it's almost like a safety harness type deal.
And you guys now have that. Do you guys ever see yourself going even smaller and going into or because I feel like I've seen the trend go to bigger, more comfortable.
Do you guys ever see yourself going the opposite way now, which is very, very minimal, very, very small?
Probably not. When we started tethered, our first saddle was called the Mantis. And that one, that was supposed to be exactly what you're talking about. That was ultra minimalist. It doesn't have a lot of the features that we, you know, some of our other saddles have had.
And the whole point of that thing was to make it 15 ounces, right, under a pound, which was bananas in the industry, nothing at ever even been close to that. So that's kind of where we started and the feedback that we got was, yeah, we care from hunters.
You know, we heard hunters saying, yeah, we really care about weight because we're getting away from a tree stand to reduce our weight because when we're walking a long way or walking up hills and stuff, we don't want to carry big heavy metal tree stands.
Right. So weight is important, but it's also okay. You know, this is again, for us from the hunters. It's also okay if we are a little bit more than a pound.
So what we heard was, you know, you don't have to be so minimalist where you sacrifice a lot of features. So our next couple of saddles, the phantom and the menace.
They were a little bit heavier, not much. You know, you're talking six, eight ounces in the grand scheme thing.
But we built in extra features, a little bit more user friendly option. And then the saddle that you just referenced that we just released at the ATA that goes on sale this June is called the lockdown.
And that one is kind of like a completely opposite way of how we started. So we went with super ultra lightweight in the beginning.
And, you know, we like, like that's the Ferrari, right? Super fast, super light, that kind of thing. And now this new one is kind of more like a Cadillac.
It's more focused on comfort, more focused on user friendliness. And that one, I think, is going to be a home run. People really seem to like it.
It's heavier, but in the grand scheme of things, it's not that much heavier. You know, if the man's just was 15 ounces, I don't remember. I don't have the number off from top of my head, but this one's probably going to be just under two pounds.
So double the weight. But when you go from one pound to two pounds, is it, is it that much of a difference? I don't know. We'll see the market will tell us if it's too heavy.
There you go. There you go. What else? Is there anything else that or any other category you broke into the turkey hunting category? Is there any other product line or category that you guys see yourself dabbling in in the future?
Definitely going to expand turkey stuff. Yeah. We're all turkey hunters. And, you know, again, the seasonality of the Whitetail business. It just makes sense to get into more turkey stuff. So we already have three or four, three or four ideas in the hopper
for what we can do for turkey stuff next year. So we're definitely going to see more turkey stuff.
As far as, you know, I get all asked all the time if we're, if we would consider making a tree stand.
I'm not opposed to it, but it would.
I'm not interested in doing a me to product, right? I'm not interested in, Hey, this, you know, pound and a half lone wolf custom gear tree stand exists.
I'm not interested in saying, Oh, yeah, I have one too. Yeah. So we did it. It would have to be something that was really cool and really new and would actually help hunters more than what's available.
Because when you think about like how tether started, literally that did not exist. There was one other saddle hunting company on the planet that you could buy from.
And their stuff was really well made, but it was overbuilt like their saddle was, I think, four pounds. And we came in at one pound and we had all the pouches and the better ropes and all that stuff.
So it was, we really felt like we hit a niche that wasn't available on the market. So if we were to do like a tree stand or something, it would have to be something pretty groundbreaking.
And we don't, we don't have anything in the works for that right now. But yeah, I definitely don't want to take it off the table that we would not break into any other.
Hunting adjacent markets. I mean, we launched a pack this past year.
Called the fast pack for all saddle hunters.
And there's definitely more in the works in that we've got a fast pack XL in the works that'll hopefully get launched this season. We've got some other cool stuff in the pack arena.
That's going to be coming out in 2023 and 2024.
I'm excited about that. And people are going to really like what we've got for.
Awesome. Awesome.
Well, as always, man, I really appreciate you taking time out of your day to hop on and update us on on tethers direction and products and things like that. So thanks for your time today and good luck with the, the release of the new saddle and the turkey vest.
Thanks, man. Hopefully, once the eye was seasoned opens, hopefully you give them birds quick.
Yeah.
Yeah.
you
.