#Cuddeback | Share the Outdoors

By Larry Whiteley

Christmas is almost here! If you’re still shopping for a gift for someone who loves to get out and enjoy all kinds of activities in our great outdoors, here are some items that my family and I personally use and highly recommend as Christmas gifts.

GPO BINOCULARS

Binoculars are invaluable for anyone who gets out and enjoys our great outdoors. I don’t go anywhere without them and even have a binocular holder mounted in my truck, so they are handy whenever I need them.

For the past four months, the binocular that has been with me everywhere I go is German Precision Optics (GPO) Passion 10×42 HD binocular. I am very pleased with how clear and easy to focus they are compared to those binoculars I have used that sell for much more.

Best Binoculars Reviews (BBR) awarded them their 2019 Best Binocular. You can read all about that in their extensive review at https://www.bestbinocularsreviews.com/GPO10x42PassionHD-197.htm.

They also have what they call their Spectacular Lifetime Warranty™ and will take care of their products at no charge to you, ever. They are headquartered in Richmond, VA and you can find out more about all their products by going to www.gpo-usa.com.

LOWA

Another idea is a really good boot that they can use for every kind of outdoor activity. To me, personally, there are none better than LOWA. They have been 100% handcrafted in Europe since 1923 and I am impressed with their quality.

I wear their Renegade GTX® Mid and their Zephyr GTX Hi TF®, and both are by far the most comfortable, lightweight, and durable of any boots I have ever owned and I’ve owned a bunch of boots. They’ve also got a new men’s leather boot called the Nabucco Evo GTX that you might want to check out. It’s a rugged cold weather model that’s great for everyday use, on the hiking trail, camping adventures, and in the woods or fields after a deer or turkey. MSRP on this boot is $260 and that’s a great buy considering the quality you get with LOWA boots. Go to www.lowaboots.com to see their selection of boots for yourself.

While you are on their site, read about their social commitment, how they treat their employees, what they do for the environment and nature protection as well as the non-profit groups they support. If you are like me and finding out what else a company is doing besides manufacturing and selling products is important to you, then you are going to like what you read about LOWA.

HUNTER SAFETY SYSTEMS

If the person on your list is a deer hunter and you want to show them how much you care about them, this is a gift that will make sure they are around to enjoy many more Christmas days for years to come.

Get them a Hunter Safety Systems tree stand harness, which will cost you from $60 to $140 and a Lifeline for every tree stand they have.

The Lifeline starts at $39.95. That is a small price to pay to ensure they come back home after every deer hunt.

Their gift to you then can be a promise that they will always use them when getting into and out of a tree stand.

Go to www.huntersafetysystem.com and order today or stop by your local outdoor retailer, and they will be glad to help you.

CUDDEBACK

Trail cameras are an important tool for every serious hunter. There are hundreds to choose from on the market but we did our research and went with Cuddeback and we are sure glad we did.

We use their CuddeLink system, which is a proprietary wireless mesh network. It allows from 1 to 15 cameras to communicate with each other and transmits images from remote cameras to a home image collection camera. It has been invaluable to us this deer season in helping us to know where deer are moving through and for inventorying bucks. They can also work as a security system around the hunting cabin or house. Go to https://www.cuddeback.com/cuddelink

and learn how it works.

onXmaps

This is the one gift that no matter if you or your friends hunt, fish, hike, camp or anything else outdoors, they can use this and they will love it. It is the most useful app they might ever own. My grandson used it on a couple of our new hunting properties this year and it helped him figure everything out. This app can also be used for a lot more than hunting.

The onX Hunt App is a mapping application to download onto an iPhone, iPad or Android device and this app turns the phone into a handheld GPS unit that works with or without cell service. Their Elite Membership is $99.99 a year and covers the entire nation. It includes access to onX’s proprietary basemaps, property lines, landowner information, GPS Mapping Tools (Waypoints, tracking, line distances, area measures, and more), Wind and Weather, Offline Map capabilities, Sharing capabilities and many additional Layers. You can also get it for one state only at $29.99 a year. They will also get a 7-day free trial and they have a great customer service department that is very helpful.

There’s no way I can tell you about what all onX does in this small amount of space, so go to www.onxmaps.com. If you decide to give onX for Christmas, you can get them a gift card at https://www.onxmaps.com/shop?category=gift-cards.

OUTDOOR EDGE

I would bet that the outdoor enthusiast on your gift list has lots of knives, but if they are like me, they can always use another one and especially one like this.

As outdoor folks, you know this, we are always needing a good sharp knife, and they don’t get much sharper than this one.

Here’s a true story for you from this year’s deer season. I had shot a deer with my crossbow during archery season and was preparing to field dress it. I dug through my pack and found a bone saw but had neglected to make sure my other field dressing knives were in there. As I dug deeper, I found a small Outdoor Edge RazorLite EDC clip pocket knife that truthfully I had never used much. It was as sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel and I was able to field dress that deer and another deer during firearms season faster and cleaner than any knife I had ever used. I am now a believer in and have ordered their RazorPro™ Saw Combo that will always be in my pack. Outdoor Edge’s Razor-Lite Series of knives are the sharpest, strongest replacement razor-blade knives available, with safe and easy blade changes at the push of a button. Outdoor Edge has a lot of other great knives and tools and you can browse their entire selection at www.outdooredge.com.

HAVE A MERRY OUTDOOR CHRISTMAS!

Preparation is key, my 4-step “How-To” process:

Identify Deer Trails, make false scrapes, choose key areas
Hang tree stands, add safety lifelines
Control human scent (what works for me and my family)
Monitor weather, look for a rising barometer and cold front: Prime Time

**As I search for my big buck,** these two doe will help with keeping us healthy for the coming year.

By Hunter Whiteley

Going into this year’s hunting season, I was facing unfamiliar circumstances on new land I had never hunted before. I had to find a way to figure out boundary lines, the deer population, feeding areas, travel routes, where they were bedding and everything else I would need to know to be able to harvest mature deer.

My preparations for this season started back in the spring when I received permission to hunt a piece of property in Central Kansas that had been barely hunted. I knew virtually nothing about that property. My wildlife studies in college helped a great deal and a summer spent interning under deer biologist, Dr. Grant Woods, was really important.

I started by breaking down the property by using the “onX” mapping system app. It was invaluable in helping me figure out everything I needed to know about the property, as well as other new property my Dad and Papaw were hunting in Missouri. It connects to all my mobile devices and works even if I am in an area where I am not getting service. You really need to go to www.onxmaps.com and check it out for yourself. You can sign-up for a free trial or subscribe. I can’t begin to tell you all it will do to help you, even on land you have been hunting for years.

**Trail cameras are among the primary keys to identifying deer trails and deer numbers.**

After using onX to determine high percentage areas, it was time to put out trail cameras so I could see what deer were using this new property. I did a lot of research to determine the best trail cameras and chose Cuddeback® (www.cuddeback.com) because of their originality and what I read about their performance. I placed several of their cameras that utilize the wireless CuddeLink system across the property. Pictures are sent to a home networking camera and then sent directly to my phone. The battery life is exceptional, a huge advantage, providing the capability to stay out of potential prime hunting areas in the off-season. This allowed me to establish an estimate of deer numbers on the property, as well as age classes of the bucks in the area.

After several months of pictures, I was able to gather the information needed to place several treestands across the property. Because we mainly bow hunt, I chose to hang Primal treestands with their climbing sticks and hung two of them together in some places. This was for the times my girlfriend, Molly, would join me on the hunt. Dad and Papaw also use Primal on their new Missouri hunting property. Papaw likes their innovative ladder stands with the Stabilizer Truss System and Grip Jaw System that holds it snuggly to the tree. Go online to www.primaltreestands.com to check out their stands.

**Use of the Hunter Safety System Lifeline will provide safety assurance during hunting for everyone that uses an elevated tree stand.**

While hanging my Kansas stands, I transitioned my Cuddeback® cameras from salt licks to mock scrapes that I made using ScrapeFix® products www.scrapefix.com. I would clear a 2 to 3-foot area down to bare earth in places where there were branches deer would use as licking branches. I then put 2 to 3 puffs of their Velvet, ScrapeFix® or Rut powder, depending on the season, both on the limb and the bare ground. In several places where there was not a suitable licking branch, I used their Vine to make my own licking branch. I can attest with photographs that the ScrapeFix® products really worked. As the season approached, there were several quality bucks using these scrapes and a number of mature doe’s scent checking them, all captured on my cameras.

**We use HSS Tandem Lifelines™ when two of us are hunting together. Lifelines insure our safety while ascending and descending a tree and getting into and out of our stands.**

A few weeks before the season started, I freshened all the scrapes and then put up a piece of gear that every hunter should have attached to every tree they have a stand in. None of our family will climb into stands without first attaching a Hunter Safety System Lifeline™ (reflective) to our Hunter Safety System harnesses for all of our stands, no matter where they are at. Molly and I use their Tandem Lifelines™ when we are hunting together. Lifelines insure our safety while ascending and descending a tree and getting into and out of our stands. For your sake and your family, I urge you to go to www.huntersafetysystem.com and read more about the inexpensive HSS Lifelines. They are simple to use and can save your life!

Knowing that a deer’s sense of smell is its primary defense, all that prepping would have done no good if we did not do everything possible to control our scent. I did lots of research on what scent control clothing was best for us to use and decided ScentLok was the way to go. To really understand all they do to make their clothing scent-free, you need to go to www.scentlok.com/technologies and read about it.

Their scientific research was so convincing everyone in our family that hunts are now wearing ScentLok in early, mid and late season. We also use their Ozone generator bags and closet to keep our clothing scent-free, as well as their scent-free sprays for our hunting equipment.

On a morning in Missouri with a rising barometer and an approaching cold front, Papaw counted 57 deer come from all directions and Dad also saw numerous deer that day. Neither of them chose to shoot, but both these long-time deer hunters are convinced that ScentLok really works.

Molly couldn’t join me on the first morning of archery season so I geared up in my ScentLok clothing and headed to one of my Primal stands, hooked up my Lifeline™ and climbed up to hunt by myself. I saw around 25 deer that morning and, thanks to my ScentLok, none of them had any idea I was there. By 10 am I had harvested two mature does to fill the freezer for my family. By the way, this was the same morning my Dad and Papaw were seeing all those deer in Missouri, so that should also tell you the importance of being out there during a rising barometer and cold front if you want to see deer. There were a lot of text and pictures being sent back and forth that day.

Since that morning, Molly and I have been out hunting numerous times and have passed on a lot of deer. I am still on the hunt for a big buck, but I feel confident with the recent pictures sent from our Cuddeback system, the time will come, whether it’s this year or next.

Follow us on Instagram @greatozarksoutdoors to see what happens. When it does, I will smile and remember all the prepping I did on unfamiliar land to get to that special moment.

Hunter Whiteley is a senior at Kansas State University where he is majoring in Wildlife and Outdoor Enterprise Management.

Tag: #Cuddeback

Larry Whiteley offers Christmas Gift recommendations for those who Love the Great Outdoors