Ep. 384: Gear Talk - Episode 2

learn things about gear and understand gear. And when I say gear too, I want to clarify that it's gonna be everything from clothing, hats to boots, you know, hunting gear, from guns to archery equipment. Chance that you might use, you know, just backpacking or sleeping in you know, nives that you're using to cut up your animals. We might get even get into fishing gear sometimes if we get a wild hair up our asses. Uh, it's endless. Yeah, I think we should talk about we should talk about

trucks sometimes too. I think so too. Sideboy, Oh I like it, don't I'm going Yeah, I'm going after this. I'm literally going to sign the paperwork on my canadon sick. Which would you go with I got a Defender HD nine and x T and then put a put doors and windshield and the heater in it, so it'll be pretty It would be pretty sweet, dude. I didn't do heater and mine because I went with the with the single bench with the six ft bed and it just doesn't come standard with it, and I didn't think to

add it on. And that was my one mistake. And mine is actually at the shop right now getting a heat or put in because you don't realize that when you're working in it in cold temps that if you don't have heat in there. There's two things you can do. One you can keep the windows all rolled up and basically frost yourself inside there and you can't see anything.

Or you have to keep the windows down and be like running goggles and whatever so that you can keep you know, the same you know, temp in and out so that you don't you know, frost over your windshield and uh anyways, yeah, good move on getting the heater. But is that is that version you got? Is that with the two benches, No, it's just with the single Yeah,

so I can. I've got a trailer that I use now for like hunting and camping in But part of the reason I did it is so I could put the side by side in it and two benches won't fit, so just a single bench and it's just nicer to get in and out of tight spots. I think, Yes, definitely, there's a lot to be said for that. I'm so

impressed by those things. Man Like they when there is a spot where where it really does behoove you to be in a side by side like it makes they excel so hard and make the hunt so much easier. And it's mostly just comes down to like there's there's x amount of day hours in a day, and you want to use them as efficiently as possible. And when you're ripping around traveling, doesn't matter what vehicle you're in

or on, you're not hunting. And if it takes me an hour to get to the spot in my truck or twenty minutes in the can am, then by Gali, I'm getting more sleep, I'm getting more hunting and you know, less windshield time, which is absolutely great. But again it's like sometimes you can get there faster in a truck, right because maybe you're on the highway for twenty miles, But in places where you're gonna have to rip like

a bumpy, rocky dirt road. It's not in good addition where if you're in your truck you're just like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I'm doing this to my truck. Uh. That is where those canams just excel and you can just jam down them and uh get or done. And uh, I mean there's obviously all the other benefits to Like you talked about getting in and out of tight spots, Um, what are you mostly going to use it for hunting? For sure? So I think especially late season, there's a

lot of these hunts we're doing. It's like roadside camp hunts, and a lot of the access could be on just side by side trails and uh man, I've seen people they're just on four wheelers or even other side by side that don't have doors and stuff that after a couple of days of grinding it out in the super cold weather, you don't really want to go out and

hunt anymore. So that's that was so my reasoning for I went the extra mile through cab On, And because I know that it's going to add the extra level of comfort, and so I'm gonna want to go in it, and that's just gonna let you be in the field longer. You know, we used to when I got it a little bit down in Mexico for j Scott and uh. In those days, the side by side that he had and the one that darr had both did not have

windshields or doors or whatever. You know, he might have had like a roof, but you would bring down a hole even though, like you're in hunting in Mexican January, which it can get kind of cold, you know, maybe into the thirties, but you would bring a whole extra set of clothes just for traveling in the side by side, and we I mean big warm hat, big puffy jacket over you know, insulated you know, overall bibbs, goggles, you know, face masks, giant mittens or gloves to keep yourself warm

because yeah, you know you're going for like a twenty two sixty minute rip sometimes in that open air it you know, thirty degrees and man, it can just chill you to the bone. Yeah, before you didn't get to where you're supposed to start hunting, yeah, exactly, and then you're like, oh, this is a nice way to start, just freezing cold. All right, we we've diverged. But there you go. That is a little like snippet of what you can expect. Jordan I talking gear, all kinds of

gear and everything you know about it. You know, like I said, top to bottom, how it's made, how to make it better, and speaking of making it better, one of the things that we're gonna do, it's not exactly clear how we're gonna do. It's gonna be a work in progress. But we're gonna bring you along on the ride.

And I guess you could call it. Some people might not consider a ride, but you're gonna get to hear how first light product is made and what's being made, Like what's being made that you have any you don't even know that it even exists in first Light uh, in the in the creator room, you know, where the where the designs first come up, the stuff that we've been talking about, because it takes years from when a product comes like if someone thinks about a new jacket

until that new jacket can actually be sold to somebody, literally years two to three years on most products. So we're gonna bring you along in that process. A couple of reasons, one being that Jordan I already do it. We participate in this process with first Light and it makes us uh, you know, it's just gets us involved and our input helps, you know, make this gear hopefully better and be the gear that we want to use when it's done. Um. So we're already talking about it.

We figured we should be talking about it with you. UM. We also want to let you guys bring your UH knowledge and expertise ideas to us to help that gear better. So we're gonna have it's not gonna quite be a forum. Um. At the minimum, we're gonna start off with basic, clean email address that you can write into us if you have questions about first Light gear or ideas for first Light to you know, use freak gear, whatever it might be. Man, we want it all the good, the bad, and the ugly,

and we're gonna address it. We're gonna take it to first Light and have the experts there address it whatever it might be. And then lastly, we're gonna do all this as sort of a way to hopefully make everybody okay with the fact that we're not going to be probably discussing too much and reviewing or whatever dissecting gear that is made by UH competitors like could you Sitka,

you know, Cabela's, whatever else it might be out there. Right, it's no surprise that the company that Jordan I work for, Meat Eater, owns first Light, they own f HF, they own Felps game Calls. So in the idea in the name of just trying to make it fun for everybody, because I don't want to just do a podcast where we're basically doing a commercial for first Light all the time. UM, I want to make it where you're learning something about, you know, how gears made. It's just gonna be from

probably a person that is making first Light here. Um, you're gonna learn about the process of a jacket that's you know, coming down the pike from first Light. But again you're gonna learn about the process and you're gonna be able to be involved. You're gonna hear what's happening. Um. It's a big step for first Light to kind of do this because it opens you up to um, you know, as vulnerabilities associated there. Right, competitors can see what you're

doing and can copy you. They can try to you know, beat you to the release of a certain product that you're doing. They can maybe just take an idea or like a certain one detail of an idea and you know, use that in their you know, version of set thing. Um. Anyways, I think it's gonna be on. I think like I'm gonna learn a lot. You're gonna learn a lot Jordan's and hopefully the listeners are gonna learn a lot. And um, it'll be interesting, you know, and uh hopefully you all

feel like invested in it, you know. And like I said, it's a long process. So don't think just because you're right in tomorrow and you say, man, really you'd like to see a hood that you can see out of the back end the front, I don't think that like next year you're gonna see a jacket, uh that you know that has holes out, you know, peeping holes out

the back of the hood. It's a long process, but we're gonna kind of keep you updated, you know, with what's coming, what we're working on, what we've been testing, what we like this, that and the other. Do you want to add anything to that? Yeah, I mean it's gonna be it's gonna be so much fun. I geek out on this stuff. I love hearing about it. Um, I think what I'm most looking forward to is like the micro review of a lot of things we just

had Matt de Rosa. I'm talking about seam tape. Uh, little things like that, how jackets are put together, how any like think of any gear thing, if we can dive into it and talk about like the parts of that and how they all work together. That's not I mean every company does a little bit different, but that's

not like very companies specific. That's just how like we can provide a value to the listeners just giving them the knowledge to know what they're looking at when they go into a store or when they're looking at something or hearing about a piece of gear, and they can better make a decision based on the knowledge that we can provide for them. Yeah. Yeah, we want to help

you make good decisions about the gear you buy. Obviously, we hope you buy some first Light, but if you choose to go with another company's gear, uh, that's okay too. But hopefully you feel that like, because what you learned from Jordan's or what you learned from Matt Derosier's about seam tape, next time you go into the store, you're gonna flip a jacket inside out and go oh, yeah,

that's what they were talking about. And look they you know, did or do not do that thing that Matt was talking about and just make you like a more educated consumer, which is cool. Yeah, Okay, So that's what we're doing with First Light in this podcast, and you'll kind of hear the same thing with you know, we'll treat f HF and and Phelps game calls the same way as

much as we can. Sometimes with it seems like with game calls, there's a lot of patents that I'm always hearing about, and so sometimes we just will have to stay mum about a certain subject because Jason's waiting on a patent to be um fulfilled. Um. But you'll be the first to know here for a lot of cool stuff. Yeah, it's so exciting. Yeah, anything else you want to say just in general about our fancy new gear podcast, Man,

I don't think so. I think the uh, the options are endless as far as what we can talk about. Everything and anything that's involved in going on a hunt or being on a hunt we can talk about. So

I'm excited for it. All right. Now for our Gear Expert segment where Jordan and I have folks call in um that are in the industry that know a lot more about certain pieces of gear or groups of gear than we do, and have him explain something to us so we can learn something, maybe how our gear works better, how to take care of it better, whatever it might be. Today we have Mark Boardman from Vortex Optics here to

talk diopters. Mark, tell me what you're doing over at Vortex these days, how you're doing, and then we'll jump into diopters. So yeah, man, I appreciate, appreciate you're having me on. So yeah, man, Mark Boardman Vortex Optics been in the mark any department in various capacities for going on fourteen years now, so we've known each other for a long time. Yahnus and Meteator crew, so it's super cool.

Um Yeah, I focus primarily on our podcast now. So that's uh, that's what I That's what I spent a lot of my time. You're so you're a podcast house now, that's that's why we got all the fancy equipment. Nice, you're a long time you're a long time listener, then I take it listen. You can't get mad at me from not listening, because I don't listen to any podcast that I personally produce. I don't know if you listen. That's a question for you. Do you listen to the

podcast you produce? Uh, for editing purposes and things like that. Yes, But once I asked that to Joe Rogan, he said, nope, Yeah, I have to generally, I remember like pretty good. But like you know, sometimes I'll go back and listen, like if we haven't written like the copy for the description, like I'll kind of go back and scan through. But yeah, I don't. I don't like, I'm not fully like you know, I'm not that into myself, and I'm like, I better

go listen to myself somewhere today. Yeah, I just I seriously, I just don't have I don't like to listen to stuff when I run, which should be a great time to listen to podcasts and music, but I like to listen to the wind and the birds. So, uh, you know, but listen. I'm telling you, I'm driving to Michigan here in a couple of weeks, I'm gonna listen to the Vortex podcast. Man. I appreciate that that's the time to

crush a podcast. Man, My commute is about an hour both ways, so I crush a fair amount of podcasts, so uh so, yeah, I can, I can. I can clean up pretty good. All right, let's jump to diopters. Um we're supposed to be talking about. Yeah, the topic, yea yea. Everybody knows should know that there's a diopter dial or two, which I think Mark's is gonna explain hopefully for us on your binoculars, and you're supposed to dial them and set them to make the binoculars work

better for your eyes. That's pretty much my sort of taken under standing on it, and but I'm always unsure when I said it, if I'm doing it properly. Jordan's what about you? Are you kind of in the same boat or do you feel like when you dial your diopter you're dialed. I feel like I'm pretty dialed. Uh. Sometimes I feel like I have to adjust it, Like from hunt to hunt, I feel like I'll readjusted or even from day to day um or readjust it. But yeah,

it's just like an individual focus for each eye that. Uh, I think a lot of people actually overlooked, don't even know about it. Yeah, I mean, I think I mean you guys, you know you stole my thunder no, Um, but yeah, I mean you nailed it. I mean essentially, what a die opter is dealing, it's h adjusting for variants in your eyes. You have two eyes, they're gonna be a little bit different, right, So it's adjusting and making sure the binocular is focused to accommodate, you know,

essentially the vision in both of your eyes. In general, i'd say most commonly, you're gonna see a right eye die opter. So it's gonna be a ring that's located on the right I pase of your binocular. Um. With that ring, you're gonna see a scale right, so you're gonna see like a kind of like a zero reference mark, uh, and then a plus or a minus, and then kind of some like uh, some adjustment graduations to kind of you know, be able to take note of where you've

adjusted that. Um. Oftentimes it will be a locking diopter, so that ring will pop up to to unlock it and make those adjustments. Once you've made that adjustment, pop it back down, lock it in. You definitely want to unlock it though before you make that adjustment, because um, you can damage the binocular. So we get we get that. You know, some people at times people the damn diopter stuck. It's like, no, I just need to unlock it. But

we'll fix that for you. Um but yeah, so, like I said, and then outside of you know, adjusting it to accommodate for for the you know, this discrepancy, your variance between your two eyes, you can also use it to make sure I guess it's kind of doing two things at once when it's set properly. It's going to make sure that things are coming in and out of focus at exactly the same time when you're using just

the center focus wheel. Right, So, and there's kind of a check that you can do, like after you've set your diopter, to confirm that everything is working properly. If that makes sense, then we can kind of go into how to set your diopter because that's, you know, its own process. Yeah, that does make sense. How come most binoculars are only one I for the diopter? Oh man, now you're now you're asking the tough questions you honest, I never asked why. I just I just learned how

to use the darn things. So, um right, I was gonna say, yeah, and in some in some instances I'd see you'd see it largely or I'd say more commonly, at least in my experience, on like a poorer prism style binocular UM where you have individual I focus. I think that can be an asset for people that maybe have a high degree of variants, you know, between the

vision and both of their eyes. UM. But yeah, most commonly you're gonna see just just the single right eye die opter some and and really every binocular in our lineup is going to have that. I'd say an exception to that would be our Fury HD range finding binocular which has the radical focus on the right eye piece and then the die opter is on the left eye piece.

But that's that's the one exception in our lineup. Uh. You know, if you step outside the vortex lineups the lineup of binoculars, sometimes you'll see a center die opter that's actually kind of like integrated into the focus wheel. UM. But the process for setting it will be the same as you know, just a standard right eye die opter. Okay, so let's talk about setting it and tell me real quick if you don't set it, like, what are you losing?

What's going wrong with when you're using your binoculars? I mean, you know, if if you don't have it set properly, you know, depending on your personal vision, like you know, you might just have, um, just a less desirable optical experience overall, like just stuff like is isn't gonna be in focus for like, you know, both of your eyes. It's easy to set it's it's definitely i'd say most you know, all of our binoculars you know, have have a die opter um and it's it's it is something

you're gonna want to pay attention to. Um. For me, I'm pretty lucky personally. Um, you know, I can essentially just set it on the zero mark and you know, my division of both my eyes is like pretty similar, so I'd be good to go. But I still set it though, because you're gonna find that you're gonna want to shave generally, you know, either a little bit to the the riot or left of that zero mark. And

setting it is just it's so easy. It's just something that that you want to do, and if you haven't been paying attention to it, you might find that your you know, your overall viewing experience is enhanced once you do. All right, tell us how to set it so to set your diopter you know, and This is like you said, we've got you know, I've got one in front of you right now. It's it's a it's a canna raise your uh D. On my forty two, one of my favorites has got a locking right eye die opter, like

we talked about before. But you're going to want to uh close your right eye, So you're going to close your right eye or cover uh cover the uh cover the the ocular there. Um, I always just close my right eye. Some some people kind of have a problem with that. That That makes them squin a little bit. So

you can just you know, cover in some capacity. But you're gonna so you're gonna cover the the right ocular or close your right eye, and then you're gonna focus on an object I'd say an objectle with you know, um maybe a high level of detail. You yards away with your left eye, and you'll roll roll the center

focus wheel until that object is in sharp focus. And then once you do that, unlock the die opter if it's a walking die opter, close your left eye, and then use the die opter to adjust the focus until it's as sharp as possible on that same object. Once you get that, lock it back down in and I mean essentially your diopter is set. I see, so you're basically that's how you're matching the two. You focus the left one and then you're focusing the right one with

the diopter, and that's how you're matching the two. So they're, oh, you know what I do most of the time is I don't do the left part. I just skip right to the right part, which is why mine is probably never dial Hey, they still call you the lot being eagle, So something's working, right. I check mine after it's done.

I check mine, like open both eyes and still leave the diopter unlocked, and I can feather it in and out a little bit and just and then I don't know, you can you can tell definitely when it clears up and when it doesn't um hmm. And then I like check it, make a couple of adjustments and then lock it back down or just leave it if it's not locking yep, yep. And then that other check that I was talking about earlier that you can do is you know, you can pick that same object again. I picked something.

You know. This is once you've you know, done those two things and you've got your diopter set, um, pick an object with high level of detail you know whatever, you know, thirty or forty yards away or something like that, and then just kind of like consciously look through the blocular at that at that object you know, hopefully it has like uh maybe almost like two sides to it, and then roll your center focus and just make sure that almost like both sides of that object with high

detail are coming in and out of focus at the same rate. And if they're doing those things at the same time, Like I said, that's kind of like that that after check, you're like cool, I'm good to go. Everything set um. And And the other nice thing about this is like it's definitely something that you can check over time, but it's not necessarily critical. Like every time I use my bio binoculars and you know, I better go, you know, check my diopter unless your vision is changing,

you know, dramatically or or whatever what have you. Um, it's not something you really have to do all the time. So um, you know, why why is it that you want to do it at like that close range? Why not do it something that's five yards away? So you know, my thought there is you know, as you enter introduce um, you know, those extended ranges, you're also introducing additional variables.

It could be you know, a high pollen count day, could be a hotter day where you're dealing with heat waves, and you kind of might get like, um like in essence, like a false reading or something like that. Um. You know, at those closer distances, you're just gonna be able to see that finer detail. Um and and make sure that everything you know, you're just in the focus. You might as well, you know, make sure that everything that you're looking at is you know, has a high level of

detail while you're doing that. I see. So as long if you could hold him super steady and you know, all conditions were absolutely perfect, you could technically pull it off at five yards, Yeah, I imagine. So Yeah, I've never I'm never trying. It's just it's just easier at thirty because you're just like it's easier for your I just to see those small details, right, That makes sense?

Anything else we need to know about diopters or setting them, man, I mean, I'd like to say there's more to it, but in a lot of ways I'm glad that there isn't. I mean, because there just really isn't a whole lot to it. Like we talked about earlier. Definitely something you want to pay attention to and UH once once you adjust it, you know you should. You gotta be good

to go and UH enjoy your optics to their fullest potential. Oh, there's no doubt in my mind that the average hunter will glass up more game if their diopter is set properly than not. So thanks for the reminder because I needed that because I gotta remember to do the left dive first instead of just jumping right over to the diopter dial. You're gonna be Yeah, you're just cutting to the chase. Man, You're gonna you're gonna be on like a glassing tear here. Pretty soon You're like, oh my gosh, dude,

this diopter has changed my life. Mm hmmm. Yeah. I like to always joke about how there's like lasers coming out of my UH binos and they're just burning up the hillsides when I'm glass and so I don't know what this is gonna change for me, but hopefully I won't start any forest fires. Yeah, exactly, Mark. Thanks for taking the time man, We appreciate it, and UH we'll be calling you up soon for a another UH Gear

Expert segment. So feel free to tell me what you would like to gear expert segments because I'm sure, I'm sure we're gonna need ideas. Um, and I'm being serious. No, that's awesome. Thank you, appreciate the time, appreciate having me on guys. Always always great chatting and uh yeah, we'll

stay in touch for sure. All right. Last, and not least, this segment doesn't have a name, but it's basically a segment where Jordan and I are going to each recap a recent hunt that we went on and and sort of pick out a piece of gear that probably, like during the hunt, Uh, something happened with it for some reason, it was highlighted for some reason, it was in our heads. It might be that we tried something new. It might

be the something like really excelled, just whatever. A couple of reasons for that is like I want I wanted to be known that the two of us are always out there hunting a lot. Jordan hunts more than I do. She ain't got no kids. Um, you got a dog, though, it probably slows you down a little bit. Although I see pictures of your dog going on all your adventures,

so that's that's that's not slowing you down. Yeah, you see us hunting, and you see us trying using new new gear, old gear either way out there, just you know, getting after it. And uh Um, I think people like to hear hunting stories so and I like to tell hunting stories. So it's a good opportunity for both of those things that it's a good opportunity to like really like talk about recent gear an action. Yeah, what do you got? What's the most recent hunt you went on? No,

I can't ask that question because obviously you haven't. You did something before you went since you went sheep hunting. Yeah, yeah, I have. So I would say take it back to a a rifle elk hunt that we did. Um, it was cold and super windy. There was like a storm system coming in. We decided to go up and sit on a ridge and just glass this whole valley for elk. And was this that was in Wyoming? Yep, that was in Wyoming. So it was like October. I'm trying to

think of the day. The day. It was like October fift probably right when that general opener was going to start. Um. And uh so we go up sit on this ridge and we're glassing and storm system starts coming in, starts snowing just a little bit, starts really picking up on the wind, and h I pulled my tarp out and set the tarp up like a lean to um behind us, which the wind was coming from behind us. So just

use it as a wind blocker. Plus use it as like just so like moisture didn't get honest, you know, like a big like rain shade basically. UM and I we sat there for probably three hours, maybe a little more than that and just kind of watching whether going and out. We were seeing elk moving around, people were pushing them around. I'm just trying to find a good bowl. And uh when it was started to it started to really suck in and we're like, yeah, alright, we're gonna

drop down out of here. When I got out from behind that tarp, I was like, holy cow, it is cold. And that thing it had to let us stay up there for I mean at least an extra a couple of hours, UM, just carrying you know, that little nine ounce tarp to block the wind. So that's that's my big one. And that one was that was that cafar as sheep tarp as well. I've had it for a long time and Uh, it's one of the reasons I carry it on a ton of hunts like blocked wind,

provide your shade, get the rain off. You use it for a lot of things, very versatile. So that was That's always been a noteworthy one in my mind. Nice. Yeah, I've had experiences like that too, where you're like, man, if we didn't have this tarp, it would really suck right now. Yeah, um yeah, what what pitch did you use? Like what could you have a way to classify the pitch that you use for that when you set up

that tarp. I mean I would almost say, like a lean to what I did is I staked like the back two corners down, um, and actually the middle two right the right to the ground. Yeah, get some good like try to seal it right to the ground. And then I used trekking poles and pitched it to the corners and actually pitched them put the trekking poles like not right on the corners, but one loop in from

the corners. So then when you put the corners that have guylines on them down to the ground and you guyline it out like that gives you like a little bit of side protection too, and seems like it kept like the water rolling off the sides instead of um like ever getting down into the front of us. That's

really tough to explain via audio. But yeah, basically like pitch it like a lean to the back, stay right to the ground, use chreking poles to prop the front up, guylines in each corner going to the ground and h worked pretty good. So was it like the the upper front edge that was curved over a little bit or the two sides um, two sides that were curved over. Got it? Yeah, So the checking poles like weren't in an islet or anything. They're just kind of in from

the Yeah, I mean that specific. Yeah, that specific tarp has islets all the way around it. There's probably on each edge there's probably six islets UM built in. So you can really like pitch it however you want. You could put guidelines wherever you want on them. UM, and that lets like that loop isolet. Lets you put it over the top of like the end of a treking pole. UM. So you could write, yeah, but how did you get it?

How did you get that like extra fabric to be able to make the edge come down if the islet's right on the edge and it's yeah, just on the corners of the front. So like imagine where those tracking poles would be. And so it was just like you know, it was on the corner, right, it was in from the corner, making that curve just a little bit on the ends. It seemed to keep it a little bit more stable to um, I'm not really sure why that would be, but it seemed like it was more stable.

I started him on the corners and moved him in. I like it, man, I'm into uh, pitching tarps and like the the technique of it, and like the all the different variations. Um, because well, pitch tarp is like a very very good, nice comfy shelter and then a shitty pitch tarp is uh you might as well just stand next to it outside. You think it would be easier too to really pitch it. Well, but it is. There becomes a lot of variables out there. Yeah, all right.

I recently went bear hunting with my buddy Pete Munich. Uh. We hit, we hit western Montana. It was like first week of June and um, very very wet hunt. That doesn't have anything to do with what the gear. I'm gonna talk about, but it was wet. Um we saw bears. Uh saw ten bears in like four day, four or five days I think, and uh, I just didn't see like a mature board. UM. Only we saw a bear that weighed over pounds probably you know, four cubs out of the four of the four out of the town

were cubs. And then rest were obviously the sounds with the cubs or just you know, very small looking single bears. UM. But still great hunt, great wildlife watching. UM had a great time. Didn't put in like mega miles carrying camp, but we did switch locations and every time we'd switch, would go back to the truck, drive a few miles on logging roads and then sort of work out other different ridge systems that where we could get good you know vanages over the country where we thought we could

see UM, where we thought we would see bears. But enough you know, backpacking like we slept. We never slept at the truck. So every time we left the truck, we had you know, camp with us, and we were sleeping I don't know, usually somewhere three to three to four miles from the truck. But the gear I want to high is uh, the Kafaru Nargali pack, which um very first time using it, Like literally I had not um ever had it on my back other than just

you know, very quickly trying it on my house. And um, I'm very familiar with seek outs, side packs, with Exo packs, stone Glacier packs, had never messed around with a KAfari pack. Um. One of the things that I've always thought about them and it turned to hold true is like the amount of straps and buckles, Man, they pack them on there. You run some Kafar stuff. Do you agree with that or have you gotten used to it? We're like, yeah, it's not that Manny, I have a I have a

purpose for all of them. Yeah. Um, I think you can change all of them around. So that's what I like about him, is he like you could take those those straps off to pad on the bag. Some of them are sewn in, but on the frame side you can take all the straps off and move them around. So um, I kind of like I like that part about it. Um. It's saved me a couple of times with like some weird weird loads or like trying to get extra gear on when you're packing out meat, And

like the bag is full of stuff. Um, it saved me there being able to add straps, which I think, uh is kind of different than some companies, but they do get strappy, I agree. Um, there are a lot of straps on most of those on most of the bags. The bag itself without the frame which comes in just well, it comes into two and a half pounds. I don't know what the frame waves off the top of my head. Um,

it's a total volume is five thousand cubic inches. But they have a like a version where you can basically fold the lid down and drop it by like a thousand, which I really like that. Like, I appreciate a act that I can carry the whole camp into the woods with and in the mountains and then drop camp, drop food, and then and then basically turn that you know, backpack and hunting pack into a day hunting pack. Um, I appreciate that when they can get nice and slim and

so on. Besides it having a lot of straps, which again first time using it, I was probably just like you know, unaware of how to use them all properly. But um, a couple of things that I really liked is I feel like out of all the packs I've used, they had the best like side pocket that not the one that you can like attach to your hip belt, but the one that's actually like down low on the side of the pack. It's like half stretchy, half tough material,

so and it's tall. So it's tall enough that you're like, nalgen gets all the way in there. We're like it's literally just the cap kind of sticking out of the top, and you think it Isn't it gonna be hard to get it out of there, But because it's got like this stretchy panel, it's not. And it's actually what's even better. Like a lot of packs, you can get the analogene right out easily, but the trick is like getting them

back in. Like when when when you're if you have a pack where you have to ask your buddy every time, Hey, can you put this analogy back in the pocket? Like, come on, pack makers, you gotta do better than that, right, Like it's it's kind of annoying. Um, anyways, that pocket is like really really dialed and um it's a small thing, but man, someone thought it through and got it right.

This pack is my style too, because it's minimalist and simple, like it's a top loader only and if you don't have the lid, which I didn't run the lid, like the attachment lid. It's basically just like a version of like a roll top almost like there's just two but you kind of you sent it together, you kind of roll it over and then there's buckles that come from you know, where you're act is over the top and

you can really lock it down like that. But it's you can only access it from the top, which if you're just a smart packer and you don't put stuff in the bottom that you're gonna need in an hour, it's like not a big deal. You just got to kind of think it through, right. Some people hate that and they want to be able to get to everything all the time, and they like more pockets and like we want to get super organized. I like to keep

my stuff simple. I think it's lighter that way. So um, even though there's not a zipper that runs down the whole side, you know, to give you access to the whole pack. Again, if you just can pact smart, um, it's not a big deal, which I which again I just think you're it's wait savings. They're just less stuff to break whatever. Yeah, I'm trying to think. There's nothing really else I really didn't like about it. Um one other thing that was a plus out of all the

packs I've been used lately, this one, by far. I can't say if it's the most comfortable. It's close, but it has definitely the biggest lumbard pad and one of them more cushier waste belts. And I believe I went with either a smaller medium because I'm like a thirty four and there it just came around my hips there and there was gonna be plenty of room to cinch

down if I needed it. But like my body shape, I think it's pretty calm and body shape, it is like there's not a lot of curve between my hamstring and my lower back, if you know what I mean. And so packs tend to slide down. There's like no shelf to hold them up, and that big lumbard pad really seems to kind of like dig in so to speak. Digg in sounds wrong because it sounds like it's gonna hurt, but it just seems to like grab and like really hold you know, that whole waste system you know, up

up on your hips and not let it sag. And even though there's you know, you have pressure because you know that's the weight of your pack is riding, you know, onto that hip belt, it didn't feel like a lot of pressure, like there was no digging. It's a very comfortable riding pack, even when it was packed full. And because we weren't going too far, we were definitely running a little bit on the heavier side, like I bet she does, you know, with food and water and stuff.

We had a pack in water everywhere, which that always adds a lot of weight. So I bet you I was going on the way in and very very comfortable. And it's like a lot of other packs packs meat like your exo, like your stone glacier where you're gonna, you know, pull the pack off and there's a load shelf. You're gonna get your meat there and then put it all back together. Is that how I know that there's

two ways to do it. Aaron was actually telling me that he'll actually just sometimes run the meat right in the main bag. What do you do? That's usually what I do is run the meat right in the main bag, unless I just don't have a big bag or I don't have of that much stuff in the bag. Like usually, if I have like I mean, if you have camp or a lot of stuff inside your bag and there's just not room for it, then there's just not room

for it. Um. But if I don't have that much stuff in the bag and I have room, I like to run the meat just inside the main bag just to keep it, um, keep all the weight closer to my back. Uh. It seems like if you put like meat in a load shelf, and then if you have a lot of stuff in your bag and you especially if it's heavy, and you extend it away from your back, you're just like moving all the way out backwards. It kind of feels like there's like a monkey pulling on

your back, like trying to pull you over backwards. So that's where I see like benefit in putting weight or putting the meat inside the bag is if you're trying to keep it all close to your back. I think it's more important if you're packing meat along ways versus a short distance, it'll just ride better, you can carry more, and uh yeah, I feel better afterwards. So it seems

to be kind of personal preference. Honestly, all right, everyone that is going to wrap us for this week's episode of gear Talk, big thank you to Mark Boardman for hopping on and walking us through die opters. We know season is kicked off for a lot of you out there, so good luck out in the field. And if you have a question that you would like to ask us here on the podcast, email gear Talk at them me

eater dot com. Send your question in, we'll try to get an answered for you and we will see you guys in the next episode.