Hunting’s a gear game these days. Great companies are busy year-round blending new-age tech with old-school designs so you can hike farther, stay warmer, shoot straighter. But adding gear to your arsenal can be a fickle mistress.
No matter what hunting gear you’re wishing for, one thing’s for certain: you sure as hell deserve it. Here are six outstanding pieces of hunting gear — recommended to us by guys who swear by them — to get your Father’s Day wish list started with a bang.
LL Bean Truck Seat Gun Case Organizer
Transporting your prized 12 gauge trap gun under the backseat is not ideal. LL Bean’s got the perfect solution for your extended cab or SUV. Their Gun Case Organizer includes two padded gun cases long enough for shotguns up to four feet long, and the bottom gun case detaches for use in the field. It also has four large accessory pockets. It’s great for upland hunters and all their dog swag, or anglers, who’ll never break a rod tip rolling up the window again.
KUIU Game Bags
Boning out a whitetail — let alone an elk — in the field is a messy business. KUIU, a company founded to combine the most technical fabrics and materials with hunting needs and expertise, makes a simple solution: a lightweight, breathable, high-strength nylon fabric game bag. The bags available in small, medium, and large sizes, so you can match them to your game. And if you’re skunked, they make for a great gear duffel.
Kestrel Ballistics 5700 Elite
Beware: if you get this Ballistics weather meter, you’ll never have an excuse again to miss at the range. It pairs accurate onsite measurements for temperature, altitude, wind, distance to target, and latitude/direction with a ballistics calculator to get you dead on target. And because it’s waterproof and drop-proof, you can take it up into the tree stand, too.
Jetboil Zip Cooking System
This beauty is essentially a blowtorch, which is exactly what you want for efficient cooking in the deep backcountry after you’ve humped your gear up and down the mountain in search of your quarry. Eighty bucks gets you an ultralight (12 ounces) propane-burning element, plus a measuring bowl and stabilizing tripod. And it’s just as useful for making coffee at your next tailgate.
MODL Complete Utility Bottle
Backcountry hunting requires some streamlining — even for your hydration gear. This 1.1-liter food-grade silicone bottle easily converts into a hands-free bottle, traditional sports bottle, spray shower, and even a water filter, thus replacing several pieces of gear in a single compact package. It comes standard with multiple silicone loops that let you secure it to just about anything. Its soft silicone silhouette makes it stealthier than noisy clanking plastic or metal. It is dishwasher safe, and its removable end caps mean you’ll never struggle to wash it, either.
Sitka Kelvin Lite Down Jacket
Down is the OG insulator. Sitka’s paired a primo 900-fill Primaloft Gold insulation blend with a two-way nylon stretch fabric for the ultimate cold-weather jacket. It’s not just sleeping-bag warm — it’s breathable, too, so you can layer it during fall and spring turkey season as well as late-December muzzleloader. And since it packs down into an integrated pouch, you can take it wherever the game leads you.
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