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I’m not known for being a good shoot. When I was growing up, my brothers and I put the hurt on the ground squirrels. My younger brother was flat-out deadly when shooting offhand, but the only way I had a reasonable chance at a well-placed bullet at those varmints was with a dead rest.
We all know hunting in the wide-open spaces of the West makes finding a dead rest a challenge. Many years ago, I started packing a tripod in my pack to solve this little problem. As most of you know, the marketplace is full of different makes and models of bipod and tripods – I will be the first to admit that I’ve tried most of them. The holy grail of shooting sticks for me is a set that’s lightweight, easy to use, and not noisy.
Noise was the most important consideration for use in the field because most big game animals hate the noise of manmade material rubbing together. And the second worst noise is metal rubbing brush – like when you set up for a shot and the legs rub on sagebrush. It’ s not a natural sound and it drives critters crazy! If you want to see big game leave in a hurry, just rub metal on metal.
After many years trying different bipods and tripods, I finally found the best one for my hunting style. In my new book, Hunting Trophy Antelope, I used the first generation Bog-Pod tripod. Fast-forward to this year and the next generation Bog-Pod tripod is the CLD-3 series. Using it in the field last fall for over 100 days, I found it’s the ticket. You know me, it has to be not only functional, but lightweight and quiet. Rubber O-rings and padding takes out the noise, making it great for packing it in the field. Plus, just out of my pack it sets up quickly and easily.
The legs can be expended very quickly from prone up to 68” for shooting offhand. The three legs, being larger in diameter, take out the flex from the weight of your gun. The addition of inch-markers printed on the middle leg help you obtain a quick height setting. A really cool benefit is the lever locks for lowering/raising the legs – it allows for a fast and accurate setup in no time. Add the rubber-covered universal shooting rest that swivels 360 degrees and you have one functional and portable dead rest. Put all of these features together and you can see why the 40-oz. CLD-3 tripod fits all my requirements. Look up all the models of CLD tripods at Bog-Pod’s website, www.boggear.com and check out all the new models and accessories. Take care and good luck in the draws. MIke
Mike, Thank you for your post I am currently looking for shooting sticks at this time. I was wandering if you had used any of the accesories with these sticks. Such as the camera adapter or the spotting scope adapter? I ask becasue I like to keep my pack lite and if it is good for double duty it puts it higher on my list. At this time I have not heard of or know anyone who has used the accessories.
Brain I have used them and they seem to work will. Good Luck! Mike
Its like you read my mind! You appear to know so much about this, like you wrote the book in it or something. I think that you can do with a few pics to drive the message home a bit, but other than that, this is great blog. An excellent read. I will certainly be back.