king' s outdoor world - Index

king' s outdoor world - Hunting Illustrated Magazine Dec/Jan 2008 - Coyote Crazy! - Index

to a head anytime soon. Predator
hunting is gaining in popularity and
we want to take it a step further. Our
raccoon video “Crumblin’ Coons,”
is different from anything else
you’d see right now on the shelf.
That’s one of our goals, to bring the
consumer things that you won’t see
on the shelf right now. If you go to
the predator calling section, you see
coyote calls and some bobcat stuff.
We want to produce stuff that won’t
get lost among the other products
because there are so many things
out there that look the same. There
are a lot of avenues that have not
been addressed, like calling, which
we will be covering as the industry
keeps growing.
What sets Minaska Outdoors
apart from the competition?
I think we have already established
ourselves as running our own
race, not following anybody else,
regardless of how long they have
been around. We are the fi rst
company to bring products to the
market that have the decoy built
right into the game call. We were
the fi rst ones to bring out a high-end
call that would fi t into your pocket
and still offer great volume and a high
quality of sound, removable memory
and a lot of those features. Todd and I
sit down often and we go through what
we would really like to make and what
is not currently out on the market. That
is our approach, not, “Oh well, this guy
over here is making this so let’s come
up with our own version of it.”
Tell us a little bit about your
operation, your new facility, how
many employees you have and what
you foresee for Minaska Outdoor’s
growth.
We currently have ten employees.
Instead of hiring more people, we
redesigned our board and eliminated all
the time it took to assemble. This cut
down the assembly time dramatically. It
took about an hour to assemble the board
before, now we are down to fi ve to ten
minutes. Right now we are looking for
a place to build our own facility. I see it
happening here within the next year.
Do you see the popularity of predator
hunting getting so big that it will affect
the predator population too much?
Similar to what we are seeing with
corporate
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dwindling mule deer numbers?
I don’t think we will run into anything
like that where predator hunting will
be completely oversaturated. The
reason why I don’t believe there
will be a decline in predator hunting
is because there are so many things
to hunt – from coyotes to foxes
to bobcats. That is another thing
that leads us to believe that calling
coons is going to be so popular.
Everyone has got coons, but when
you think about calling coons you
think you’re going to have to go and
fumble around at nighttime. There
is a scene in the video where Todd is
hunting and it’s 92-degrees out and
he is in shorts and fl ip fl ops. We try
to stay on the edge of continually
doing something different so we are
not stuck in a rut.
What would be your dream hunt?
I would really like to call in a lynx. I
have not done that. I have had plenty
of offers but, you know, it is tough to
get away. There is something about
bobcats and lynx that really appeals
to me.
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