ATA trade show displayed sport's latest innovations

 

By Tom Barker

I just returned from the Archery Trade Association's annual trade show in Atlanta.

The owners of The Archery Shop in Victoria asked me to tag along to see the new archery gear.

This is the third time I have had the opportunity to go and I am like a kid on Christmas morning. This year's three-day show was about five acres of the Georgia World Congress Convention Center with all things even remotely related to archery.

The show is not open to the public, but only to archery equipment retailers.

Every morning before the doors opened there were seminars on bow tuning, shooting technique, business practices, and methods on how to better serve your customers, etc.

Other seminars included information on legislative initiatives to protect bow hunting. There are also sessions on youth initiatives, one of my favorite subjects.

AN IMPRESSIVE SIGHT

Once you get on the floor you go on overload.

All the manufacturers of bows, arrows, rests, sights, tree stands, camo clothing, hunting shows, etc., are there in force.

One of the most fun things to do is to shoot every bow made and being offered to the consumer, unless you are left handed like me.

I end up shooting many bows right handed to just see how they shoot.

The most impressive things I saw included:

  • The combination of speed and forgiveness from all the bow manufacturers. They really have pushed the envelope on performance. The rate of change of bow technology is amazing.
  • I see more and more bow hunting oriented back packs and fanny packs so archers don't have to adapt to rifle packs. Manufacturers like Badlands and Timber Hawk stood out.
  • A broadhead target made by McKenzie called the Shot Blocker. It should deliver about a 50-percent increase in target life over the current alternatives for less money.
  • A new range target by Syder Webb has a very innovative foam mesh that has outstanding durability and easy arrow removal. It should double the target life of conventional range targets with a lot less maintenance.
  • Bowtech introduced an attachment to your current recurve or compound bow that allows the archer to shoot paintballs at over 300 fps. What a great way to tag varmints if you are not into eliminating them.
  • I was impressed with a new bow press from Last Chance that allows the bowshop to work on any bow in a faster and safer manner. The top-of-the-line model had a foot pedal to operate the press electronically.
  • New bowsights from three manufacturers stood out. Hot Dot had a new product that projected a laser dot inside the sight housing for low-light shooting. An added feature was that if you canted the bow more than 6 degrees, the sight would switch off. An innovative elevation adjustment on a bowsight by Apex allows for an easy up-and-down adjustment. Copper John introduced a new sight with integrated fiber optics for low light shooting in a near bulletproof package.
  • Piston Point has developed a new terminal arrow point that deploys the blades on impact in a cam-style fashion. This allows for superb arrow flight with maximum lethality on impact.
  • New fallaway rests from DMI, Spott Hogg and Vapor Trail continue the innovations on easy adjust, maximum forgiveness arrow rests to improve arrow flight.
  • We found a new release aid by HTM that will help many archers deal with trigger punching either for hunting or target shooting.
  • Finally, a company called Swivel Limb is back from the dead with a treestand that works on the trees we have here in South A. The addition of a foot platform makes this ideal for hanging a stand in the crooked Mesquite and Oak trees in our part of the world.

    Look for many of these products in your archery retailers in the next several weeks.