With hunting seasons upon us, how quickly we’ve all forgotten how long the off-season was. With waterfowl on the wing, deer losing their velvet, and a smell of autumn detectable in the morning air, we forget quickly about June withdrawal, July impatience and August exasperation. Just like it does for you, the off-season gets l-o-n-g for the "North American Hunter-TV (NAH-TV)" team! This year it drove us all pretty much stir crazy.
So, when Nikon gave us the heads-up they’d be launching the new 2012 Monarch 3 Binocular line in 2011—before the heart of the hunting season—it gave us a great idea! We wanted to “test” out some prototypes of the new optics ahead of time to make sure they’d stand up to everything you can dish out in your hunts with them this fall and winter. Over more than a couple adult beverages, we came up with the idea for E-S-T, which stands for Extraordinary Situation Testing.
One thing led to another, and this turned into a “what I did on summer vacation” project for the "NAH-TV" team. And now we have the results ready to share with you ... whether you want them or not.
Beginning today, we’ll be posting a series of six video segments. Check out the intro video below. It's sort of an overview of E-S-T, and a young man’s dreams of fame, fortune and stardom. (No, seriously—or not so seriously—you’ve got to see this!)
We’ll post new episodes Monday, Wednesday and Friday for 2 weeks. From there, episodes 2-6 will cover “testing” under all of the E-S-T protocol: wett-EST hunts, dirti-EST hunts, cold-EST hunts, dark-EST hunts, and all-around tough-EST hunts.
In every step along the way, "NAH-TV's" Luke Hartle endures the rigorous testing, right along with the Nikon Monarch 3 binocular. It’s an enduring, endearing tale of technology against nature's elements, and an "innocent" country boy’s long and winding journey to manhood. You don’t want to miss it!
And then there’s the best part: Starting in October, Nikon and "NAH-TV" want to hear about your E-S-T hunts. We’ll be setting up a special website where you can submit videos or short stories of your E-S-T hunts. After hunting season’s over, we’ll select some of the stories to win Nikon prize packages and announce the winners at the Shooting Hunting & Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show in Las Vegas next January.
We’ll give you more details about where to enter the contest as October gets closer. But for now, just check out the first E-S-T video above and watch for the others to appear on the HuntingClub.com video page—you won’t be sorry.
(Like I said, we were all going kind of stir crazy. I hope you like them.)