ScentBlocker Excited About Youth Archery Growth

“The youth are such a growing segment in our industry,” says ScentBlocker's Scott Schultz. “I really believe when a young man or woman holds a bow in their hand and fires an arrow downrange for the first time, they feel a major sense of accomplishment.

ScentBlocker Excited About Youth Archery Growth

Let me forewarn you, ScentBlocker’s conference room is a mighty difficult place to have a meeting. Why? Because the entire room is lined with a number of large whitetail buck mounts, including a few gross Booners, all shot by company CEO/President Scott Shultz. Throughout the meeting, the thousands of inches of antlers looming above me kept pulling my eyes skyward time and time again.

Scott must have noticed my jaw drop a few times during our conversation and took the time to tell me all about a few particular bucks. He was so passionate with his storytelling, so accurate with his details. He was full of joy, and it was obvious the memories of each hunt were locked in his memory vault.

That same joy, that same passion, that same heart for all things outdoors came up during another point in the conversation.

“The youth are such a growing segment in our industry,” said Scott. “When you have 16-year-old girls renting out archery pro shop shooting lanes to have a birthday party, that’s powerful. I really believe when a young man or woman holds a bow in their hand and fires an arrow downrange for the first time, they feel a major sense of accomplishment. And as these young men and woman progress in the sport, as they shoot more and see their accuracy increase, they become even more involved. We need to take note of this, because several surveys indicate that many of these recreational shooting youth will one day become bowhunters. How wonderful is that? If even a percentage of these youth – and there are a bunch of them – start bowhunting, our hunter numbers are going to skyrocket.

ScentBlocker“Think about this,” Scott continued. “I’m guessing there are somewhere between 4.2 and 4.3 million bowhunters out there. That’s a big number, but it’s not 20 million big. I say 20 million because that’s the number of views a certain recreational/trick-shooting video from Dude Perfect (www.dudeperfect.com) got. Many of those views were in the first few hours, and the number of views is still growing. It’s very exciting.

“The ATA (Archery Trade Association) has done a great job boosting and promoting recreational archery. Those who haven’t visited Archery 360 (www.archery360.com) yet really should. This is a great website with lots of great and entertaining information. There are tabs to click on that help the new and budding archer, tabs for those who want to know about upcoming archery events and the list goes on. It’s very exciting stuff.”

ScentBlocker doesn’t make bows. ScentBlocker isn’t a top-end pro shop. And that’s what made this conversation with Scott so impressive. Scott loves bowhunting and wants to see the legacy of bowhunting live on. He’s excited about the prospect that many of these youths will end up stepping into the bowhunting woods one day.

After the meeting, Marketing Director Mike Swan took me on a tour of the facility. I could feel the “family” vibe as I walked around and met many ScentBlocker employees. The warehouse is impressive, as is the area where many of the liquid products are produced and bottled. I look forward to returning to Cannon Falls and getting to spend more time with Scott, Mike and the rest of the ScentBlocker team.

For more information, visit www.scentblocker.com or call(800) 397-1927.



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