This coming week will be my first time hunting the West. I grew up in Ohio and now live in New England, so this is really going to be out of my comfort zone.
One area where I felt sufficiently lacking (besides my penchant for sea level) would be optics. The strongest scopes on any of my rifles is a 2-7 on my 35 whelen, if that helps add perspective.
After reading a pile of Eastman's and elk hunting related books I decided that I needed some quality glass for this trip. I looked on Ebay at a ton of used 8.5-42 Swaros, and some Leica ultravids, and was actually getting ready to enter a bid when I thought 'this is crazy'.
Which it is. I'm going hunt the open country of the West maybe once every two years and my gear-queer side was getting the best of me.
So I googled "renting binoculars", and found a site called "Optics4Rent". Before clicking on that site there was a review of the service on Field & Stream. It looked promising, so I gave the company a call. No Answer, left a message at 10am on Saturday. The owner, Todd, called me back at 6:30 that evening and we had a great conversation. He offered to quick ship the Binos at the same price and allow an extended rental because of my flight schedule.
I'll end up paying $200 dollars to rent new 10x42 Swaro EL's for a week of back country elk hunting.
I don't get them until later in the week and fly out Friday. I'll add a review of how it worked out overall, but on the surface it seems to be just what the doctor ordered.
This sounds like a great way to test out some high end optics.
I am a big believer in renting anything that you do not need on a regular basis, but I guess I would have to estimate the number of times I am planning to hunt out west and see if it pays to rent.
Optics are ridiculously expensive, but once they are bought I have never heard of a person saying that they regretted buying quality optics. You can use the good stuff at home too you know
Either way, good luck!
