Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Game Ears (hear aids)

Guys,

I feel like such an old fart for even having to ask this question, but here goes.

Does anybody use any hearing devices such as the walker's game ears? Do they work? Any suggestions on what works? I see them priced from $20 to $800 and assume you get what you pay for to a certain degree but don't want to spend too much if I decide to pull the trigger at all.

Due to operating too many combines and tractors on the farm growing up, and shooting too many firearms without protection as a kid, my ears are not good. Taking my son hunting the past several years has been eye openeing on how many distant bugles I am not hearing. He is now 11 and hears so much more than I do. When he was 5, I had a hard time believing he was really hearing anything, but now that he has been along for 6 hunts and seen and heard bugling I know he is hearing things I am not. I don't need any protection from the device as I am using it for archery hunting, not rifle. I would envision using it to help locate bugles that I just cannot hear anymore, and when set up calling so that I can hear a bull coming when it gets in the "zone". Any feedback is appreciated.

I am 54 and just got hearing aids 3 weeks ago due to the same reasons as you stated. I got the $5000 digital ones because my health care plan enabled me to get Miracle Ears for a $700 out of pocket price.

To say they have made a difference would be a gross understatement!Last week bow season started and I wore them out to the woods and Lord have mercy I never knew the woods were so full of sound!

I put hearing aids off as long as I could and now I feel I should be slapped for waiting so long. I swear I can hear stuff I never knew existed now. Can't wait to hear far off bugles next fall!

Do it...get you some quality hearing enhancement...do it as soon as you can.

Thanks for the input Godogs

Camofire.com - they have been selling the Walkers Game Ears for a decent discount, worth trying out. I'd consider myself lower end old guy club eligible and too many years of turbine engines, rotors, radio headsets, and explosions have set me back to the point that I have tried the Walkers and like them for range work, and have a better set arriving Monday that I will try hunting this year.

So far, even the cheap Walkers have helped a bunch with hearing things going on around me that I know would not have heard without them. I'd say try a set, and I'm betting you'll be thinking they are a pretty good tool.

Thanks AH64

I had a Walker and several cheaper versions for a few years. They helped,some, but not much. For the same reasons you list, I've lost quite a bit of my hearing. In the last year, I took the leap and got real hearing aids. They were a bit over $5000 and my health care did not cover one penney(note all the guns I've sold over the last year!). But it was well spent money. If you can't hear, my advice is to go see a professional audiologist who is hooked up with a physician. There are some real quacks out there in the hearing aid business, and some have big names. My hearing aids are programable and on one of the channels this includes a program to enhance certain low frequency sounds and directional hearing that are specifically set up for hunting. Way better than anything else.
Bfly

Years and years of industrial hearing loss. Occupational irreversible nerve damage.

Quite forest everything comes back, a little wind and everything sounds the same.

Just an observation however:

Elk are huge, two-tone color scheme that stands out, and borderline clumsy comparing to like white-tail deer.

Keep on your toes and your going to see and hear elk!

Instead of like game ears, I would be looking into permanent sound amplification for those other 350 days a year as well.
Maybe that is what the OP is asking?

I may be a year or so from going hearing aids more thought.

Hunting elk would only be a portion of the need.

my dad tried hearing aids, they made his ears sore. He wore the walker game ears that enhanced his hearing. Firing a five inch gun on a ship wrecked his hearing.

Yeah Keith, hearing aids took some getting used to. Some of my friends complained that it felt like a #2 pencil was crammed in their ear all the time. I felt that way for a little while, even got headaches sometimes. However, all that went away after a couple of weeks and the feeling is OK now...sort of like getting braces on your teeth when you are a teenager: Sure, they hurt, feel weird, etc...then you forget they are there...same deal.

I love the digital aspect of my hearing aids...Like Blackfly said the programmable aspect of my hearing aids is the selling point. Some frequencies you do not need enhanced, some you do. They program it to enhance only those that need enhancing...it is NOT just a turn-up-the-volume thing like old style hearing aids (and Walker game ears). I also have a "noisy environment" mode where I can turn it down 20 decibels across the board like when I am in a noisy restaurant, and also a directional hearing mode like when you want to just hear the speaker and not the side noises etc. Cool stuff!

Get em Sawtooth...

For use while moving around, I think they amplify the wrong noises enough to mask the right noises so there's no gain.

One of my favorite hunting tricks in the dry part of early fall is to find a little brush patch in the middle of my hunting area, lay down on my back, close my eyes, and just listen for deer pawing leaves as they search for acorns and the like. For that, the Walkers Game Ear works pretty well.

The biggest downside to them is ... you wouldn't believe how loud a damn mosquito is when its magnified 5x. Turbo-prop skeeters!

Tom

I bought the Walkers Game Ears Quad muffs a couple years ago for $160. These aren't the digitals, they're over $200

Made a big difference for me for sure. Last years dove season I was wearing mine and a couple guys were talking smack about my shooting and I heard them from 100 yards away, gave em a hard time about it and it made believers outta everyone on the field that day!

Used the Walkers Game Ear.
They REALLY work for detecting faint sounds, but you looks a lot of the sense of what direction those sounds may be coming from.