TechnoHUNT Customer Testimonials

See what shops have to say about their TechnoHUNT system!

There is nothing like hearing it from the customers themselves. TechnoHUNT systems have proven their worth time and time again, providing extra shop income, foot-traffic to the store, and a fun experience for customers.

The following appeared in ArrowTrade Magazine's November 2009 issue in an interview with New York's Flying Arrow Sports:

"The target range we were visiting on is separated by a wall from the darker TechnoHunt range alongside it. Each new bow sale includes five hours of free range time and one hour using the sophisticated TechnoHunt video archery system. TechnoHunt is excellent practice for hunting and so enjoyable that the single free hour on the system can be all it takes to turn someone into a regular user. "We call TechnoHUNT 'Techno crack'," Despart joked. "They try it once and get hooked. It's a very expensive investment initially, $35,000, but they do pay for themselves. In my store we probably have 100 people a week shooting TechnoHunt. The beautiful thing is they can shoot anytime. I go in and preprogram each week and from there the computer manages the shooter's scores. So once I set the league up all I do is take the money. Someone may come in and say 'I want to shoot round 7 and 8 today because I'm going to be out of town next week.' I don't care if they want to shoot one round a week during the eight week league; they conceivably could shoot all eight of them in one day."

As a way to encourage even more people to shoot TechnoHUNT leagues, Flying Arrow Sports II developed its own TechnoHunt Challenge, using four high-end bows as the prizes. "What we do is take the top eight guys in the first two weeks of March, and the top eight guys in the second two weeks of March, then the first eight shoot off against the second eight. Let's say you were ranked number 1 in the first two weeks and I was ranked number 1 in the second two weeks. In order for you to advance you'd have to get through me. What that insures is that at least one of the 1s gets knocked out, while one of the 8s gets to continue. When we're down to 8, 1 shoots 8, 2 shoots 7, 3 shoots 6, and 4 shoots 5. Then the winners shoot off for the championship." Setting up head to head competition this way gives more skill levels a chance to win the top prizes. "In the last couple of years of the eight bows we've given away, 75 percent have gone to new shooters that have never shot any kind of organized archery before; they're mainly hunters."

In this excerpt from ArrowTrade Magazine's Novemember 2005 Supplement, Jeff Mueller at Badgerland Archery talks about his then two TechnoHUNT systems. He has since bought a third.

"Maybe it's something in the water in this part of Wisconsin but there's a whole lot of hunters who get a kick out of flinging arrows against target butts and video screens.

"From December until mid-April, we have to have reservation books for our two AIS TechnoHunt systems," Mueller said. "We've got people signing up from half a day to four or five days ahead of time. Otherwise they could sit here for six or eight hours and not get on a machine. I believe my two machines are the busiest in the nation. Over one seven day period each of those two ran from between 75 and 77 hours."

People started signing up for indoor leagues the week before my September visit, though they don't start until early January. Mueller anticipates having 350 archery league shooters this winter, which represents a great customer base for his pro shop sales all through what most consider achery's "slow season."

"The population of Portage is around 8,500, but we have league shooters coming from a 60-mile radius," this pro shop owner told me. "I even draw some from Neosha and Green Bay. That's a pretty good distance for someone to drive."

To minimize complaints about which of the two systems they shoot on, Mueller has both his Model 50 and Model 300 set to the individual shooter mode. Although the more sophisticated Model 300 sometimes failed to discern between shooters releasing simultaneously, it's error free when customers take turns firing at the high quality video.

Bryan Huinker got hooked on video archery at Badgerland, and makes the drive with his buddy Craig for the 14 weeks they'll shoot together on Monday nights. Huinker likes the way Mueller mixes up the disks so you never know what you'll be shooting, and also likes knowing everybody in his league will face the same sequences over the course of 3 1/2 months. He figures the most difficult shots are the moving snakes or maybe the ducks that are bouncing on waves. By the time spring turkey season rolls around, Huinker and other hunters who patronize Badgerland Archery are better prepared because of that realistic practice.

Video archery helps keep Huinker coming back to Badgerland year-round, and video archery actually helped draw Mueller into the business in the first place. Five years ago there was a bar and restaurant in Portage whose owners installed an AIS system, for patrons and because they loved to shoot it themselves. Mueller, who had been competing in archery tournaments since he was 8 years old, was earning his living in the tool and die business but wishing he was behind the counter of a pro shop. he launched Sharp Shooters with a $12,000 investment in bowhunting gear, and the help of that existing video system. A couple years later the building owners wanted to expand with a supper club, and Mueller had to strike out on his own. He had a hard time finding the right building at the right price, till a friend from church showed him the industrial building he had sitting empty just a mile and a half away from Sharp Shooters.

The building had held the office and fabricating shop for a business that installed large fuel tanks. It had a beautiful natural stone facing and the lobby and conference room were also finished in stone that Mueller could never have afforded on his own. Offices for the architects could hold storage, arrow building and bow repair rooms, while the big concrete-floored fabrication section was big enough to hold twin video ranges, a bow setup rance, and the lanes for paper leagues.

"No more than 15 minutes after coming through the door, I sad 'Let's sign the papers,' " Mueller recalled. "We opened here in July of 2002. I leased for a year and a half, and have owned it for a year and three quarters." "

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