My name is Terry Koehler. I designed the Ultimate Bird Vest for serious dove hunters like you, who are not satisfied with the junk at Academy or belt rigs that are totally impractical.
Here’s why.
I shot my first dove with my dad before the training wheels came off my bike. That was over 65 years ago. I have hunted dove fields and ponds across Texas every season since, and along the way I've gone through more vests and belts than I can count.
I've spent hours walking an entire field helping a friend look for his cell phone that fell out of his pocket. We never found it.
I've used my pocket knife to cut the flaps off the shell pockets of a brand new vest right in the middle of the action because they kept hooking up on the velcro patches when I was trying to quickly get another two rounds into my over/under.
I've drunk from a water bottle covered with feathers because the game bag was the only place to put it. I've cleaned feathers out of my empties because I'm a reloader and there was nowhere to put them except in the game bag with my birds. And I can't tell you how many vests I've worn that felt like a plastic garbage bag in the September heat.
Sure, I’ve tried the belt rigs, too. They solve the heat issue, but pull your pants down and the shell and bird bags flop all over the place when you walk. If you are a serious bird hunter, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
I am not telling you this to complain. I am telling you because if you have hunted doves or upland birds for more than a season or two, you already know exactly what I mean. You have felt it. The vest that looked right in the catalog and let you down in the field. The belt that is a lousy compromise.
So, a few years back I decided I was done settling for it.
I spent two years developing the vest I actually wanted to wear. Not a committee decision. Not a focus group. Just one serious dove hunter who had tried everything the market offered and was tired of compromise, designing the vest he wished someone had built decades earlier.
