Product Reviews

New Stoney Creek Design Jacket

This huntlite Jacket is now my most favourite piece of Stoney Creek gear along side the warm sika top. This light-weight, outer shell does exactly what Stoney Creek claim it does.

It cuts out the wind, it's waterproof, it's comfortable to wear, it has a great hood design, the zips are the bomb, it has adjustable neo-prene cuffs to keep you water tight, the coat covers your @ss when sittingdown in the wet and cold, it's reasonably breathable, and the realtree camo pattern is excellent to stalk in.

Throughout late March and early April 2009, I wore the Huntlite Jacket throughout the entire (two week) hunting trip, covering in-excess of 170 km on foot. It's light weight nature meant I was able to stow it away easily into my bivvy pack during the day, and apply the jacket in the evening, or first thing in the mornings. During this trip, we shot this ten point red stag trophy (above) on public land.

While testing the jacket on the same trip I also managed to secure this fine 13 point red trophy stag from public land administered by DoC. The going was particularly hard when bashing through subalpine monkey scrub to access open tussock tops along the Main Divide. Knowing that my gear was up for any challenge was really important. It's tough, durable nature means that you can push your gear to the limit.

In Western Australia I carried this fallow stag out while wearing the Huntlite Jacket and I was impressed at it's ability to keep my inner layers TOTALLY free from blood. I soaked the jacket in warm water with soap suds, rinsed it a couple of times, and then washed it in the washing machine as per instructions. She came up as good as new.

16 point fallow trophy

During August 2009 I shot across to Victoria, Australia to chase those sambar again, and managed to sneak in on several sambar using the Huntlite Jacket. If it wasn't pouring with rain so much, I would have taken some close-up photos of hinds and yearlings, but I didn't want to risk damaging my camera or lenses. I did however bag this stag at 20 odd meters after a slow and patient stalk.

I have started using this jacket while bow hunting - photo taken in Arthurs Pass National Park during September 2009.

Wearing Huntlite jacket and microfleece pants - September 2009.

Several days before my wedding, Dan Curley and I popped out for a day hunt (which turned into an unplanned overnighter) up one of the valleys at the head of Lake Wakitipu, Queenstown. We managed to shoot three fallow deer on last light, but when we discovered Curley's head torch had flat batteries, we were forced to camp out. 

Here, the Huntlite Jacket lived up to it's expectations and kept me reasonably cosy during the night while we camped under a makeshift bush bivvy. It cut out any wind, and did a pretty good job at retaining the warmth given that temperatures dropped to below zero during the early hours of the morning. And although we had a fire going throughout the night, I felt confident in that the gear would prevent risks of hypothermia should we have been unable to get a fire going.