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Mojave Binoculars

by Kip Pollay AZOD FishingEditor

Many of you know me strictly as an angler from my previous articles, the B.A.S.S. Federation Nation or my radio and television work. Though I am on the water a good part of the time, I also enjoy hunting and archery with my wife and four sons whenever we can. Until recent times, we were mainly into 3D and target shooting but with our recent transition to the hunting side, we quickly learned the impor­tance of optics.

My first season of archery deer I spent with a relative who had a $1500 binocular and I was using a $150 pair. He could find deer from a fur­ther distance than I and also see them better as they were bedded down amongst the desert brush. All this was good but not everyone wants to, or can, spend $1500 on a set of binoculars. I began to search for the best binocular under $500 and came across the Mojave Series by Leupold. I picked up a 10x42mm in a mossy oak finish and put it to the test.

The first thing that struck me was how light it was. Every ounce counts when you are stalking in some of our moun­tain sides. Besides lightweight the Mohave is also a nice look­ing binocular featuring an open bridge design. Well it looks good and feels good, now it was time to take a drive into the desert outside of my home town.

I went to a couple of my glass­ing areas and quickly realized that the Mojave produced bet­ter than I even hoped for. The fully multi-coated lens system and cold mirror coated prisms deliver the brightness, clarity, contrast, and color fidelity that was promised. The Mojave simply put will give you the vision comparable of the $1000 models on the market. The 10x magnification pre­sented a wide view which is good when in the field, espe­cially when you are looking for the slightest movement of an animal.

 

The twist-up eye cups were very comfortable as well and the Mojave were very easy to focus and fine tune. And final­ly the binoculars performed very well in low light as the sun was setting on my scouting trip. The bottom line is the Mojave were everything hoped for and then some.

Another key factor for me when searching for a product is warranty and customer service. For one, the Mojave binocular carries a Limited Lifetime Warranty with it. And secondly, my lone encounter with Leupold customer service was one of the main reasons I wanted to pursue a binocular from Leupold. I had previous­ly bought a 270 from a family member that had a Leupold Gold Ring Scope on it and it had a tuning screw that was locked up. I sent the scope to Leupold and within two weeks had a replacement coming back to me with no charge. And the scope is awesome as well.

In closing, if you want to be successful at whatever it is you decide to do; your acces­sories will play heavily into the picture. Before you get the chance to take a shot, you have already invested plenty of time sighting in your weapon, as well as the money spent for your weapon, ammo, gas, food, tags, licensing, clothing, and more. When it is time to get to work and find your target, I wonder how many lost opportunities have come to hunters due to sub­par binoculars. After using a quality pair in the Mojave, I lit­erally saw the light, without breaking the bank.

Leupold products are available at a number of Arizona merchants including Cabelas, Sportsmans Warehouse, Dicks Sporting Goods, Arizona Sportsman, On Target Enterprise, and Shooters Vault-