Celebrating 20 years of hunting longer & exploring further
It’s funny how these stories always seem to start in the same way. A young guy, in a garage, with an idea and dream.
Hunters Element was no exception. In 2004 a young Rob Wilson took over his parent’s Wellington Garage in the pursuit of starting his business, which started out as ‘Riverworks’.
“I’ll start back at the beginning, I first started with neoprene waders...I got a heap of them out the door before white baiting season, and then the phone started ringing. There was an issue with the quality... so after that I started reinforcing and water testing all of them myself, it was 700 pairs in the end. I had these racks holding them all in the Wellington Southerly and trying to dry them in the middle of winter".
"It’s fair to say, I learned a lot early on.”
Thankfully for Rob’s parents, this garage era of the business was short lived, and after registering the Hunters Element name in late 2004 and releasing the first hunting raincoats, packs and accessories, a couple of storage units were used before the first official warehouse and showroom was established in Porirua, Wellington.
In the years that followed, Rob welcomed to the team our Head of Product Design Alex Broad, and a series of classic Hunters Element ranges were released, including the Real Tree camo and XTR series.
Explore further, hunt longer
THE TEAM, RANGE AND EXPERTISE WERE GROWING.
In 2013, pro-teamer Andrew Sturt began blogging for Hunters Element, before coming on as a Marketer, and now our Marketing Content Manager, putting our gear through its paces. Many of the hunts that ensued are etched in history, fondly referred to some of the best and hardest days in their lives.
The anecdotes came rushing in as soon as we released Desolve Veil, there were some super hard and valuable lessons learnt that we still pull on today
READ MORE ABOUT DESOLVE VEIL
In 2013, Alex Broad began working on an all-new camo, releasing the Desolve® VeilTM camo – changing the game for the Hunters Element range. Various versions of the Desolve® camo were released and tested, all with the aim to create visual noise and exceptional concealment across all terrains.
Today, the Hunters Element range continues to push technical boundaries, testing the limits of what hunting gear can do, and how far a hunter can push beyond their limits.
In 2017 we launched our company-wide sustainability promise, and began the journey to do everything in our power to create long-lasting gear while reducing the negative impact on the environment.