Building Lightweight Hunting Gear for Mobile Hunters
Behind the Gear: Brock Jensen
The vision behind XOP's lightweight, expedition-style hunting equipment
For Brock Jensen, the idea wasn't born behind a desk.
It came from years spent carrying hunting equipment into the places he wanted to hunt—remote public land, canoe-access country, backcountry camps and hunts where everything needed for the next several days had to come along.
Those experiences changed the way he looked at hunting equipment.
When everything has to travel on your back, every ounce has to earn its place.
As a driving force behind XOP's product development and marketing, Brock has helped bring that mentality to mobile whitetail hunting—taking lessons from western hunting, backpacking and backcountry expeditions and applying them to the whitetail woods.
It starts with a few simple questions:
How do we get farther in? How do we carry less? How do we move faster? And how do we build equipment we can trust when we're miles from the truck?
Bringing the Backcountry Hunting Mentality to Whitetail
Western hunters have obsessed over weight, packability and efficiency for decades.
When you're climbing thousands of vertical feet or carrying everything you need miles into the backcountry, unnecessary weight isn't simply inconvenient.
It's a limitation.
Brock saw the same challenge emerging in modern mobile whitetail hunting.
A public-land hunter might hike miles before daylight, cross a river, climb a ridge, push through a cattail marsh or relocate multiple times before finding the right tree.
Everything comes with you.
Climbing sticks. Saddle platform. Harness. Pack. Bow. Layers. Food. Water.
And for expedition-style hunts, sometimes camp and everything needed for the next several days comes too.
That thinking helped shape a new class of lightweight XOP hunting equipment built around mobility, packability and efficiency.
From Experience to Product Development
That experience also put Brock in a unique position at XOP:
The same person helping develop the product was also responsible for figuring out how to tell its story.
Product development and marketing weren't two separate conversations.
If weight mattered in the field, there needed to be a reason.
If a product packed smaller, hunters needed to understand why that mattered.
If several pieces of equipment were designed to work together, the story wasn't simply about individual specifications—it was about what the entire system allowed a hunter to do.
The product had to solve a real problem.
The marketing had to show hunters what solving that problem made possible.
HYDRO, FLY & SUPER FLY: Built for Expedition-Style Hunting
Products like the XOP HYDRO climbing sticks, FLY saddle platform and SUPER FLY are examples of that philosophy brought to life.
They started with a simple question:
What would mobile whitetail equipment look like if we approached it like backcountry gear?
XOP HYDRO Lightweight Climbing Sticks
The HYDRO climbing sticks are built around reducing the burden of the climb before you ever reach the tree.
For hunters covering serious ground, every component strapped to a pack matters. A lightweight, highly packable climbing system means less weight and bulk between the trailhead and the place you actually want to hunt.
When the destination is miles away, that matters.
XOP FLY TREESTAND
The FLY ultralight treestand applies that same mentality to the platform.
Compact, lightweight and purpose-built for hunters who count ounces because they know they'll be carrying them for miles, the FLY gives hunters another way to build a lightweight hunting setup around mobility and packability.
It's equipment designed for the hunter who isn't necessarily asking:
What's the easiest tree to reach?
He's asking:
Where do I actually need to be?
XOP SUPER FLY HYBRID TREESTAND
The SUPER FLY takes that expedition mentality even further, giving hunters another option for building a mobile hunting system around the demands of going deeper and carrying everything they need to get there.
HYDRO. FLY. SUPER FLY.
These aren't products designed solely around getting from the parking lot to the closest tree.
They're equipment for the hunter looking at a piece of ground three miles away and thinking:
That's where I need to be.
Lightweight Hunting Gear Built as a Complete System
Weight matters.
But lightweight hunting equipment can't simply be light.
It has to pack efficiently.
It has to deploy quickly.
It has to remain quiet.
It has to integrate with everything else you're carrying.
And when your feet leave the ground, it has to perform.
That's why Brock's approach to product development increasingly focused on the entire mobile hunting system, not just the weight of an individual product.
How do the climbing sticks pack?
How does the saddle platform ride on your pack?
How much space does the complete system consume?
How quickly can you transition from hiking to hunting?
Can unnecessary material be removed without sacrificing capability?
Can multiple pieces of equipment work together instead of simply being carried together?
The goal isn't ultralight for the sake of a number on a scale.
The goal is capability.
Carry less. Move farther. Hunt harder.
Designed for Mobile Whitetail and Public-Land Hunting
Long hikes expose bad equipment.
So do cold mornings, canoe approaches, remote camps, steep ridges and miles of public land.
A pound doesn't sound like much on a specification sheet.
Carry it five miles.
A bulky climbing system doesn't seem like a problem sitting in your garage.
Push it through a mile of thick timber.
A poorly integrated hunting system might look fine on a workbench.
Pack it in before daylight. Climb with it. Hunt all day. Tear it down in the dark. Then carry it all back out.
That's where hunting equipment proves itself.
And that's where many of the ideas behind XOP products begin.
Product and Marketing Tell the Same Story
That same philosophy shaped how Brock approached XOP's marketing.
Don't just tell hunters the HYDRO climbing sticks are lightweight.
Show them carrying them miles into public land.
Don't just give them the dimensions of the FLY ultralight treestand.
Show them how compact an entire hunting system can become.
Don't just talk about mobility.
Show hunters where that mobility can take them.
Because the product and the story should never be disconnected.
The product creates capability.
The story inspires hunters to use it.
Go Farther With XOP
Whitetail hunting is evolving.
Hunters are becoming more mobile. They're going deeper into public land. They're borrowing ideas from western hunting, backpacking and backcountry expeditions and applying them to the whitetail woods.
Some hunts begin from a trailhead.
Others begin from a canoe.
Some mean hiking several miles into public land and returning that night.
Others mean carrying camp and hunting equipment together and disappearing for days.
That's the world products like HYDRO, FLY and SUPER FLY were created for.
Not because every hunter needs to go five miles deep.
But because your equipment shouldn't be the reason you don't.
Look at the distant ridge.
Cross the river.
Hunt the island.
Pack into the backcountry.
Find the places other hunters aren't willing to reach.
Pack farther. Hunt deeper. Go anywhere.