I first met Steve Sims, founder and CEO of LimbSaver Inc. back in 1999 on a remote dock in southeast Alaska as we waited on a bush plane. It was the middle of May and we had both been bear hunting, not together, but apparently not too far from one another either. 

Incidentally, we had both tagged out a good bear, so sprits were high and a friendly conversation ensued. It was only natural, who doesn’t want to talk about their successful bowhunt hunt right? 

I noticed he had a LimbSaver jacket on and commented that, “Hey, that’s pretty cool,” nodding to his jacket, “I have those on my bow and they really seemed to make a difference.”  Of course I didn’t know who I was talking to until he filled me in that he was the inventor the LimbSaver and manufactures them near his home in Shelton, Washington. “Wow, nice job,” I told him, more interested in getting back to talking about bear.

Well it wasn’t too long after that, not only did I have them on my bow, but everyone I knew had them on their bow and very likely everyone since that meeting some five years ago has LimbSavers on their bow.

When you think about it that is pretty amazing.  I mean bowhunters are so finicky and personal in their choices when it comes to equipment, which is why there haven’t been very many products to come down the line that virtually every person approves. 

I could venture a guess that maybe at one time most everyone used Easton arrows. That has since changed with the popularity of carbon arrows, which are seemingly made by about 1,000 different outfits. 

But, for a clear cut no-brainer product all bowhunters believe in, that was probably it until Steve’s revolutionary brainchild hit the scene. LimbSavers took the industry by storm way back when and haven’t let up. There isn’t a bowhunter out there, who has been in the game for any amount of time, that couldn’t tell you what a LimbSaver is, what it does and why you should use it. For an innovator and a businessman like Steve Sims, that is a beautiful thing, which probably explains why he seems so happy all the time.

After that initial meeting Steve and I would see each other at the hunting trade shows a couple times a year, the ATA, SCI and the SHOT shows namely.  I will never forget swinging by the LimbSaver booth at the 2000 ATA show soon after my book, Bowhunting Trophy Blacktail, came out. I had no idea but Steve and his younger brother Gary apparently are and always have been huge blacktail fans. 

They grew up hunting blacktail near their childhood home in Astoria, Oregon and still chase the wiley blacktail up in Washington with a passion.  They had a copy of my book at the show with the pages all dog-eared, Post-It notes hanging out and highlighted excerpts indicating passages to remember. 

I was shocked they were so familiar with my writings, then to top it off, Steve and Gary wanted to get their photo taken with me? Me?  Why would they want to take their picture with me? I am nobody and here these guys are huge, the biggest thing in archery, hands down. I was some part time writer who had simply realized a dream by writing a book on what I love to do, bowhunt. That was pretty cool and I can still remember it like it was yesterday.

Well the years passed and Steve and I kept seeing each other at the shows and exchanging pleasantries.  I got to know Alan Lotton, his marketing guru, very well and then I think because my good friend, Bob Fromme, put in some plugs for me, LimbSavers added me to their official pro-staff a couple of years ago. From the top down this company has been nothing but great to work with every single step of the way and just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, it did.

This past show season in January I set up a meeting with the Sims guys to talk about advertising in the magazine I serve as editor, Eastmans’ Bowhunting Journal.  Predictably, soon after starting the meeting the topic turned to spring bear hunting and recollecting the first time Steve and I ever met on that dock in Alaska. 

Steve then let on that he had just purchased a 60’ fishing boat, completely remodeled the thing, with bunks for nine, a kitchen, a shower, a t.v. with VCR, the whole 9 yards.  He also had a 20’ aluminum skiff that they kept with the big boat. 

Steve told me that the plans were to christen his new hunting/fishing vessel, The Eldorado, starting in the spring.  He wanted to keep the boat moving from hunt to hunt for a year or two before possibly turning it back into a working boat – commercial fishing. 

It was here that the plot thickens. My longtime hunting partner Roy Roth and I, try to hunt Southeast Alaska every year and this year was no different.  We had plans to set up our hunt on the same remote piece of island we do every year. 

To get out to where we hunt, we have to rent a fishing vessel to haul all of our gear and bait and pull out a skiff or two we can use for transportation.  Setting up the logistics for this hunt is a handful but we do it every year because the area is overloaded with monster black bear and we seldom see another hunter. 

In fact we have never not went 100% on record book bear on this hunt and this is an unguided deal in some of the most absolutely beautiful country the Last Frontier has to offer. Hunting grizzly sized black bears in this setting with a bow and arrow rig on your own is what bowhunting is all about.

With that little bit of foreshadowing out of the way, I made the decision to take Steve up on the gracious offer he’d extended of using The Eldorado as a base camp for a bear hunt in our tried and true monster bruin area. 

A call to Roy to run it by him was the first order of business.  I quickly stepped out of the LimbSaver booth and dialed up Roy on my cell phone.  Of course Roy said that it sounded like fun and asked what kind of guy Steve was, which was paramount since we would be sharing camp with him for close to ten days. 

I replied, “I don’t know, he has always seemed pretty cool.  Seems like a good guy. One thing I do know, we will know for sure after the hunt.”

Isn’t that when the rubber really meets the road, in hunting camp? You can find out more about a guy on a weeklong hunting trip than you could in ten years time in the hustle and bustle of real life.

Turns out that Steve seems like a “good guy” because he really is a good guy.  We had a fantastic hunt to say the least. Our inaugural “LimbSavers Bear Camp” ended up arrowing four record book bears in four days with four arrows. That might be the most productive four days of bowhunting in history for a handful of guys out doing it on their own in the wilds of Alaska.

During the week I had the chance to really get to know Steve (in fact I video taped him arrowing his great black bear). 

And, while he is a true pioneer in the archery world who will no doubt go down as a guy who turned the archery industry on its ear back in 1999 and has pushed the envelope ever since, in camp he just seemed like one of my ol’ hunting buddies from Oregon. 

He seemed normal, that is until I listened to him talk about the future of hunting and what his role will be in protecting our heritage. It is there where again Steve sets himself apart and leaves me with little doubt that his legacy will also include being one of the most influential stewards of the hunting lifestyle. 

I will say though, despite all of that higher order stuff, his “regular dude” tendencies were much more evident than anything else. A good example of this came when I hesitantly mentioned the hush-hush nature we try to keep our hunting area. 

You see, Roy and I really feel like we have our own little bear hunting heaven and definitely never want that compromised, whether we are hunting with Steve Sims or anyone else. 

One afternoon when we had a break in the action I mentioned to Steve, “You know, we try to kind of keep the area we are hunting here under wraps if we can.  I mean everyone knows we hunt SE Alaska, but so far as specifics go and who hunts up here with us…” 

At which time Steve interjected, “No man, don’t worry about anything.  I completely respect what you guys have going and have worked so hard to find.  I can promise you, I won’t be here or near here unless you guys are with me.” 

Now that is what you’d expect to hear from a true hunting buddy isn’t it?

Steve’s younger brother, Gary, was in camp with us and ended up arrowing the biggest bear of the trip at 20 10/16” Pope & Young, which is not too far off from that magical Boone & Crockett threshold. Their older brother, Mike Sims, was the man that proved to be unflappable in guiding our floating ‘bear camp’ through some pretty interesting challenges. 

Kevin and Billy, who alternated between cooking and doing anything and everything else that needed to be done, joined us on the boat, The Eldorado.  These guys are both not only handy at a multitude of tasks, but they have an “open water” savvy about them that proved to be priceless so far as skiff operation goes.  Without a doubt, these two really added to the hunt. 

This was a hunt I will never forget and one that I hope to relive year after year.