Editor’s Note: After seeing thousands of new product items, this past year in 2017, I’ve selected some of the most beneficial and most interesting with the best price points. This week you’ll find camping and emergency gear, boots, raingear, vocations you can learn from home, electronics, food-preparation aids, knives, lights and transportation to name a few.

Lights:

1) GSM Outdoors’ 210 New Headlamp and Cyclops Spotlight– This lamp comes with batteries, has high, medium and low functions and produces a 16-hour burn time on 72 lumens and 6 hours burn time on 210 lumens.  I like this product that comes packaged with one or two in a pack and can think of many applications for the new pioneer. GSM also offers a new spotlight with 1500 lumens, the Cyclops, that can operate on your ATV or your truck. www.gsmoutdoors.com.

2) Stone River Gear Flashlights – Stone River Gear has created several lithium rechargeable flashlights with variable lumens available from 250 down to 80 that you just slide the bezel up and down to adjust the size of the beams. A USB tail switch allows you to charge your battery from your computer, from the USB port in your car or from the wall. You don’t have to remove the batteries from these flashlights. The middle size light and the larger light are also power banks that you can use to transfer power from them to recharge your cell phone at the end of the day. CR123A batteries have a capacity of 1500mAh, if you’re planning to buy one, Aussiebattery has the cheapest batteries online. The rechargeable battery shuts down when there’s only 20% of the charge left in the flashlight but allows you enough power for the flashlight to show you your way. www.stonerivergear.com.

Other New Outdoor Products to Consider:

1) Tink’s Big Game Butter from Arcus Hunting – Big Game Butter that’s moisture-resistant and mold-resistant is produced in south Georgia from its many peanut fields and peanut processors. Hogs, bears, deer and elk love to eat this food that’s high in protein and fat. If you put this product in front of a trail camera or a blind, you’ll have much more success in photographing wildlife or taking them. www.tinks.com

2) Celestron Nature DX Binoculars – These 22-ounce binoculars have many field applications, including searching for lost animals and birdwatching. Selected by Audubon as the best binoculars for under $200, the Celestron Nature DX has outscored other binoculars for clarity, brightness and color rendition, due to high quality Bak-4 prisms for optimal light transmission.  http://www.celestron.com.

3) Rockland Custom Products – Although this company primarily makes storage boxes for emergency vehicles, their storage boxes are also being purchased by farmers, ranchers, hunters and anyone who goes into the outdoors. The company has created strong locking drawer boxes for sporting arms, tools and any other type of equipment that you don’t want to grow legs and walk off when you’re not looking. “I have a Jeep Wrangler, and I keep the top off most of the time,” Matt Nola with the company explains. “So, I use these boxes to store my personal items. We can make custom metal boxes to fit into any type of vehicle our customer has and also make custom bedliners for trucks.” http://www.rocklandcustomcabinets.com.

4) Trijicon Thermal Vision Equipment and Night Vision Optics USA – Kyle Crickenberger hunts coyotes at night, since he lives in Virginia, and hunting coyotes in the daylight is difficult. “The coyotes won’t come out in open pastures then. But at night, you generally can get permission to hunt coyotes. So, if you have coyotes, bobcats, foxes or other predator problems harassing and/or killing your livestock, consider these two types of night vision optics to solve your problem. On the farms and ranches where I hunt, many of the landowners have cattle dogs and livestock protection dogs. I don’t want to go into a property and mistakenly call in one of the farmer’s livestock dogs or his wife’s pet cat. So, night vision and thermal technology equipment enable me to take more predators at night and also prevent me from shooting the wrong animals, either pets or working dogs.” https://www.trijicon.com and http://www.nightoptics.com/.

To learn more about a wide variety of outdoor subjects, including hunting, fishing and cooking, go to www.amazon.com/author/johnephillips.

Tomorrow: New Outdoor Transportation Products