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“Hunting Terrain All Over the Country with Alpen Optics and Tony Smotherman”
Editor’s Note: Tony Smotherman lives outside of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and is a professional outdoorsman and a member of Alpen’s Pro Staff. Smotherman travels all over the country, hunting about 10 states each year for deer, turkey, bear, mule deer, elk, antelope and other big game. He also films hunts for TV shows and videos. Smotherman’s livelihood depends on him being able to find and take game, which is the reason he relies only on Alpen optics.
 Question: Tony, why did you choose to become a national pro hunter for Alpen, and what optics do you use?
Smotherman: I use the Rainier Series binoculars. These binoculars are equal to or better than the more-expensive binoculars on the market. They not only are clear and sharp, but they’re rugged. They can take the extreme terrains and temperatures in which I hunt, and they’re far-less expensive than some of the bigger names in optical products. I’m a blue-collar hunter, and my audience is blue collar. I was drawn to the Rainier binoculars because of their quality and ruggedness, and my audience can afford them.
Question: You also use a spotting scope, don’t you?
Smotherman: Absolutely, all the time. I’ve chosen the Rainier series of spotting scopes because of their clarity and magnification, which I’ve found to perform just as well, if not better, than the most-expensive spotting scopes. My budget can afford a quality spotting scope, like the Rainier scopes.
Question: Which riflescope do you shoot?
Smotherman: I shoot muzzleloaders primarily, and I like the 3-9x42 Alpen Apex riflescope. My CVA Optima and CVA Apex will shoot accurately out to 200 yards or more, and I’ve found that the 3-9x42 Alpen Apex is exactly what I need for those two blackpowder rifles. I like this scope because of its clarity, and I can purchase a top-of-the-line riflescope at a price I can afford.
Question: Most people don’t assume that a black-powder rifle is accurate out to 200 yards. Using Alpen’s Apex riflescope, what types of groups can you shoot at 200 yards?
Smotherman: With the quality optics of the Alpen Apex riflescope and the precision of the CVA Apex or CVA Optima, I can shoot a 3-inch group at 200 yards, which is plenty tight enough to take any big-game animal I want to take.
Question: What bullet do you shoot?
Smotherman: I shoot the 300-grain PowerBelt Platinum Bullets, pushing the bullet with a 110-grain charge of Blackhorn 209 powder.
Question: You took an elk this year during the first week of November. Most people hunt elk in September or October. What were the advantages of hunting late-season elk?
Smotherman: All the elk are off the tops of the mountains, down lower and grouped-up in November. When you’re hunting bull elk, you normally will spot one, however, I’ve learned that by hunting late season, I usually can see more than one. That’s the positive. The negative is during the late season, you’ll have deep snow, so reaching the animals can be difficult. This is where having a quality Alpen spotting scope, like the Rainier, is critical because you have to watch these animals from a distance and then try to determine the best way to reach them.
 Question: How did you find and see this elk, and how did you get him within range?
Smotherman: We were hunting in Wyoming, and at this time of year, we expected snow, but we didn’t expect 4 feet of snow. So, we had to use snowmobiles to get around. Because I’m from Tennessee where we don’t get a lot of snow, I never had hunted off a snowmobile, nor had I ever ridden one. Hunting from snowmobiles made closing the distance on the elk much-more difficult. The friend I hunted with took me to a canyon he calls the Bull Hole. Every elk we saw in that canyon were all bulls, and 90% of them were shooter bulls, meaning a 300 class or bigger. Every time we saw bulls, they were at 400 to 600 yards, so to choose the bull I wanted to try to take, I relied heavily on my Alpen spotting scope. The first time I saw the bull I took, he was at 600 yards. With the naked eye, I could tell he was a big bull, but with my 60x magnification Alpen Rainier spotting scope, I could count every point and look for broken tines.
Question: What was the ride like on the snowmobile?
Smotherman: Riding a snowmobile is like participating in a circus, especially in 4 feet of snow. During, the entire ride, you get beat-up and have to stay balanced. If you don’t keep a snowmobile balanced on each side, it will turn over. We were riding about 8 miles every day to reach the place where the elk were located. I carried my Alpen spotting scope in a pack on my back and strapped my CVA rifle over my shoulder. The gun, the riflescope and the spotting scope really got pounded. My spotting scope and my gun were getting bounced around so much that they wore a hole in my daypack.
Question: What happened after you spotted the elk you wanted to take?
Smotherman: The bull was in a deep canyon at 600 yards, and there was no way to reach him. So, I glassed him with my spotting scope for the remainder of the afternoon. The fourth afternoon, we were headed back to the bull hole, and as luck would have it, the bull I wanted to take and several other bulls had come out of the canyon. When we saw them, they were right in front of us on the snowmobile trail we created. When I saw the bull, he was at 240 yards. Because we’d been on this same trail several times, the snowmobile trail was packed hard enough that I could step off the snowmobile, lie down and use the bipod on the front of my rifle to hold steady to prepare for the shot. Because I knew both my CVA rifle and my Alpen riflescope extremely well, I held right at the top of the bull’s shoulder and fired. The bullet hit right where I’d hoped. I got a lung shot, and the bull only went 20 feet before going down. The bull scored roughly 342.
Question: Why would you recommend that other hunters use Alpen optics?
Smotherman: Each year I travel all over this country by truck, plane, ATV and now snowmobile, and my Alpen optics are always dead-on and ready to perform when I reach my hunting site. When we’re hunting elk, put our optics through a lot of abuse, not deliberately, but because of traveling conditions. But my Alpen riflescope has always held at zero and been dead-on every time I’ve sighted-in before a hunt. And, my binoculars and spotting scope have always been clear and ready to magnify game, regardless of terrain or weather.
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