When Mark Olsen, the President of Field Sports Solutions, Inc., manufacturers of the Gladder Bladder, contacted BowCountry.com to perform a Test and Tune review on his product our reaction was like a nosey neighbor asking you if you have hemorrhoids. Gladder Bladder? Kind of personal and nobody's business. Yet here is a product we're certain hunters will purchase and use but will possibly never admit to using. While technically not an archery product, we thought The Gladder Bladder would be of interest and some of you would appreciate our take on this product.

Let's face it, when it comes to doing our personal "business" at the hunting camp outhouse or in the woods, it's not exactly fodder for campfire conversation. It's easier to talk about what we saw or didn't see while we were in the woods. We all cope with our bodily functions in our own private way and discussing such things is rarely done. Respected writers like Charlie Alsheimer extol the virtues of actually urinating into mock scrapes at certain times of the day because allegedly, scent is scent to a whitetail after the ammonia has evaporated off. Other experts make you feel like urinating in the woods within a half a mile of where you hunt is like playing loud heavy metal music from your tree stand. These experts will have you believe it's a sin to pee in the woods. Regardless, when you gotta go, you gotta go. Some guys I've hunted with bring their secret empty 12 ounce soda bottle. Nudge, nudge, we all know what the empty soda bottle is for, we just don't talk about it. Others just create Niagara Falls from their favorite tree stand and resume hunting. No big deal! Whatever or however you take care of your "business", we realize there will be those who read this review, laugh, get grossed out, and maybe even consider buying this product without telling a single soul.

Right off the bat, let's get something straight. Our personal mini-survey among our test staff and immediate friends and family indicates that peeing in the woods is a fact when you are a hunter or outdoor enthusiast. It costs less to do this than to pay $25.99 for device like the Gladder Bladder. However, we also agreed we all know hunters who hunt hard meaning there are hunters who go in when it's dark and come out well after it's dark and stay on stand the entire time. We all know hunters that are so obsessed with the pursuit, the planning, and the intensity of the hunt that they don't even have time for urinating and seemingly have 20 gallon bladders. These fanatics are going to think the Gladder Bladder is a great product! Let's talk about how this product works.

Imagine a 26-ounce slender ergonomically shaped oblong plastic receptacle concave on one side that serves as a urine depository and attaches to the inner side of your calf with velcro straps. At the top of this canister is a 1/2" intake for inbound urine, a 1/2" vent tube to break any vacuum that is created and a screw on cap for empting the contents of the Gladder Bladder. The manufacturer recommends avoiding strapping the Gladder Bladder directly to your bare skin to avoid chafing, and instead suggests strapping it to your inner calf over the top of your thermal underwear or using 1/4" closed cell foam padding for warmer weather. Until some of us actually read the instructions we saw this as a flaw. Now that we've read the instructions, we view this as a must do helpful hint. In fact, Field Logic should incorporate some kind of pad into future product enhancements along with a more substantive strap that flexes when the calf muscle is worked.

Since each of us is more or less manly than our hunting buddies in the penis girth department there is a handy cardboard cutout size chart that comes with your Gladder Bladder to determine which size external catheter is appropriate. This chart is bound to produce lots of hunting camp humor and has become a long standing inside joke among our staff. The external catheter, in frequent use in a hospital setting, is a condom like device made of latex rubber which fits snugly over the end of your penis, unrolls like a condom past the tip of your "Johnson" and partially up your penis shaft. The open end of the external catheter connects to the half inch clear tubing that deposits your urine into the plastic Gladder Bladder. In short, you urinate through the external catheter, the urine travels down the 1/2" clear tubing and into the Gladder Bladder.

The vent tube coming off the other 1/2" fitting at the top of the Gladder Bladder snakes its way inside your inner thigh beneath your clothing and is suppose to run parallel to but beneath your belt line. The exit hole of the vent tube fitting on the top of the Gladder Bladder is stuffed with an activated charcoal plastic foam mesh. You cut and then tightly roll up a section of this mesh and insert it snugly into the plastic vent fitting to filter out the scent of your urine exiting the Gladder Bladder.

How well or poorly does this product work? First things first. There is a fair amount of custom fitting preparations that need to be made prior to even contemplating use of the Gladder Bladder. You can't just take this product out of the box and go hunting. Intake and vent tubing needs to be cut to the proper length, the external catheter needs to sized, strapping the Gladder Bladder to your inner calf, fitting the charcoal mesh into the vent all need to happen in the privacy of your home before you venture out into the woods. This is clearly not a one size fits all product and you had better read every word in the instructions!

The directions provided with the Gladder Bladder are pretty straight forward and easy to follow, but we felt since there is a fair amount of custom fitting involved that drawings would be a welcome addition to the printed word. No jokes about the drawings. There are several things the manufacturer recommends that we found to be common sense types of things you definitely do not want to overlook. Don't share this product with your hunting buddy. Yuk! Don't lie down or you'll have a big spillage problem. Don't forget to check the level of your Gladder Bladder. It can and will begin to flow up the vent tube if you urinate more than once. Do not try to walk into your stand with everything connected. It won‚t be a comfortable walk and the tubing is bound to potentially detach. The instructions recommend the hunter connect themselves when they are either in or near their tree stand. To us, this recommendation is a major consideration even the most die-hard hunter should consider. Imagine it's dark out, possibly raining or snowing, there is a climbing tree stand to attach to a tree, you're juggling a flashlight and a bow or rifle or you are wearing knee high rubber boots. See what we mean? If you are the type of hunter who would use this product you need to streamline the process and work all the bugs out just like any new addition to your hunting routine. We found the best compromise was to get the Gladder Bladder secured into position with the vent tube and the inbound urine tube readily available once you are in position. One of our staffers installed the Gladder Bladder to his calf ran the tubes inside his pant leg, duct taped the two 1/2" tubes together, clearly marked one tube "vent" and then safety pinned the tubes to the inside of his pant fabric. "Installing" the external catheter is as easy as putting on a condom, and trust us, don't pretend you are bigger with your manliness than you actually are. This external catheter has to fit snugly without pinching. In fact, there is double sided, one time use, sticky tape included for those of you paranoid about leaks who demand a snugger than snug fit. We found this double sided tape was unnecessary with a properly fitted external catheter. If you do select a size larger than is recommended (there are three sizes included) we want you to visualize what happens when a garden hose under pressure has a loose fitting spray nozzle attached to the other end. You get the picture don't you? The garden hose blows off the nozzle attachment under pressure. Now you have a BIG scent problem, the hunt is over unless you can tolerate wet pants and to top it all off you've got some explaining to do back at camp on why you peed your pants!

Now that you have completed the hunt and you've utilized the Gladder Bladder, the manufacturer recommends you disassemble the product before exiting the woods rather than try to walk back out with a half full plastic urine container sloshing around on your inner calf. Pull off the external catheter, hoist your pants down, detach the inbound urine tube and reattach the open end of the vent tube hose to the intake side. Now the urine is completely protected and can not spill.

The manufacturer suggests the entire system is re-useable including the external catheter. The manufacturer suggests you can wash out the external catheter, let it dry and roll it back up with some talc powder. We can see washing out the Gladder Bladder and the tubes connecting the vent and urine intake but the external catheter? Um, no thanks! We‚d suggest you buy extra catheters at your medical supply store or from the folks at Gladder Bladder. Then again, we suppose it's a matter of personal choice.

Summary:

If you think all this messing around with tubes, external catheters, and backpacking urine out of the woods sounds like a lot of trouble to go through in order to avoid a simple pee in the woods you'd be right! Not one of our test team would ever go through the effort to assemble, fit, install and de-install the Gladder Bladder on an average day hunt. There are simply too many other things on our minds to add another major system (urine collection) to the equipment checks and double checks. Under normal hunting conditions, which are inevitably in the dark, use of the Gladder Bladder, at least to our test team, is not something that we would ever deal with or pay money for. Having said that, we all admitted we know and hunt with fanatics who would secretly buy the product and never, ever tell anyone. Well, there is one guy we know who would actually brag about it and use it for a liquor flask after he washed everything out. Anything for a laugh around the campfire.

We also agreed that in certain deep woods conditions this type of scent containment could be an advantage. For these fanatical guys (there currently is no Gladder Bladder for women) this is an excellent, well thought out personal product. Once all the form fitting is accomplished and trial runs, using the Gladder Bladder is a straight forward, albeit unusual, and for some uncomfortable, affair. The act of urinating into the Gladder Bladder does not make any noticeable noise that would disturb your hunting set up and use of the charcoal activated filter on the vent tube and the fact that the vent tube exits beneath your clothing means none of us noticed any kind of scent that would give away our position to a wary white tail.

The Gladder Bladder has other potential and more appropriate applications with float tube and stream fisherman wearing waders.

For all these reasons we give the Gladder Bladder a 4 star rating while firmly recognizing that this product is definitely not for everyone. To be honest with you, the only way we could figure to give a 5 star rating would be to design a low cost, single use product that you use and throw away. At an average retail price of $25.99 we feel the product is reasonably priced compared to other products which do not have an active capture system. Active capture means urine never makes contact with the ambient air.

There is just no way around it. The Gladder Bladder fills a niche and goes down in our Test and Tune annals as the most unique product we've ever tested. You see the sacrifices we make for our loyal archery following?! For more details on the Gladder Bladder or to order one check out www.GladderBladder.com.

Psst, remember, it's a secret and you heard it here at BowCountry.com!