Business
eFormed Ventures Buys Outdoor Life to Build a Gear Marketplace
eFormed Ventures, a Bend, Ore., fund that builds marketplaces around enthusiast media, said Oct. 7 it bought Outdoor Life from Recurrent Ventures and will add an AI-native marketplace connecting readers with products from retailers and brands. The company says it will keep all editorial and operations staff, and no price was disclosed. Tom Beusse, who ran Outdoor Life as president of Time4 Media, leads operations with Mike Morford, Lance Reese and Scott Blackwell, who held leadership roles at Beretta USA, Mountain Khaki and Remington. For brands that buy Outdoor Life ads and affiliate placements, the open question is how a title that reviews gear behaves once it also sells it.
Business
Federal, Mossberg and Palladyne AI Plan a Drone-Mounted Shotgun to Stop Drones
SwarmShot is a joint release with three logos and no price tag. Federal, Mossberg and Palladyne AI named their roles, a first aircraft in Palladyne's Gremlin-X quadcopter and a later kit for other drones, but disclosed no schedule, customer or financial terms. Federal's existing Army counter-UAS ammunition contract is the only government business in the announcement, so for the two sporting brands this is still a bet on a program nobody has bought.
Gear
Lund Takes Heavy-Gauge Aluminum Into Big Water With Hardtop HG Pro Boats
Three 2027 launches in a week show where Lund wants to grow and their heavy-gauge line now starts above $114,000. The redesigned Adventure Series widens the family end, the new 2275 Tyee replaces the long-running Baron as the deep-V flagship, and the HG Pro carries heavy-gauge aluminum into 22- and 24-foot hardtops. A dealer's Lund lineup now runs from family Adventure boats to enclosed-cabin hardtops.
THE SIGNAL STACK
Fishing
Humminbird.com Now Forwards Shoppers to Minn Kota's Website
Johnson Outdoors picked a hard week to retire Humminbird's storefront. Humminbird.com began forwarding to Minn Kota the same week MLF banned forward-facing sonar at three 2027 Pro Circuit stops and B.A.S.S. coin flips held it to five of nine Elites. Minn Kota now carries the live-sonar brand alone into a tour season that will show it off less, and the "Humminbird Imaging" label has to keep the loyalty the old name earned.
Fishing
MLF Bans Live Sonar at Half of Its 2027 Pro Circuit Stops
Major League Fishing set its 2027 Tackle Warehouse Pro Circuit rules on Oct. 7, and forward-facing and 360-degree sonar will be banned in practice and competition at three of six regular-season stops: Chickamauga Lake, Clarks Hill Lake and the Arkansas River. Lake Murray, Sam Rayburn and the St. Lawrence River stay unrestricted, and the James River Championship runs no sonar on Day 1, sonar on Day 2 and a coin flip for the final day. The Championship field grows from 40 to 45, and full-season entries are capped at 150 pros, with Bass Pro Tour anglers allowed into individual stops outside the cap. With B.A.S.S. coin flips already allowing live sonar at only five of nine 2027 Elites, electronics brands now have two top tours that give them part of the season as a showcase, not all of it.
Gear
Orvis Marks Tom Rosenbauer's 50 Years With a Limited Helios Fly Rod
Orvis just sold Helios holdouts the rod they asked for, at a collector's price. The Rosenbauer Edition drops the series' much-griped-about white butt section, and Hatch puts the run at 300 rods for $1,498. If they sell quickly, Orvis has its own evidence on whether the rest of the Helios F line should lose the white butt too.