Bowhunter brings you expert advice from legendary Bowhunters! Each issue is filled with updates from major bowhunting organizations, coverage of bowhunting locations across North America, complete coverage of the sport and much more.
“IMMERSE YOURSELF IN THE OUTDOOR EXPERIENCE. IT WILL CLEANSE YOUR SOUL AND MAKE YOU A BETTER PERSON.”—FRED BEAR THE ANNUAL Big Game Special is a favorite of many readers, and it’s not hard to understand why. After all, what serious bowhunter doesn’t dream about pursuing exotic species in faraway lands that seem a world removed from the familiar? Sure, a three-hour, Back Forty sit for whitetails before or after work is a nice respite from your day, but a week-long or fortnight adventure into the unknown is a true escape from reality — and it’s that escape the hunter’s spirit inside us craves. As I prepared the features in this issue for publication, I was repeatedly struck by how the various authors expressed this sentiment, and how simply spending time…
Excalibur Hybrid X Excalibur’s new-for-2025 crossbow offering — the Hybrid X — ushers in a new era, employing a cam system in tandem with Excalibur’s signature recurve limbs for the very first time. The result is the company’s most advanced crossbow yet, capable of producing bolt speed up to 435 fps from a compact, reverse-draw configuration platform that measures less than 30 inches long and just 10.8 inches wide when cocked. Finished in Mossy Oak Country DNA camo, the Hybrid X weighs 8.3 pounds and features Excalibur’s ChargerX integrated cocking/de-cocking crank mechanism that reduces cocking effort to just 14 pounds. Comes with Overwatch scope, quiver and four bolts with fieldpoints. $2,199 | excaliburcrossbow.com Benchmade Mini Taggedout A quality knife is a must for any deer hunter, and Benchmade’s new 1534…
INDUSTRY ICON Mathews Archery doesn’t miss a beat. On the heels of the extremely popular 2024 LIFT that brought an all-new design to the Mathews lineup, the company immediately went to work making the LIFT platform even better. The result of that effort is the 2025 LIFT X. In addition to the SwitchWeight X Cam system, skeletonized reflex riser, BridgeLock Technology, 3-D Damping, Nano 740 Harmonic Damper, String Stop and the past-parallel position of the limbs brought over from the LIFT, the LIFT X is home to new, more durable ARC7 split limbs, easy tunability via patented Limb Shift Technology and the company’s Bond Grip system. The LIFT X is available in two models based on your preferred axle-to-axle length — the LIFT X 33 and LIFT X 29.5 (the…
NUNAvUT is a unique fragment of this giant blue marble we call home. This vast and remote Canadian territory is the kind of place where, if that distant boulder you’re studying with binoculars suddenly morphed into a wooly mammoth, you wouldn’t be shocked. Little has changed on this stretch of Planet Earth over the long blink of natural history, and while the mammoths are gone, there remains primordial evidence thundering across the tundra — the shaggy muskox! One cannot observe the rumbling gait of a herd of muskox without having visions of mammoths and saber-toothed tigers. When you tell people you’re traveling to hunt in this wild place, accessible only by plane or boat, the response is predictable. “Nunavut?” they ask. “Where’s that?” Geography isn’t a strong suit with most…
“I see the bull, and he is coming to us,” my friend Darryl said as I was bringing gear from the plane. “Are you kidding me?” I asked. We had flown around in my Supercub and picked out a favorable place to land and camp, a couple of miles from a moose that I wanted to hunt. The weather was great, and the moose rut was in full swing. As I was taking care of the plane, Darryl had started putting up the tent. The inside of our tent is white, before the blue rain fly is attached, and the bull somehow saw it from two miles away. Seeing this, along with us moving gear from the plane to the tent, had gotten the bull’s attention. When the rut is…
A BULL ELK WAS SCREAMING ITS HEAD OFF BARELY 20 YARDS IN FRONT OF ME, but the junipers were too thick to see hide or hair. Ear-splitting bugles were punctuated by cracking brush and thudding hooves. My heart was thudding too. This was the thrill I live for each fall. I held the Bear Alaskan XT compound bow in a white-knuckle grip. My Easton FMJ shaft was bouncing like a rubber ball atop the Trophy Ridge arrow rest. Relax and calm down, I told myself. Fat chance of that with a herd bull at point-blank range! Seconds later, a cow elk scooted past, 15 yards to my left. Antlers flashed through a gap. The bull poked its nose out and bugled again. The rack rolled into view, and I relaxed…
