Bowhunterの April/May 2025 の目次

SPRING ISN’T the beginning of the calendar year, but it marks the beginning of a new year for bowhunters. The arrival of warmer weather means we can finally head outside to shoot our bows in comfort, and spring turkey seasons allow us to once again head afield with lethal intent after a long winter. Spring is also a time of transition here at Bowhunter, as the staff shifts from attending trade shows and checking out the latest new bowhunting gear to putting those items to good use on the range and in the field. We’re also busy filling out big-game permit applications, planning logistics for fall hunts and creating a year’s worth of dynamite magazine content that’ll help you effectively prepare for a successful season. Speaking of preparation, don’t miss…

HUNTERS COMPRISE just 6 percent of the U.S. population, yet hunting has long enjoyed strong support from the non-hunting public. A pair of recent surveys, however, indicates that support is on the decline — a concerning trend that could signal new challenges on the horizon. In 2024, 76 percent of adult Americans approved of legal hunting, a slight decline from 77 percent in 2023 and down 5 percent from 81 percent in 2021, according to surveys conducted by Responsive Management for the Council to Advance Hunting and the Shooting Sports (CAHSS). Although the 2024 level of support is in line with the historical range for survey (conducted 11 times since 1995), wildlife officials are concerned by the recent, downward trend to a level not seen since 2011, when overall support…

MY NAME IS BRAD FENSON, and I am a hunter. Hunting has been a passion for most of my life. As a child, I took on odd jobs to make money to purchase my first pellet gun. Shooting sparrows and ground squirrels kept me occupied from sunup to sundown. My first big-game animal was a mature bull moose with close to a 40-inch antler spread. I could not imagine going a year without hunting ducks and geese, and spur-of-the-moment walks with my shotgun provided opportunities for upland game birds. Introduced to bowhunting as a teenager, I hunted whitetails in the boreal forest. There was never enough time in the field, so archery became my ticket to more time outside. The vertical bow was a passion for years, and I found…

“THERE WERE NO EMBRACES, BECAUSE WHERE THERE IS GREAT LOVE THERE IS OFTEN LITTLE DISPLAY OF IT.” — Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote IF I WERE ASKED to give one piece of advice to novice bowhunters and told my recommendations could not be about hunting techniques, equipment or shooting, I would counsel them to choose their hunting buddies wisely. The friends you hunt with can make or break any expedition, especially a long and difficult hunt. Twenty-five years ago, on the night before the season opener of an Arizona elk hunt, I was sitting in the cab of my truck in the heart of the Kaibab National Forest. It was midnight, and I was waiting for a friend who had promised to meet me there at 8 p.m. This…

IT IS NEVER WISE to take a knife to a gunfight. But that was exactly what I found myself doing on Oct. 7, 2024. I had just left my pickup and entered legal Wyoming bison habitat when something orange flashed in the trees. Dawn was barely breaking, but someone was already ahead of me. Seconds later, a gun-toting nimrod in a blaze vest stepped into the clear. The only open big-game season was for buffalo, so this guy’s intent was clear. He was snooping through the area I had planned to hunt. The man never saw me as he trudged out of sight, despite my own fluorescent stocking cap. There is no separate archery season for buffalo in Wyoming, so I had to abide by gun-hunting rules. I groaned and…

RYAN SOLOMAN AND I met while guiding together in Southern Colorado, and his thick Southern accent made it obvious he was far from his Georgia home. Listening to him talk, I assumed he would be out of his element pursuing western species such as elk, mule deer and antelope. I was wrong. I quickly realized Ryan was one of those rare individuals who seems to transcend the mere title of hunter. It would be more accurate to call him an assassin. He was basically raised as a hunting guide on Southern Georgia’s Gopher Plantation, an operation his grandfather has been cultivating since the early 1960s and today offers some of Georgia’s finest hog, deer, turkey, quail and duck hunting. Evidently, starting young on ultra-cautious whitetails, notoriously call-shy Southern toms and…

CHUCK ADAMS BEAT ME in a game of poker last fall. It pains me to admit that, because I beat him a few years ago in a grueling game where we played 13.5 hours straight. So, we are now tied, and I am of course hoping to come out ahead on the next one. Whenever I see Chuck, we like to tease each other and always have a great time. Chuck is next level when it comes to hardcore bowhunting, sometimes operating a month or more from a tent camp to try and tag the trophy animal he is after. If he isn’t successful, Chuck is fine feasting on tag soup. It’s that willingness to challenge himself — not to mention the self-discipline to hold out for the one animal…

GOBBLER GETTERS Rhino Low Hub Pro FD Ground Blind Fitted with a larger door that lets you enter and exit more easily and quietly, Rhino’s Hub Pro FD Ground Blind is wrapped in durable, 600 denier fabric and sports see-through mesh window flaps and dividers. A lower hub design means increased window size and clearance for bowhunters. $329.99 | feradyne.com Millennium G450 Blind Chair A veritable La-Z-Boy for your ground blind, this chair with 360-degree silent swiveling lets you pivot from window to window without repositioning. The ComfortMAX seat ensures all-day comfort, and the adjustable legs balance and level the chair perfectly on uneven terrain. $249.99| millennium-outdoors.com Browning Early Season Hooded Shirt & Pant Lightweight but durable and promising maximum concealment thanks to exclusive Ovix camouflage, this dynamic duo is…

WITH THE ALL-NEW Proven 34, Bowtech combines a variety of signature features and technologies to create a bow that can truly do it all; competition-level shooting stability meets bowhunting performance meets the DIY lovers dream rig! With a 34-inch axle-to-axle length and adjustable GripLock grip, the target side of this bow shows its face, while the FlipDisc cam module delivers notably different shooting experiences and performance markers between the available Comfort and Performance settings. DIY enthusiasts will be thrilled by the ability to tune and time via Bowtech’s Dead-Lock and TimeLock features that require no bow press to adjust. And past-parallel limbs and a series of shock-, vibration- and noise-reducing accessories tame the shot. Let’s dive in and take a closer look. Pushing the Envelope Bowtech took last year’s Center-Mass…