Author: Crossbow Magazine Staff

A good friend of mine, Kevin Roark, mentioned that I would be welcome to hunt on his property which has a total of 12 acres. The front section featured 6 acres of flat grass and pasture with the back 6 acres being wooded and very steep. I welcomed this new opportunity as much of the area that I had hunted for the past 10 years had been sold off for new housing developments. Kevin’s place was also out in the country and that would prove to be a big advantage later on. Kevin invited me out to take a tour…

In July of 2022, I was contacted by Dan lnfalt and asked to participate in a Wisconsin public land hunting challenge that he’d dubbed “The Battle of the Bows.” The 4-day hunt would take place in mid-October in the bluff country along the Wisconsin river. The participants would be the Hunting Beast crew, who shot both compounds and crossbows, some recurve hunters, team Crossbow Magazine and Savanna Outdoors. The hunt was great fun and several friendships and memories were made. The Battle of the Bows challenge can be viewed on The Hunting Beast Youtube Channel.

Like most deer hunters, I often hunt from a tree stand, but let me pose three questions regarding the use of elevated stands for hunting with a crossbow, or any other weapon. Is waiting for a deer the equivalent of hunting, as defined by Webster’s dictionary? Does shooting a deer with a crossbow from an elevated stand require any more skill than shooting a target in the backyard? My third and perhaps most soul-searching query follows. Is being isolated on an elevated stand the most enjoyable method of hunting? First and foremost, having the proper crossbow for deer hunting is…

Meet the 460 feet-per-second, 26.5″ flatline Mogadore, OH. TenPoint Crossbows continues its dominance in crossbow speed, accuracy, and shoot-ability with the fastest compact crossbow the world has ever seen – the NEW Flatline 460. Designed to deliver elite performance from the smallest footprint possible, the Flatline shoots a blistering 460 feet-per-second, measures only 26.5″ short, and is equipped with all-new Scope Struts that provide rock solid mounting for the scope – delivering unrivaled durability and accuracy. “The Flatline 460 is designed for the hardcore hunter – the hunter who walks a little further, sits a little longer, and needs to…

When I began exploring the world of crossbows many years ago, their performance was on par with the compound bows of the time. I was achieving 330 fps with my PSE compound bow and its overdraw rest which was all the rage at the time. Even though my Excalibur Vortex crossbow was rated at 330 fps, with hunting arrows, it was only zipping them downrange at 307 fps. Being somewhat on the stubborn side, I kept shooting fixed-blade broadheads out of that crossbow and the others that followed for quite some time even though mechanical-style broadheads were becoming increasingly popular.…

Friends – I have published Crossbow Magazine for over 11 years and because of you it has grown into the highly recognized publication that it is today. I am immensely grateful for this success. Crossbow Magazine along with all of its assets was recently purchased by Outdoor Specialty Media Group from central New York. With their significant publishing and digital media resources soundly in place and our ability to leverage this new technology, Crossbow Magazine will instantly ascend into areas otherwise not possible under its current infrastructure. The future looks beyond bright for the magazine and we’re all very excited…

Understanding rubs versus scrapes is one of the biggest keys to reading whitetail sign correctly—and not all hunters get it right. Many use the terms interchangeably, but a shredded sapling and a pawed-out patch of dirt are two very different messages in the whitetail world. One is a visual calling card loaded with scent from a buck’s antlers and forehead glands; the other is a dirt-and-urine “bulletin board” that bucks and does use to communicate breeding status and presence. In this article, we’ll break down what rubs and scrapes really are, how and when deer use them, and why boundary, random,…

The hunt doesn’t end when you let that arrow fly. In fact, the moment you finally get that opportunity and make the shot is when a new hunt begins, and this one is for all the marbles. There is no celebration, after all, until the animal is recovered. Bad shots happen. Hunt long enough and eventually fate seems to conspire against you. A twig appears out of nowhere. The deer jumps the string or turns as you re- lease the arrow. Or it could be as simple as just making a bad shot. Nobody likes the feeling – that emptiness…

I packed up my truck and drove to my buddy’s farm for what was to be my last archery hunt of the season. We gathered up all of our gear and made the uphill climb to a food plot that was located on the backside of a hay field, close to a thick bedding area that several groups of does call home. The ground blind and camera equipment were set up to cover the two trails that the deer were utilizing to enter this winter food source. After everything was ready to go, and some brassica stubble ranged, we settled…

I knew for a fact that this year marked the beginning of a new hunting challenge for me. My years and years of hunting when and how long I wanted, had come to an end. I now had to balance hunting with not only work but being a full-time college student. I would come to find out this would prove to be a challenging but also rewarding task. This is something that so many people have to work around in their life. Having to race home and gear up in time for a hunt was proving to be very difficult.…