Twin Elements · Hunting Tips & Tactics

The Ultimate Gear Dump: 29 Days Bowhunting Elk, Deer & Pronghorn In Montana

We just wrapped a twenty-nine day wilderness hunt here in Montana, and before we pack it all away and fly home, we wanted to run through absolutely everything we carried. What worked, what didn't, and what earned a permanent spot in the pack. Twenty-nine days is a genuinely brutal test for gear, dust, blood, wind, sleet and everything in between, so this isn't a sponsor list, it's what we'd actually pack again.

Everything below is broken down by category, with the exact gear we ran and our honest thoughts on each piece.

In This Report

1. Huntin Fool - USA Hunt Consultant
2. Bow, Sight & Rest Setup
3. Arrow Setup & Broadheads
4. Optics: The Glass That Found Our Bull
5. Pack & Bino Harness
6. Clothing & Footwear
7. Kill Kit & Meat Recovery
8. Hydration, Food & Camp Cooking
9. Camp & Sleep System
10. Navigation, Power & Safety
11. Gary The Decoy
12. Phelps Game Calls
13. Camera Gear
14. What We'd Change Next Time

Huntin Fool - USA Hunt Consultant

Gear Used

• Huntin Fool Application Service: View service

Bow, Sight & Rest Setup

This year James and I both upgraded to the Hoyt RX9, I've got the Ultra for the slightly longer draw length. It had been about five years since our last upgrade, and the difference wasn't just speed and power, it was how comfortable these bows are to actually draw and hold. Heading into this trip our arrow groups noticeably tightened up in practice, and that translated directly into confidence at longer range. We'd put serious time into shooting out to 60, 70, even 80 yards, which is the max on my sight housing, and in this open Montana country, having that extended confidence genuinely changed how several stalks played out.

The other big change for me was moving to the Option 4S sight. It's three fixed pins plus a moving floating pin you can dial to whatever distance you need. I kept it set to 20, 30, 40, 50 for most of the trip, so anything popping up close gave an immediate shot, and if I had time to range something precisely, I could dial the floating pin to the exact yardage. Genuinely the best of both worlds, and the accuracy gain from dialling in an exact number rather than guessing between fixed pins was significant.

Both of us are running the HamSkea Epsilon Rest, a drop-away with genuinely excellent micro-tuning. We're not going to pretend we're gear engineers who can dissect every rest on the market, but this one's been consistently reliable. Rounding out the setup is the Quivalizer, letting the bow ride on your shoulder while you glass with both hands free, covering country at a couple of miles' range. We run the five-arrow version, which is plenty for these trips; there's an eight-arrow option if you're doing extended backcountry buffalo or boar hunts back home.

Bow Setup In The Field

A Sight For Sore Eyes

Gear Used

• Hoyt RX9 / RX9 Ultra: View product
• Option Archery 4S Sight: View product
• HamSkea Epsilon Rest: View product
• Quivalizer (5-Arrow): View product

Arrow Setup & Broadheads

Another change for 2025 was jumping on Day Six shafts. I'm running the 275 HD spine, 11.8 grains per inch, for a total arrow weight around 560 grains including the 150 grain Kayuga ZOT up front, a solid two blade that's already proven itself on red deer, chital and pigs back home, and this trip punched clean through both a bull elk and a pronghorn. Zero hesitation sending this through anything, in Australia or the US. James runs the 250 HD shafts with the same four white helical vanes, but up front he's on the 150 grain Kayuga Pilot Cut with the standard bleeder, which he's run for a couple of years now and rates as genuinely devastating for wound channel and blood trail. His total arrow weight came in heavier at 610 grains out of his 30-inch, 80-pound Hoyt, still travelling around 270 feet per second, which is serious power for that arrow weight.

We both run white helical vanes specifically because of the information they give you after the shot. White shows blood colour clearly, whether it's bright arterial heart blood, darker liver blood, or lung blood, which tells you a huge amount about shot placement before you've even started tracking. They're also just easier to spot in long grass afterward.

Arrow & Broadhead Setup

Gear Used

• Day Six HD Shafts (275 & 250): View product
• Kayuga ZOT 150 Grain: View product
• Kayuga Pilot Cut 150 Grain: View product

Optics: The Glass That Found Our Bull

Between boots and optics, these are probably the two things that decide your trip. We switched to Leupold this year and noticed the difference immediately. Our 10x50 Santiam binoculars gave us a genuinely wider field of view than the 8x42 or 10x42s we'd run previously, which meant picking up ear flicks and movement on the periphery we'd have otherwise missed. Never fogged up once, which was a first for us in binoculars, and we were confidently spotting deer and antelope multiple miles out.

The Leupold SX4 Pro Guide HD 20-60x85mm spotting scope, with a MagView phone attachment for recording, is where this open, folded country really got broken down properly. Elk at five miles are visible with the naked eye simply because they're big animals, but you can't judge them until you throw the spotting scope over the top. More than once we were deciding between running five miles at a rag horn versus a genuinely mature bull, and that call came down entirely to the spotting scope. Same story on mule deer, picking out ears in a crevice at 700 metres and confidently calling buck, doe or forky rather than guessing.

All of that glass sits on a Leupold tripod, and it matters more than people think. Heavy, high-quality optics on a cheap, light tripod is a genuinely common mistake, we saw it constantly. In 25 to 30 knot winds, ours barely moved. Rounding out the kit is the Leupold RX Fulldraw 5 rangefinder, small enough to sit on a chest harness lanyard, with angle compensation that's essential in this kind of steep, folded country where an animal 20 metres away horizontally can look 40 to 50 metres down a draw.

Glassing Montana

Record The View

Gear Used

• Leupold Santiam 10x50 Binoculars: View product
• Leupold SX4 Pro Guide HD Spotting Scope: View product
• Leupold RX Fulldraw 5 Rangefinder: View product
• Leupold Pro Guide CF-436 Tripod Kit: View product

Pack & Bino Harness

We ran the Eberlestock Vapor 5000 plus the hood, and it handled everything we threw at it. The weight belt cinches down properly against a heavy load, genuinely noticeable difference carrying elk quarters. The pocket layout is excellent, gear and batteries in one lid pocket, head torches and safety gear like a Garmin in the other, plus a new front pocket we both used specifically for a tourniquet. A snake bite is one thing, but a severed artery is a genuinely bigger threat in the field, and having a tourniquet accessible in seconds isn't optional gear anymore for us.

The zip-on, zip-off load frame took some getting used to but never failed after weeks of blood, dust and rough handling. The L-shaped frame design stops the pack sagging under a heavy meat load, something we'd had genuine problems with on other packs, and Eberlestock reportedly tested it to over 1,300 pounds before the load frame itself failed, well beyond anything we'd ever carry. It also stands upright on its own thanks to the frame and base platform, meaning you can drop it, grab a jacket or a snack, and not have gear sprawled across the mountain.

The matching Eberlestock chest harness carries our binoculars plus a side pouch for diaphragm calls, a release aid pocket, spare batteries and a wind puffer bottle, everything accessible without ever taking the pack off. It also has a rangefinder pouch sitting flush on the chest. For elk calling and constant wind-checking in open country, having all of this genuinely at your fingertips rather than buried in a pocket made a real difference to how quickly we could react.

Pack Setup

Gear Used

• Eberlestock Vapor 5000 + Hood: View product
• Eberlestock Recon Bino Harness: View product
• Eberlestock Recon Utility Pouch: View product
• Eberlestock Recon Rangefinder Pouch: View product
• Eberlestock Cirrus Ultralight Dry Bag: View product
• Eberlestock Emod Lid: View product

Clothing & Footwear

Montana in fall can swing hard, we saw everything from 35°F mornings to 95°F afternoons, and the wind alone could turn a mild 60°F morning into something that felt like 40°F on an exposed glassing knob. We packed heavier than we ended up needing, but layering is genuinely the answer to that kind of swing. Base layer was Merino quarter-zip on top, paired with lightweight Renegade pants, the same combination we've run through the rut back home and in the Northern Territory. Merino's sweat absorption and dry-out speed meant we could rotate just two shirts across the entire trip and never had them get crusty or offensive, despite only using laundry facilities twice in twenty-nine days.

Over the top, an Alpha Vertex jumper worked as a windshield through most cold, exposed mornings, and a matching puffy jacket became our go-to back at camp, genuinely warm and light without being bulky. Gloves, a hat/beanie combination, and a 3-hour rain shell rounded out the kit for the handful of wet days we did get. The whole system performed flawlessly with essentially no odour issues despite minimal washing, which matters when you're staying on private ranches and being polite company.

Footwear-wise, we finally invested properly in Merino hiking socks for a trip this long, and it made a genuine difference to foot condition over three-plus weeks straight. Boots were the Lowa Ranger GTX III, a brand we've run for years across chital in the Basalt Wall, buffalo and banteng in the Northern Territory floodplains, and now mountainous elk country. Mid-flex, not overly rigid, never rolled an ankle in them, and they simply outlast everything else we've tried regardless of terrain or climate.

Layered Up

Boots To The Ground

Gear Used

• Merino Quarter-Zip Base Layer: View product
• Renegade Lightweight Pants: View product
• Alpha Vertex Jumper & Puffy Jacket: View product
• Lowa Ranger GTX III Boots: View product
• Swazy Merino Socks: View product
• Pnuma Merino Wool Visor Beanie: View product

Kill Kit & Meat Recovery

I run the Outdoor Edge interchangeable blade knife, the 3-inch version, and get genuinely surprising mileage out of a single blade, enough to fully debone multiple animals the size of a fallow deer before swapping. Compared to a Havalon-style scalpel setup, the Outdoor Edge has a spine that simply doesn't snap, even wedged into tight joints on buffalo or banteng, and the blade locks in properly rather than pulling loose when sinew catches it mid-cut. James ran an Iron Gate Hunter knife on this trip, an Australian-handcrafted fixed blade that fits the hand beautifully and holds an edge under genuinely hard use.

For game bags we use Argali Ultralight bags, sized from small right up to hindquarter-sized for elk. Unlike mesh-style bags we'd had issues with getting fly blown even through the material, these have never let us down, and they go straight in the washing machine afterward, ready for the next hunt.

Ultralight Yet Essential

The genuine standout new addition this trip was the Walk & Stalk carbon game bar, a seven-in-one utility tool that unfolds like a trekking pole to over 1.7 metres and packs back down to compact. On my bull elk, I used it to prop and lift the top-side back leg during quartering, freeing both hands to work cleanly through the hip joint rather than fighting to hold a leg up one-handed. Combined with its pulley lift kit, weighing under a kilogram total and rated to 250kg, it let us get a whole carcass off the ground for genuinely clean, dirt-free meat retrieval, no small thing when food safety is something we take seriously as vets. It also doubles as a shooting stick for rifle hunters, a drag bar, and a photo monopod. James used it to drag his pronghorn out solo and then repurposed the exact same bar as a gambrel back at camp.

Field Butchery

Gear Used

• Outdoor Edge Interchangeable Blade Knife: View product
• Iron Gate Hunter Knife: View product
• Argali Ultralight Game Bags: View product
• Walk & Stalk Carbon Game Bar + Lift Kit: View product

Hydration, Food & Camp Cooking

A 3-litre Camelbak was our main hydration source, and there's a real behavioural benefit to a hose right there on your shoulder versus a bottle you have to stop and dig out. You genuinely drink more, more often, without thinking about it. We backed that up with an Atlas Wild Nalgene, the wide-mouth design making it easy to scoop from mountain streams and mix in electrolytes. We ran a rotation of Atlas Wild's Regenerate, Fusion and Rise, Rise carrying 200mg of caffeine versus Fusion's 80mg, and noticeably felt the difference on the couple of days we ran out and were stuck on Fusion alone. Magnesium and B vitamins in the mix genuinely seemed to keep muscle cramping at bay despite 25km-plus days on very little sleep, stacked back to back for weeks.

Mornings started with Dog and Gun coffee, run through their drip filters, a genuinely welcome bit of quality on cold mountain mornings, heated fast on a Jetboil that also handled our Mountain House and Peak Refuel dehydrated meals. For snacking through the day we leaned on Clif bars, sardines and cashews, calorie-dense, fat-heavy, and genuinely enjoyable rather than just functional, which matters when you're eating the same thing for the twenty-ninth day straight and appetite fatigue becomes a real risk. We were comfortably burning 4,000-plus calories a day on the bigger push days, so constant top-ups mattered more than three big meals.

Fuel On The Mountain

Gear Used

• Atlas Wild Nalgene + Electrolytes: View product
• Dog and Gun Coffee: View product
• Dog and Gun Specialty Instant Coffee: View product
• Jetboil Cook System: View product
• Peak Refuel Chicken Pesto Pasta: View product
• Sea to Summit Frontier Ultralight Long Handle Spork: View product

Camp & Sleep System

Our sleep setup was the Argali two-person Rincon tent, a new addition this trip. It's genuinely spacious for two, lightweight, and shrugged off a decent amount of rain without ever letting water in. Under sustained 25 to 30 knot wind, a few of the guy-line cinch buckles stretched out and slipped, worth knowing if you're heading somewhere genuinely exposed, though it never actually failed, just needed an extra peg. For anything wetter or more mountainous than what we had, their Talus tarp would be a smart add.

Underneath, the Sea to Summit Ether Lite XR Pro sleeping pad was a genuine standout, thick, well insulated, and the first pad in years that didn't leave James with hip or shoulder pressure points sleeping on his side. The Sea to Summit Spark -9°C bag kept us warm through everything this trip threw at it, though we were honestly over-rated for the mild conditions we got, and both of us had minor gripes with the internal zip and cord placement sitting somewhere slightly awkward against the face at night. We disagreed on the foot-box design though, James found the sealed foot pouch a bit claustrophobic in warmer weather, I actually preferred it for keeping feet warm, since that's where I lose the most heat overnight. Worth field testing gear like this yourself before a big trip if you can, since even between the two of us on identical bags, preference varied.

Camp Life

Gear Used

• Argali Rincon Two-Person Tent: View product
• Argali Talus Tarp: View product
• YETI Tundra 65 Hard Cooler (Charcoal): View product
• Sea to Summit Aeros Ultralight Pillow: View product
• Sea to Summit Ether Lite XR Pro Pad: View product
• Sea to Summit Spark -9°C Bag: View product

Navigation, Power & Safety

OnX Maps was essential given how much of this hunt straddled Block Management Areas, BLM land and private property. Knowing exactly where you're standing, dropping pins on water sources, wallows, bedding areas and human tracks for a dark navigation back to camp, and using the shot-marker and tracking features after a release, genuinely maximised our stalking opportunities. More than once, a mile-away view of a ridge looked like it held three animals, and OnX's topography revealed a fourth and fifth fold in the land we simply couldn't see from our angle.

For safety and communication, the Garmin inReach lives permanently in my pack, whether I'm hunting, diving or spearfishing offshore. We had phone service in a lot of areas so didn't need it for general communication, but the SOS function alone is genuine peace of mind for both us and family back home. For lighting we ran Led Lenser head torches, plus a spare set of batteries each, since battery life mattered more than most other single factor when you're potentially processing an elk well after dark. For elk calling specifically, we carried a Phelps Game Calls bugle tube, mainly used for location bugles rather than aggressive calling, since we could usually already see the elk in this open country.

Camp power came from three power banks charged via an 18-watt Dark Energy solar panel. Charging was genuinely slower than the advertised four to five hours in field conditions, closer to three-quarters charge across a full day, but the durability was outstanding, it survived being run over by a vehicle on the main road and still worked. We also carried a SteriPen UV water purifier as a backup, killing up to 99% of waterborne bacteria and parasites like giardia from mountain streams, small, USB-rechargeable, and worth its weight for the peace of mind alone.

Navigation & Backup

Gear Used

• Garmin inReach: View product
• OnX Maps: View product
• Dark Energy Solar Panel + Power Banks: View product
• SteriPen UV Water Purifier: View product

Gary The Decoy

Pronghorn Buck By Montana Decoy

Gear Used

• Montana Decoy Antelope Buck Decoy: View product

Phelps Game Calls

Answering The Call

Gear Used

• Phelps Renegade Tube Conifer: View product
• Phelps Elk Call Amp (White): View product

Camera Gear

We ran two camera bodies to cover every situation without redundant gear. The Sony a7S III paired with a Sigma 24-70mm f2.8 on a Manfrotto tripod handled most of our sit-down filming, alongside RODE Wireless Pro lav mics and a RODE shotgun mic on the second body, sadly lost on the final day of the trip. The second body, a Sony a7R IV, is more of a stills camera by design with higher megapixels, but still shoots solid 4K, running a 70-200mm Sony lens as our over-the-shoulder run-and-gun option, kept clipped to a Peak Design clip on the pack or bino harness for instant access.

For genuine distance work, a Sigma 150-600mm lens let us capture elk at 100 to 300 yards looking dramatically closer than they were, and doubled as an improvised spotting scope when the actual spotting scope was packed away, a cameraman zooming manually to call a bull's score while everyone else kept glassing. One honest piece of feedback: the a7R IV has genuinely struggled with overheating in extreme heat, we've had it shut down after roughly ten seconds of recording in Northern Territory conditions above 100°F, and it happened again during Ayden's actual elk stalk on a 90°F day. We ended up switching to the a7S III mid-stalk, which has never had the same issue. Worth knowing if you're considering that body for hot-climate filming; it's a fantastic stills camera, just not our first choice for film in serious heat.

Behind The Lens

Gear Used

• Sony a7S III: View product
• Sony a7R IV: View product
• Sigma 24-70mm f2.8: View product
• Sony 70-200mm: View product
• Sigma 150-600mm: View product
• RODE Wireless Pro Mics: View product
• RODE Shotgun Mic: View product
• Manfrotto Tripod with 128RC Fluid Video Head: View product

What We'd Change Next Time

Honestly, not much. We over-packed slightly for a colder trip than we actually got, which meant a heavier bag than necessary, but that's the trade-off of scouting somewhere new without knowing the conditions in advance. The sleeping bag zip and cord placement is a minor annoyance worth flagging to the manufacturer. The a7R IV needs a genuine plan B in serious heat. And the tent's guy-line hardware is worth reinforcing or carrying spare cord for if you're heading somewhere with sustained wind.

Everything else earned its place in the pack for twenty-nine straight days in genuinely tough conditions, and most of it will be back in the bag for the next trip, wherever that takes us.

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The Adventure Continues

Join the Twin Elements team as they head back into the Australian bush.

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This piece is adapted from a Twin Elements gear dump filmed at the end of a 29-day Montana bowhunting trip for elk, mule deer and pronghorn.