Ive only hunted with one bow a 1998 Hoyt powertec that is a hand me down. Bought bear whitetail legend with the vintage Fred bear camo this past spring. Haven’t hunted with it yet but it shoots and feels real nice so that is my favorite out of the 2
I’ve had 4 bows over time. Xi Flatliner- Darton 3800- Mathews Creed- Mathews V3 Shot many bows but these are the ones I personally owned/hunted with. Creed is still my favorite.
Bought my Mathews Halon 32 in 2016 and still using it this season and absolutely love it! Had a Browning Cobra in 1986, a PSE and a Strothers but the Mathews of course is my favorite!!
Mathews LX I bought new in 2003. Hunted with it until 2015. I've had 2 new Bear bows since then that are just meh.
I've owned 3 in my 10 years of hunting; PSE Rally: Got me in the woods, killed a few with it PSE BruteX: Got my first turkey with it, slayed a bunch more as well. Mathews Heli-m: Bought it used for $500 w/all the accessories 3 years ago; still going strong. So I'd have to say the Heli-m w/ABB platinum strings is the best I've owned.
Mathews Creed XS Desert tactical, loved that bow, wish I would have never sold it. Now i can't find one in that color anywhere.
I honestly just don't have a favorite that I can pick out. My new Solution probably has the most combined desirable features of any bow I've had, but I just don't have enough arrows through it yet to get a real comparison to my previous bows. Great draw on comfort and pretty quiet. It has a hair more noise and jump during the shot than the V3 I tried, but not by much. Deadlock adjustment was the deciding factor, otherwise I'd have a V3 right now. My Bowtech Carbon Knight is my favorite for packing around in the woods, so light weight. After having this for the last 6 years I really wish my Solution was a bit lighter. My old Alpine Silverado with quiet cams was the most forgiving as far as accuracy, I shot spots better with it than any other bow I've ever had. My Alpine Fatal Impact was the smoothest. It was super quiet and had the most "dead in hand" shot I've ever felt. Horrible grip though, I've never struggled with repeatable bow grip issues like I did with that bow. Perhaps it was my young age combined with the "need for speed" in the '90's, but I'd have to give the most cool factor to my Alpine Tomahawk. I sure don't miss how often hatchet cams went out of time though.
Speed was cool when technology was changing and we were making progress. Now we're stuck at 330-350 IBO and it doesn't seem like we'll be moving off that at any point in the foreseeable future. So we have to find other things to be cool - like cam and limb adjustments. Also, you have to imagine most of the cam timing issues on older systems were due to the inferior quality of the strings and cables in those days. Lots of stretching going on, which caused most of the problems. I'll bet an older dual cam bow with a modern set of threads on it wouldn't have nearly the amount of problems. Admittedly, I still miss the days of teardrop metal cables and being able to change the string without even needing a bow press.
Very true about the strings, it seemed like they went out of time about every 3 months back then. Twist, twist, twist. I very much miss just using a T-stringer to break down a bow. One time I had a peep fly out while shooting in elk camp. No spare peep in our "tackle boxes" of course. We actually managed to find it after about 10 minutes of looking, complete miracle. Using a t-stringer we got the tension off the string and put the peep back in place and tied it in. Took maybe an hour total to find the peep, tie it back in, and be back to hitting POA. I wouldn't be able to do that with my current bows, but I have a back up bow I bring with me these days.
My High Country Max Force from the '90's. I still have it and hunt with it although not as much as I used to.
