Stuart recently bought a new bow and a new rest to go with it. The majority of hunter switch to a drop away rest as they progress through the sport. The accuracy of a well tuned drop away is superior to other rests, however this means the rest must have proper timing. Furthermore, many hunters are moving from string-driven rests to limb driven drop away rests. I do believe that the limb driven rest is better than a string driven option. When I switched over I noticed more consistency while practicing, however I also have caught the string while hunting a number of times. Depending on your style of hunting you have to find a balance in between having a rest that is reliable and a rest that is high performance.

The Whitetail Hunter – the high performance rest

One nice thing about whitetail hunting is that you are unlikely to do much army crawling with your bow. This means that you are less likely to catch your string on anything while hunting. You also likely have access to equipment to fine tune your bow and make sure everything is in working condition. Because of these two points I would go with a higher end limb driven rest. The limb driven rest may be more likely to get catch a string on a branch, or to have the micro adjustments malfunction, but you don’t need as bullet proof of a rest. I would shoot Hamskea hybrid hunter pro rest, but if you’re loaded you can jump up to their Versa edition.

The Antelope and Mule Deer Hunter – the most reliable string driven rest you can buy

The string driven QAD rest is a Lancaster archery pro pick rest. I shot a QAD for a few years and really liked it. If you are going to be doing intense stalks that involve army crawling consider a string driven rest. My brother shot a ripcord and snapped his string during elk archery season last year. If you are going to use a quiver you may be able to get away with a limb driven rest in these  situations, but I prefer to hunt without a quiver.

Hunting Everything – somewhere in between plus a backup plan

I hunt with the Hamskea hunter rest because it has less moving parts that can get out-of-tune than the target models, but still is reliable. The hunter doesn’t have the micro-tune adjustments that the hunter pro has. Also, you can switch the rest over to a string driven if need be. If you are hunting for a few weeks straight, what will you do if your string on your drop away snaps. Last season Stuart had to drive a few hours to get to a town that sold him a whisker biscuit rest. You can either bring your old bow as a backup or have a whisker biscuit packed away in case this happens. Be prepared this fall so you can get back out hunting quickly. Good luck.