553 | Our "Gear of the Year" for 2025

The Hunt Backcountry Podcast

by Exo Mtn Gear

Sports, Sports:wilderness, Health & Fitness, Wilderness

4.4 • 2.8K Ratings

🗓️ 3 December 2025

⏱️ 99 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Like most backcountry hunters, we are passionate about the gear we use. At the end of each year, we like to highlight some of the favorite gear we have used for hunts throughout that year and discuss why those particular items made a difference for us personally. In this episode, Mark & Steve discuss their "gear of the year" selections for 2025... GEAR LINKS & LISTS — https://exomtngear.com/blogs/article/best-hunting-gear-of-2025 TIMESTAMPS... 00:00:00 — Intro 00:01:56 — "Gear of the Year" History 00:07:05 — Revisiting 2024 Selections 00:22:35 — Steve's Tripod Setup for Glassing & Shooting 00:34:42 — Airlock Industries Zero Gravity Suppressor 00:44:31 — InReach Messenger Plus 00:50:56 — Nitecore Pocket 10000 USB-C Power Bank 00:53:20 — Thermarest NeoLoft Sleeping Pad 00:58:17 — Outdoor Vitals Pursuit Hybrid Fleece 01:00:32 — Deadfall Design Chest Plate + Ivory Holster Shell (and "The Bino Bra" ;-) 01:11:03 — Defiance anTi-X Action, Pre-Fit 6mm Creedmoor, & Factory Ammunition 01:18:26 — onX HUNT App 01:22:18 — Mark's Honorable Mentions 01:28:58 — Exo K4x Pack System The Hunt Backcountry Podcast is brought to you by Exo Mtn Gear: https://exomtngear.com/ Email Sign-up: https://exomtngear.com/newsletter Contact Us: [email protected] Leave A Message: https://speakpipe.com/huntbackcountry Podcast Episode Archive: https://exomtngear.com/podcast

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Hunt Back Country podcast.
0:17.5	This is episode number 553.
0:25.0	And today, Steve and I are going through our gear of the year selections for 2025. We've been doing this every year since 2018. And we have the links to all
0:32.7	previous years, gear lists, podcast discussions, as well as the specific items we mentioned in today's
0:40.2	podcast. So just check out the link in the show description to go get all of that or to learn
0:46.2	more about any specific items we mention. In the introduction to this conversation, Steve and I
0:51.4	talk a bit about why we do this and what goes into the specific
0:55.5	selections we make on any given year. Sometimes it's things that truly make a difference on a hunt.
1:00.9	Sometimes it's things that just make the hunt more enjoyable. All of this is always is not
1:07.2	sponsored. This is just our personal take on gear that made some sort of difference for us
1:12.5	on our personal hunts this year. Hope you guys enjoy this conversation. There are time stamps
1:18.2	in the show description as well. So if you want to jump to any specific item, you can kind of
1:23.4	browse that and know when in this conversation we discuss those items.
1:29.4	Thanks as always for tuning in.
1:34.1	If you're enjoying the show, consider taking a second right now to leave a rating or a view in your podcast app or just even share the show directly with the friend.
1:38.9	And as always, if you need anything from us or have a question or comment or suggestion for a future episode,
1:45.9	just send an email to podcast at Xoomontore.com.
1:56.0	All right, Steve, gear of the year, like many things, I feel like we can just always say, it's crazy how long we've been doing
2:03.2	this because the podcast is 10 years old, but really the first time we did a gear of the
2:09.1	year conversation was back in 2018.
2:14.6	When we did it then, we did a certain selection based on price range,
2:21.4	zero to 50, 50 to 150, and then 150 plus back in 2018.
	...

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