Climbing Stick Buying Guide: How to Pick the Right XOP Sticks for Your Season

I got into this exact conversation with Dan Johnson on the Hunting Gear Podcast, the two of us going back and forth on climbing sticks for a good chunk of the episode, and the question that kept coming up is the same one I get constantly in online gear discussions and, more recently, from my own cousin: "Which one of these do I actually need?" The honest answer, the one I gave Dan on that podcast and the one I gave my cousin a few weeks ago, is that it depends entirely on what your season actually looks like, not on which sticks are trending in whatever video you watched the night before. A climbing stick isn't a status symbol. It's a tool, and the right tool changes based on how far you're walking, how many trees you're setting up, and how much you're willing to trade in weight for standing room and standoff distance.

 Choosing the right climbing sticks depends primarily on walking distance, frequency of relocation, and the type of trees being climbed rather than brand preference or trending gear. Lighter sticks with tighter step spacing suit long backcountry walks where every ounce matters, while sticks with a wider step and more standoff distance suit shorter walks where standing comfort matters more than weight savings. Hunters running an aggressive, frequently-moving mobile strategy benefit from fast-deploying, packable systems, while those hanging semi-permanent setups have more flexibility to prioritize comfort. Independent, non-linear stick systems also offer an advantage on forked, low-branched, or tightly-grouped trees where a fixed climbing path isn't practical.

So let's walk through it the way I laid it out on that podcast, because that's really what a buying guide should be. Not a spec sheet. A conversation about your actual season. If you want to browse the full lineup while you read through this, XOP's climbing sticks collection has every option mentioned here side by side, and it's worth having it open in another tab so you can check actual weights and specs as we go.

Why This Decision Matters More Than People Think

A lot of hunters treat climbing sticks as an afterthought, the boring hardware that gets you to the actual gear that matters, the stand or the saddle. I get why. Sticks aren't flashy. Nobody's posting a hero shot with their climbing sticks in frame. But if you've ever fought a bad set of sticks in the dark, cold hands, tired legs, trying to get four feet locked onto a tree that doesn't cooperate, you know this is the piece of the system that either makes the whole hunt smooth or turns the first twenty minutes of your sit into a wrestling match before you've even nocked an arrow.

The stakes here are also higher than most gear decisions because sticks are safety equipment as much as they're climbing equipment. A stick that flexes wrong, steps that are spaced poorly for your stride, a system that doesn't lock in confidently on an odd-angled tree, all of that matters a lot more than whether your camo pattern matches your backpack. So this isn't really a guide about finding the trendiest option. It's about finding the set of sticks you'll trust completely at eighteen feet in the dark, on a tree you've never climbed before, because that's the actual test every set of sticks eventually faces.

Start With How Far You're Actually Walking

This is the first question, and it eliminates more options than any other single factor. If your season involves three, four, five mile hikes into public backcountry, weight is no longer a preference, it's a requirement, and every extra pound you're carrying on your climbing sticks is a pound you're going to feel by mile two. This is exactly what I told my cousin recently. He's a younger hunter, still building out his kit, and he'd been running a heavier set of sticks that were fine for the shorter walks he started out doing. Once he told me the kind of mileage he was planning to cover this season, chasing pressured public land bucks well off the beaten path, I told him flat out it was time to step up to the HYDRO.

At 18 ounces per stick with a built-in aider system, the HYDRO is built specifically for the hunter whose season is measured in miles walked, not trees pre-hung. The tradeoff is tighter step spacing, which some hunters need a season or two to get fully comfortable with, but for the deep-woods, run-and-gun crowd, that tradeoff is worth it every time. My cousin's still getting used to the tighter spacing, and I told him the same thing I'd tell anyone making that jump: spend a weekend practicing on a tree in the yard before you ever take it into the woods for a real hunt. The muscle memory for a tighter step pattern is different enough from a wider-set stick that you don't want your first rep to be in the dark at four in the morning.

If your walk is shorter, say under a mile, or you're setting up on ground you can access repeatedly without the mileage adding up, you've got more room to prioritize standing platform and standoff distance over raw weight savings. That's where a stick like X2 or X3 comes into play, both offering a wider step and more standoff from the tree, which translates to more comfort and stability during a long sit, at the cost of a few extra ounces per stick that you're not going to notice on a shorter walk anyway.

I've said this in enough online gear conversations that it's basically become my standard answer at this point: the X2 is the best all-around climbing stick on the market. It's not the lightest option out there and it's not trying to be, but for the hunter who wants one set of sticks that handles most seasons well without over-specializing in one direction, it's the one I keep coming back to. It's the stick I'd point a brand-new hunter toward if they only wanted to own one set for the next five years, and it's also the one I'd hand an experienced mobile hunter who wants a dependable middle ground between ultralight and ultra-stable. Pull up the climbing sticks collection and compare the listed weights side by side against your actual walk distance before you decide, since a couple ounces per stick adds up fast once you're carrying four of them plus a stand.

Think About How Many Trees You're Actually Setting Up

The second question that changes the answer is how often you're moving. A hunter running a true one-tree-at-a-time, aggressive mobile strategy, chasing fresh sign and relocating multiple times in a single week, wants a stick system that deploys fast and packs small, because every extra minute spent fumbling with hardware is a minute of daylight burned. A hunter running a more semi-mobile approach, hanging two or three setups for the season and rotating between them based on wind, has more flexibility to choose sticks based on comfort and standing room rather than pure speed and packability, since the setup and teardown happens far less often.

This is really the same conversation I'd have with someone deciding between climber, hang-on, hybrid, or saddle as their overall system. Climbing sticks don't exist in a vacuum. They're one piece of a setup that needs to match your actual hunting style, not the style you wish you had time for.

I bring this up on nearly every podcast appearance where sticks come up, because it's the question people skip. They ask "which sticks are best" before they've actually answered "how many times am I realistically going to hang and rehang this season." Be honest with yourself here. If you're the guy who says he's going to run a true one-tree-per-sit mobile system and then actually ends up hanging three stands in September and leaving them up through November, you don't need the fastest-deploying, lightest option on the shelf. You need something a little more forgiving on the comfort side, because you're not actually paying the mobility tax you think you are.

Consider the Tree, Not Just the Terrain

Here's the part most buying guides skip entirely, and it's the part that matters most once you're actually standing under a tree in November. Some trees are clean and straight and forgiving of whatever sticks you're carrying. A lot of the best deer trees are not. If you're hunting ground with a lot of forked trunks, low branches, or multiple trees growing tight together, the ability to offset your sticks and build a nonlinear route up the tree matters more than shaving another few ounces off your total pack weight.

This is where running four independent sticks instead of a fixed climbing system pays off, because you can rotate around the trunk, shorten a step to dodge a limb, or wrap the backside of a lean instead of fighting it. I've climbed trees that no fixed-ladder system would have handled cleanly, forked white oaks with a limb sitting right where a stick would normally go, cedars with branches low enough that you're threading a needle on the way up. Independent sticks let you solve that problem in real time instead of discovering it halfway up a climb and having to back down and start over.

If that's the kind of ground you hunt, it's worth reading through the full breakdown of which XOP climbing sticks are right for you before you buy, since the right answer really does change based on the trees you're actually going to be climbing this season. Terrain matters here too, not just the tree itself. Hunters working steep hillsides or benches often end up needing to compensate for the lean of the tree relative to the slope, which is another spot where independent stick placement gives you options a rigid ladder system simply doesn't.

Standing Comfort vs. Speed: Where Most Hunters Get the Tradeoff Wrong

A lot of buying decisions come down to this exact tension, and I think most hunters get it backwards because they buy based on the hunt they imagine having rather than the one they actually have most often. Guys picture themselves on some epic, mile-deep public land mission and buy the lightest, most minimal sticks available, then spend the actual season hunting a family farm fifteen minutes from the house where a slightly heavier, more comfortable set would have served them better on every single sit.

Be honest about your season before you buy. If eighty percent of your hunts are within a half mile of the truck, buy for comfort and standing room. If eighty percent of your hunts require real mileage, buy for weight. Very few hunters actually need to optimize for the extreme edge case they picture when they're shopping, and building your whole system around a once-a-year deep public land trip when the rest of your season is close-to-home hunts means you're carrying a compromise on every single sit that isn't that one trip.

Deployment Speed and Why It Matters More Than People Expect

This is worth its own section because it's the thing that actually gets tested in the field far more often than raw weight does. A stick system that's light on paper but awkward to deploy quietly in the dark isn't actually saving you anything, because you're going to spend those saved minutes fumbling with straps and buckles instead of getting settled before shooting light.

Practice your deployment at home before the season, every single time you buy a new system, no exceptions. I don't care how experienced you are. A new stick system has a different feel, different strap routing, different lock mechanism, and the first time you use it should never be in the dark on an actual hunt. This is advice I gave my cousin directly when he made the jump to the HYDRO, and it's advice I'd give anyone stepping up from a different stick system regardless of which direction they're moving, lighter or heavier. Set the sticks up in your backyard, on a tree that resembles what you'll actually be climbing, and run through the whole sequence, attach, step, weight-test, repeat, until it's automatic. That rehearsal is what actually saves you time in the field, not the spec sheet.

Maintenance and Care That Actually Extends the Life of Your Sticks

Nobody wants to talk about maintenance in a buying guide, but it's relevant here because it affects the total cost and reliability of whatever you choose. Straps and cam buckles take abuse over a season, mud, moisture, cold that makes webbing stiff and less forgiving. Rinse mud off your sticks after a wet hunt rather than letting it dry and cake into the moving parts, and check strap and buckle function periodically through the season, not just once in August before everything gets packed away for the year.

Steps and standoffs on any climbing stick system take real impact repeatedly through a season, so a quick visual check for bent components or stress cracks before every hunt isn't paranoia, it's just basic safety maintenance that takes thirty seconds and catches a problem before it becomes a fall instead of an inconvenience.

Common Mistakes Hunters Make When Buying Sticks

I see the same handful of mistakes repeated constantly, both from behind a counter for years and in the years since talking gear online and on podcasts like the one with Dan.

The first is buying based on someone else's season instead of your own. Just because a stick works great for a guy chasing backcountry mule deer or elk-country whitetails doesn't mean it's the right call for your fifteen-acre family property with a short walk to every stand.

The second is ignoring how the sticks pair with the rest of the system. Whatever you buy needs to pair cleanly with the platform or saddle you're already running, both in terms of physical compatibility and in terms of the overall weight and packability of the system as a whole. A featherweight stick paired with a heavier hang-on doesn't save you as much as you'd think, and a heavier stick paired with an ultralight platform can end up feeling unbalanced in the field. If you're building or rebuilding your whole mobile setup this year rather than just swapping sticks, it's worth looking at the full climbing sticks lineup side by side with your platform choice, because the two decisions really do inform each other.

The third mistake is skipping the practice rep. I've said it above already, but it's worth repeating because it's the single most preventable mistake on this list. A new system deployed for the first time on an actual hunt is asking for trouble, whether that trouble is lost time, noise that blows your setup, or a genuine safety issue.

The fourth is underestimating how much terrain affects the right answer. A hunter buying sticks for flat river-bottom timber has a different set of needs than a hunter working steep ridges and benches, even if their walking distance and hunting frequency look identical on paper.

A Quick Framework for Making the Actual Decision

If you want to shortcut the whole process, here's roughly how I'd walk someone through it in five minutes at a counter, or on a podcast, or texting my cousin back after he asked me the same question everyone eventually asks.

First, be honest about your average walking distance across a real season, not your one big trip. Second, be honest about how many times you'll actually relocate versus how many times you'll hang something and leave it up for weeks. Third, think hard about the actual trees on your ground, forked, straight, tight together, leaning, and whether a rigid system would even work cleanly on them. Fourth, check what you're pairing the sticks with, and make sure the whole system feels balanced rather than just individually impressive on paper. And fifth, whatever you land on, practice the deployment at home before it ever matters in the field.

At the end of the day, the best climbing sticks aren't the lightest ones on the shelf or the ones with the most features on the box. They're the ones that match how far you walk, how often you move, and what kind of trees you actually climb once you get there. Get honest about those three things first, and the rest of the decision gets a lot easier. If you want to see how any of this stacks up in person, the full climbing sticks collection is worth a look before you commit either way.