Staffer Craig Garrett Shares Why He Won’t Hunt Without SRB Field Rests

My story is about what can happen without an SRB Field Rest and why you shouldn’t hunt without one.

This past weekend, I went turkey hunting here in California. When I arrived, I realized that my SRB Field Rest had flown off of my trailer I haul my track wheelchair on. I decided I was going to have to make do without it.

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Five jakes were coming to our calling and straight to our decoys. I got ready to take the shot. The jakes hung up just outside of my view, leaving me having to hold the crossbow up in a firing position for 30 minutes. I was unable to lower my crossbow because the birds could see the end of the crossbow. I didn’t want to get busted by them seeing movement.

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When the birds finally did come into view, they were 37-yards away. I was fatigued, so I wasn’t able to hold the crossbow as stable as I had hoped, which resulted in my shot hitting the bird high, making it look like I had only cut feathers. We watched him strut for 400 yards before disappearing along the river. We looked for him for a long time, but due to not finding any blood we thought it wasn’t a fatal hit.

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My guide took his dog out the next morning to double check and found my bird. The jake was found by a fox some time through the night. The result is me not being able to harvest any meat from my bird, which is the main reason why I hunt. The picture in this article is the only one I could harvest because I was unable to recover the bird myself and enjoy the harvest of my first turkey with a crossbow before scavengers tore it up. I will never hunt without my SRB Field Rest again, and neither should anyone else.

Craig Garrett, staff for Wheel Chair Outdoors, Western Hunters Journal, and SRB Field Rests