Luke Clayton, the outdoors writer featured by Brownwood News, is preparing for another hunting season with a new tool in his field gear: a TenPoint crossbow. After decades spent learning to hunt with lever-action rifles, muzzleloaders, compound bows and PCP air rifles, Clayton says he plans to keep all of them in use rather than abandoning the methods that came before.
Clayton’s latest column, published Aug. 22, 2026, describes how learning unfamiliar equipment repeatedly renewed his interest in shooting and hunting. His experience began when he was a young father with limited money and hunted deer and wild hogs with a lever-action .30-30 rifle. He read about muzzleloaders before receiving a Hawken-style replica .50-caliber rifle from Bass Pro Shops.
From muzzleloaders to modern air rifles
Learning to use the muzzleloader introduced Clayton to equipment and techniques he had not previously experienced, including volumetric powder measures, cleaning jags and primers. He eventually spent several years hunting big game mainly with muzzleloaders, while his Marlin .30-30 stayed on his gun rack.
His next major change came during a hog hunt on a ranch in eastern Texas with bowhunter Mark Balette, who later became a well-known outfitter through B&C Outfitters. After Clayton watched Balette hit a Coke can twice at 40 yards with a compound bow, he decided he could learn to use one as well. Balette helped set up Clayton’s first compound bow, which Clayton identifies as a Mathews Featherlight.
After about six months of nearly daily practice on a life-size deer target, Clayton shot an old five-point buck 20 minutes into his first deer hunt with the bow on Balette’s ranch. He later hunted with multiple compound bows and spent about a decade as a member of the Mathews Pro Staff.
A later introduction at an outdoor sports show in Waco led Clayton to PCP air rifles, which use compressed air. John McCaslin, owner of AirForce Airguns in Fort Worth, showed him how to pressurize a rifle with an air tank and told him about a .45-caliber rifle designed for deer-size game.
Clayton later received a .25-caliber PCP air rifle for small-game hunting and used one of 10 prototypes of the Texan air rifle to take exotic animals and wild hogs. After Texas began allowing PCP air rifles for deer hunting in 2018, he said he harvested his first whitetail buck with a Texan near the Brazos River.
Why Clayton is returning to the crossbow
Clayton is now practicing with a TenPoint crossbow, roughly 12 years after a company sent him an earlier model that he used successfully on deer hunts in West Texas. He says he did little crossbow hunting for years before trying the newer TenPoint, which he considers a major improvement over the bow he used previously.
The crossbow’s crank handle makes it easier to cock and allows the shooter to release pressure by backing off the limbs with the handle. Clayton also says its scope adjusts like a rifle scope and that the crossbow has performed accurately during his practice sessions.
He has shot the crossbow to 100 yards from a rest for practice, but plans to keep shots at game within about 35 yards. That intended distance reflects his preference for keeping the hunt a close-range pursuit, even with equipment that can be practiced at longer distances.
Clayton supports allowing crossbows during archery seasons because he believes they give more people an opportunity to hunt. He points out that crossbows are easier to master than conventional archery equipment and can help older hunters who can no longer draw a traditional bow continue getting into the woods during October.
For the coming fall, Clayton expects to use the TenPoint while continuing to shoot his muzzleloader, CVA centerfire .308, compound bow and air rifles. He writes that his household eats a lot of venison, giving him another reason to keep each hunting method ready.
Clayton can be contacted through catfishradio.org. His Catfish Radio program airs on KOXE 101.3 on Saturdays at 9 a.m., after Lone Star Trail Outdoors with Nathan Smith at 8 a.m. His program is also available on podcast platforms, and “A Sportsmans Life,” his television program with Jeff Rice and Larry Weishuhn, can be viewed on YouTube or Carbon TV.