Saddle Hunting Took Over the 2025 ATA Show Floor — Here's Why It Matters
Walk the floor of the Archery Trade Association Show in Indianapolis and you can read the whole industry's mood in about twenty minutes. This past January, the message was loud and clear: saddle hunting has graduated from underground cult to full-blown market force. The hottest booths at the 2025 ATA Show were, once again, the ones stacked with mobile hunting gear — and not by a small margin. Manufacturers were fighting for floor space, launch cycles were compressed, and the innovation coming out of that show was genuinely worth paying attention to.
Tethrd Goes Carbon Fiber — and Sends a New Saddle
Tethrd showed up to Indianapolis with a full hand. The one that had people stopping in their tracks was the all-new CFX platform — a made-in-the-USA carbon fiber saddle hunting platform built to be their lightest and strongest yet. The regular size weighs in at 2.3 lbs and the XL at 3.25 lbs, which is legitimately impressive for a platform with that kind of real estate and a 300-lb weight rating. Tethrd describes it as made from a proprietary carbon compound certified to hold up to four times the required load standard. That's not marketing fluff — that's a material story worth tracking as carbon starts replacing aluminum across the category.
They also dropped the Carnivore 2P saddle, built around what they're calling Dual Panel Construction. The clever part: it wears like a single-panel saddle on the walk in, then RAD Buttons let you drop into full two-panel mode once you hit the tree. Comfort when you're hanging, low-drag when you're hiking. That's the kind of problem-solving the saddle category has always needed. On top of those two, their Sabr Limb Saw walked away from the show winning Best New Accessory — a folding hand saw that converts to a pole saw in the field using Limb Locks that bite into a cut branch. No more stretching for that one limb that's killing your shooting lane. Smart, simple, and exactly the kind of accessory a run-and-gun hunter actually uses.
Trophyline Builds a Platform Out of Something New
Trophyline's answer for 2025 came in the form of their Hyperlite platform, built from a material called Magnite — a product the brand says is 35% lighter than aluminum yet significantly stronger. The result is a 12-inch-by-12-inch platform tipping the scales at just 2.1 lbs, with a FlatStack design that pairs neatly with Trophyline's climbing sticks for pack-in and pack-out. The sub-2.5-lb platform category is getting crowded fast, which is a genuinely great problem for mobile hunters to have.
Hunter Safety System Steps Into the Arena
Perhaps the biggest industry signal of the whole show: Hunter Safety System — the brand synonymous with treestand harnesses for a generation of hunters — launched a full saddle hunting product line at ATA 2025. Their Defender and Guardian saddles bring two distinct options to the market. The Guardian weighs in under 1.5 lbs with quick-connect buckles and stripped-down geometry built for hunters who stay on the move. When the treestand safety category's most recognizable name plants its flag in saddle hunting, you know the segment has arrived.
Arsenal Pushes the Platform Arms Race
Arsenal showed up with a booth full of hardware that turned heads. Their RZR Elite platform measures 13.5 by 12.5 inches, weighs 2.45 lbs, and collapses to just one inch thick — making it one of the most packable full-size platforms on the market. They also unveiled the RZR Sub 2, which is being positioned as the first full-feature platform to break the 2-lb barrier. Both platforms share a tapered front edge designed to cut foot fatigue on long sits. Arsenal also launched the Cloud Infinity saddle, built on an updated chassis with a new Infinity PRO Bridge System for on-the-fly macro and micro bridge adjustments without tools or drama.
What This All Means for Hunters Heading Into the Season
The practical takeaway from January's show isn't just that there's new gear to lust after — though there is plenty of that. It's that competition is forcing real innovation. Carbon fiber platforms, sub-2-lb category milestones, saddles that walk in as one thing and hunt as another. Companies are solving actual problems mobile hunters have complained about for years, and they're doing it faster than ever. If you've been on the fence about upgrading your setup or making the jump to saddle hunting for the first time, the 2025 product class is the strongest argument yet. The market is mature enough to have genuine options at every price point, and dialed-in enough that even entry-level gear is legitimately good. That's a win across the board.
