To be honest, Jeff, I'm glad I've got them in my arsenal, and I love to be able to speak intelligently about them because I actually own them... but I find myself using screw-in steps or my climber 99% of the time.

I think where the sticks would shine is on a National Wildlife Refuge where you walk in that day not knowing where you were going to hunt, and are afraid your choice might be limited either due to the size or straightness of the trees. Since you can't use steps that damage the tree, the climbing sticks would be a good alternative to an actual climber in that scenario.

Otherwise, I just usually grab my pouch with my steps if I don't want to use my Summit climber that day.

I also dislike getting down from a set with climbing sticks... Not actually the getting down part, but what do I do with the sticks themselves on the way down? I've tried holding onto them as I keep going down, but that becomes cumbersome. I usually end up just dropping them on down to the forest floor, but I'm not crazy about treating my equipment like that.

With the steps, I just drop each one back into my pouch as I remove it from the tree and keep going down.