I’ll second the M7, for the money it’s surprisingly comfortable and pretty light.
I used to be able to outhunt suboptimal setups with time and perseverance… now I believe having less available time is what drives me search for better setups. I keep coming to the unfortunate conclusion that a couple different available hunting methods out in the barn is better than committing to just one. This past weekend the saddle probably cost me a shot at a buck I’ve dumped more time into than any other in 25 years. In the tree I was in, I knew a hang on would have set up better but I arrived to the spot in a saddle.
I sometimes don’t feel smart enough to figure out how to make one setup do it all, so I accept a couple different setups… the thing I hate about this is transferring gear across these setups, and losing the muscle memory of a single method, which makes me want to commit to just one, but again I’m not smart enough to make that work as well, and it did cost me a good deer 3 days ago. I hope to keep getting better at dialing my pile of chosen junk in, nirvana always seems just a few good decisions / mods away. But now that I’ve seen the benefits of the saddle I’ve added it to the methods that I deploy, but cannot fully commit to.