Elk NetworkGear 101 – Eberlestock Recon Modular Harness System

Gear 101 | December 28, 2022

For many hunters, a binocular harness is a hunting essential. It stores important tools where you can easily reach them when seconds mean the difference between elk steaks and tag soup, and if you drop your pack for a last-minute crawl to your quarry, you can still have your base essentials strapped to your body and right at your fingertips. It can take trial and error to find a harness that fits you comfortably and holds the essentials where you want them—like your binoculars, rangefinder, bearspray or sidearm. That’s why the Eberlestock Recon Modular Harness System is such a great solution.

Just like many of their modular packs, you don’t have to agonize over the different bino harness options to determine which one has the right setup for you. The Recon bino harness forms the base, and you customize it with any combination of six compatible accessories that attach to the sides and bottom of the Bino Harness platform using either MOLLE webbing or the Eberlestock hook and loop attachment. If you don’t think you’ll use a certain accessory, you just don’t buy it.

Another convenient thing about the Recon is how easily you can change up the configuration of harness accessories after you put them on. If you’re rifle hunting and you want your extra ammo easier to reach with your right hand, it’s no problem to move one of the small item storage pouches from one side to the other. Or, if you’re bowhunting and you need to make sure your rangefinder pouch doesn’t interfere with your draw, it’s easy to readjust. The flexibility helps you prepare for geographic and seasonal changes in your hunting.

If you’re an Iowa whitetail hunter coming West for your first elk hunt, you can easily add an 8oz bear spray canister to the side wings of the Recon Harness with the Recon Bearspray Pouch. On those chilly fall mornings glassing slopes for elk, you can try out the hand warming pocket accessory, to warm your hands between glassing sessions without wearing heavy, cumbersome gloves (and maybe you won’t lose your gloves since you’re not taking them on and off and forgetting where you set them).

The attention to the detail on this harness is remarkable and really puts it in a class above. It’s built to be comfortable for wear with a backpack (you can see how the straps have a nice low profile and so does the back). The Hangar Zip-Pouch, made to store snacks, knives, survival kits and more, comes in three different sizes for additional flexibility. It also has semi-transparent, nylon ripstop fabric so you can see inside with a quick glance. With the MOLLE panel accessory, you can MOLLE anything MOLLE-compatible to the harness, including handgun holsters.

The ambidextrous lanyards and magnetic closures on the bino pouch and rangefinder pouch allow quick-yet-secure one-handed operation—about as quiet and efficient as it gets. Tightening or loosening the harness is as easy as pulling the straps forward while wearing the harness. Even with multiple attachments, this harness rides close to the body and isn’t too bulky.

The Recon comes in small and large sizes to accommodate most optics, and a handy online chart allows easy identification of which size is right for you. Available in Dry Earth, Gray, Green, and Eberlestock’s proprietary Doppel:Ganger camouflages. It’s hard to find a more convenient, flexible harness system.

Learn more at eberlestock.com