I have tried them all and my favorite tool for rigging big trees continues to be a scope-mounted crossbow and heavy duty spinning reel. Bigshots and APTA's are not nearly as accurate or efficient. I do mostly rigging for research and rec climbing, with an occasional take-down in conifers. Crossbows are kind of overkill for smaller trees, but even in small conifers they can be a real timesaver. For example, last summer I had to rig 45 ponderosa pines for a research project and was able to rig 32 of them in two days. By "rigging" I mean shooting a line over a limb near the top of the tree and installing a haul line in each tree. Most shots were in the 90-140' range. But I commonly rig over 200' with a crossbow in big Douglas-firs. Check out the link below if you want to see the rig that I normally use.
