The Slingshot on Alone: What Contestants Actually Use

Of the 101 contestants with a recorded gear list, out of 187 across every US, Australian, and spinoff season, only 3 carried a slingshot. That's a 3 percent carry rate, placing it firmly in the near-zero tier alongside items like sharpening stone and bivy bag rather than anywhere close to a bow, a fishing kit, or the other food-gathering staples most casts default to. The item catalog's own popularity tag agrees, labeling it "rarely-picked."

The one that won

All three recorded picks came from just two seasons. Sam Larson and Dustin Feher both carried a slingshot in season 1, Larson tapping out at 55 days in second place and Feher at 8 days. The third, and the one that matters most, belongs to Zachary Fowler, who won season 3 in Patagonia with a custom-made slingshot built from two elastic bands rather than a commercial model. The item catalog names the closest commercial reference point, a Scout XT, modified for his build, and flags him explicitly as the only known winner to use a slingshot at all.

Contestant	Season	Result	Slingshot
Sam Larson	US 1	Runner-up, 55 days	Recorded, model not specified
Dustin Feher	US 1	Tapped out, 8 days	Recorded, model not specified
Zachary Fowler	US 3	Won, 87 days	Custom-made, 2 elastic bands (Scout XT reference)

Why a winning pick stayed this rare

A slingshot solves a narrow version of the same problem a bow or a gill net solves, small-game and bird takedown at close range, without the range, penetration, or big-game capability of a bow and without the passive, set-it-and-check-later efficiency of a net or a snare line. Against a ten-item limit where every slot competes directly against a knife, an axe, or a fishing kit, a tool this specialized has a hard time earning a place unless a contestant has specific confidence in it, which is exactly the profile Fowler fit: a customized build he trusted over a stock recurve bow.

Season 1 accounts for two of the three total picks, which is worth noting on its own. It was the first season filmed, before casts had years of prior contestants' loadouts to study, and a slingshot may simply have been a more common first-instinct pick before the show's now-established "Big Four" pattern, an axe or hatchet, a knife, a fishing kit, and a fire-starting tool, hardened into the default template later casts leaned on.

Reading a zero-adjacent number honestly

Three recorded picks out of 101 is a small enough sample that it says more about how rare the choice is than about how well it works. One of the three picks is a winner, a 33 percent hit rate on a sample this size that shouldn't be read as evidence the slingshot outperforms a bow or a fishing kit, both of which show up on far more recorded lists and produced far more winners in absolute terms. What it does confirm is that a slingshot is a viable choice for a contestant who trusts a specific, often self-modified build, not a default anyone should expect to see picked often.

The slingshot gear page has the full recorded detail on Fowler's build, and the items nobody picks on Alone covers the other near-zero categories sitting alongside it. For the complete allowed-items list, see the official rules page, and everything Zachary Fowler carried to win season 3 has his full ten-item loadout.