spring bow hunting goats

Spring bow hunting is here and so is the new plant growth. I have seen numbers of goats looking and feeding on the new plant growth on the road edges for the first time since last spring. They are venturing out from safe cover to eat the tasty new growth presenting great hunting.
This time of year is one of my hunting favourites because its still has cool temperatures making it easier going for those steep hills and bush bashing. But most importantly for me is the extra daylight hours, meaning more bow hunting time. Now i can finish work jump in the car, be on the hunting site within 20 mins, and hunting within another 10. I like this as it gives me the hunting hours i want in the bush looking and the time learning the ground as i go.
 Twice last week i duffed up two good bow opportunities. I do not hunt road side but if presented with an animal i will head into the bush and try and flank them (especially as my freezer is low on curry at the moment.) . I drove past a number of good goats on the road side which was bush edge and part of some land that I was heading out to hunt. I drove past and jumped out for a stalk in behind them. As much as they seemed to be used to cars passing them, they were still very alert and I have to assume under some other hunting pressure. The first group bolted when my good old dog got to excited leaving the car yelping and whimpering, i stalked in after them for a hour and heard them crashing off, so no curry that night. I found some interesting new ground, but they had bolted good and proper.
 The other was much the same but they winded me with a eddy coming around a steep hill side.  
But other than that i have gone home with something every hunt in the last 2 weeks. I have taken a few guys out with me and they have been fortunate to drop a good couple of goats themselves. Its been great being able to head out every week night.
In my weekends that I am not taking huinters out (which are few these days) i search out new grounds and have found some interesting spots off an old paper road. I need to put some more time into scooping new grounds before offering them as a hunt. but they are looking very promising at this stage. I am not a trophy hunter but boy oh boy did I see some goats heads of note.

Happy spring bowhunting!  

A very interesting documentary surprisingly it changed my opinion from start to finish. Watch this as a hunter and see what you think, i don't think its challenging hunting, and i even question if its actually hunting. However, i think its doing a good thing like zoo's with a twist. 

...more on broadhead tuning

Well it been a week of frustration and research. After getting out on the lawn with a 10, 20 and 30 m target , with all my tools lined up i got started on tuning my broad-heads. 

I shot 3 field tips at 10 then 3 broadheads to find a pull to the right by about 5 inches.
I decided to repeat at 20 and tune from there. this gave me about 6 inches off to the right. So i put the Omen max down and adjusted the arrow rest toward the field tips (left) by 2 mm.

repeated the shoots to find i had closed the gap by an inch at best. so once again out with the tools and moved the arrow rest further towards the location of the field tip (left)

again shots fired at 20m and the gap did not close! This is basically the theme that day for the rest of my dam day, as you could imagine i was getting pretty frustrated. So it was back to research and make a few calls to the always helps lads at Archery Direct.

An interesting and common issue come to light from my research -  arrows hitting to the right can often be a weak spline arrow. But in this case that was very unlikely as i was running with 28in or 70.5cm (carbon to carbon measurement)  300 spline arrows.

So I thought it was time to get back to basics and do some paper tuning, this was a worthwhile effort.

here i found my nock end kicking out to the left - again this can be caused by weak spline. but i tried some shorter arrows with lighter tips which basically increases the spline, and i saw no change.

so i adjusted the arrow rest to the right to correct the paper tuning tear. no dice! this was starting to beat me down.  The as coincidence would have it one of my regular clients and general "good bastard" email me a copy of an article from South Pacific Bow Hunter he was telling me about on our last hunt together. well bugger me this solved the issue. it was a Cam lean which needed a bow press and a bus cable to be twisted.

happy grouping  

Fixed-Blade Broadhead Tuning

The first time I saw the effect of a broad head on the flight of a arrow it cost me 3 arrows and 2 goats. I new that high speed bows tended to cause different behavior from your broad-heads compared to field tips  but i had not expected an 40cm right hand change at 42 meters! So I started asking around about it and to be honest no one gave me an answer i was happy with, or that I felt truly answered the issue. 

I had been told to re-sight my pins and that basically you where either a target shooter or a hunter. I was also told that some guys have broadhead/hunting sights and a separate target/field tip sight. None of this actually explained why high energy compound bows cause fixed blade broad heads to take a different flight path. So I researched it and called a few experts namely the technical team at PSE and this is what I was told.

WHY BROAD-HEADS FLY DIFFERENTLY.  

Arrows with broad heads are far more likely to be susceptible to wind planeing. This is because the broad-head blades act as “wings”. 

As the arrow leaves the bow if the broadhead is not dead center the blade will act as wings and catch more air flow on one side (up, down, left, right). 

This is not something paper tuning will always detect with field tips as the adjustment is far more subtle. Furthermore this is exaggerated as the broadhead reaches the peak of its trajectory and begins its downward arch the wind can catch the “wings” (blades) and push it downward or sideways  causing erratic flight. (Arrows drift right, left, down or even up.) 

 

Adjusting the arrow rest usually corrects the problem.

(This is assuming you do not have spine or FOC issues and that your bow has been paper tuned.)

How To Do It

If the broadheads are not flying the same as field points the arrow rest needs to be tuned.  For example broadheads fly high and left of zero for field points. This tells that the broadhead tipped arrows are coming off the bow a little high and left.

You must tune or move the broadhead shot to the field tip shot.

To correct first move rest to the right until broadheads are hitting straight high. Secondly move the rest down. Continue adjusting until broadheads and field points hit the same spot.

Sights may need to be adjusted. That is fine because broadheads and field points are now hitting the same spot.

   Video on how to tune your broad-heads

Other notes

• As the strings/cables age and creep (stretch) this tuning may need to be repeated.
• Broadhead flight may vary from bow to bow.
• Older slower bow models do not produce as much energy thus field points and broadheads may have flown consistently. 
• In addition variation in manufacturing tolerances of broadheads affects flight.

Thames Valley Deer Stalkers - 3D shoot

This was the most fun i have ever had with a bow. (non-hunting days that is) 

I had been chatting to Bill the club Secretary over the past few weeks trying to arrange for our fledgling Raglan Archer club to come over, Bill was brilliant with plenty of friend advise on getting our club up and running. I was really taking back when Bill called on the Saturday to confirm that we were still attending.

The day started pretty early at 0530, well early for a Sunday that was not in the bush, as we headed over from Raglan to Paeroa. I was impressed from the minute we arrived it would be one of the best set up hunting associations I have set foot in. The trophy room is breath taking with the best game heads from the most sort after species around the world - Thar, Moose, whitetail, and i think i saw a Kudu there.

The guys that volunteer at TVDA are top blokes, friendly from the minute you set foot in the place and they went out of their way to make us feel welcome. This was a good start to the day as i really hoped it would be.

We got stuck in and helped the guys set up the 3D targets and then sat in for the briefing. then it was into groups and off for a shoot. What a course! i think they told me they have a total of 80 acres of land with the club, well however much it is it is beautiful. Sitting on a steep hill side overlooking the plains and north Waikato, with a great mix of native bust and grasslands..

The course was really challenging and the guys had spent the time planning the target locations. A deer sitting perfectly XX (i am not telling you the distance!) meters away in a little pine grotto with the morning sun peeking over the bank behind - i have never seen my peep sight look white with glare and so bright!

Lunch was a great little "pot luck" affair with everyone bringing in a little something and there being plenty for all.
 We did a second round after lunch and by that time I was grinning ear to ear at the day I had experienced. When I thought it was time for a beer I was in for another surprise.
 TVDA have set up an archery target that takes the sport to another level (video attached) THE RUNNING BOAR. Its a 50 meter shot over a bush valley at a mechanical life sized Boar, and its a great challenge that brings out the best in every archer.
We all headed back to Raglan tired and smiling. It was a great day, our recurve members picked up some pointers from other recurve shooters, as did I from Tony the local compound sharp shooter.

I whole heartedly recommend all archers to contact TVDA to get a spot at their next shoot (every second Sunday of the month) it’s a day you will talk about for a long time.

Ghillie suit test 1

I know many of you reading this will be shaking you heads and wondering if i have watched too many youtube videos of keen Paintball players. But I had to know if Ghillie suits where worth the trouble.

first test was a walk up in bush to a mob of Goats I knew was in the area but may have no cover for the final 50-100m of stalk. So as you would imagine they are fairly hot and these suits, the Jackal by Camo Systems, are loud rustling suits. thankfully we had wind and it was a southerly so cool and sound cover.

When i got these suits they were at the top end of the price range and they are made fairly well, but i have a mate with one that was a third the price which is silent and nearly as invisible, but its made from wool type yarn which catches all the bush around you. Shop around do your research, and give some serious thought to making your own.

With the Jackal I had to cut most of the loose attached camo on the inside of my left arm and chest to free up the bow string. the head gear has had no real hunting design thought, as its loud and hugely obstructive to your vision and your hearing. I have drastically cut the head gear and chopped  2 huge holes for my ears. its now just acceptable for bow hunting but i hate wearing the head gear as it effects anchor points and hearing.

ok I have got my moaning out of the way. these suits are actually ok for stalking. Where i am learning to love these things is final approaches where you have limited to no cover. I have stepped around a corner to unexpectedly see a herd of goats i had been stalking looking at me from 15m. because i froze as they turned none saw me actually move, they all just starred at me. i think they where trying to recall if that "shrub" had always been there.

so the stalk in these pics was definitely aided by the suit as i had to step out of cover for the shot. However at 45m my field tip sighted pins where to high and right for the 100grain Muzzys and i duffed the stalk.         

So far i am all for Ghillies when the cover is sparse, as long as your game doesn't see you move (quickly) you seem to have a great advantage. its a bit like a mobile maimai but no place to put your coffee. I am keen to try these on Canadian Geese.

Good West Coast Pig.

I got very lucky in the weekend. I took another keen bow deer stalker out on Sunday. The wind was blowing westerly and strong maybe 20 knots. We stalked in on a big herd and had a nice ridge to approach right into about 30m. wind was running across us so good for the stalk.  We both popped up (I had my bow for a change) and the herd had move very close to our spot while we where stalking. My hunting guest was a new archer he was a little slower in deciding on which goat to take, I let my arrow go onto a nice nanny. What should have been a good take down actually it hit a fence wire and deflected up, the herd then took off before my fellow bowman could fire a shot.

Well that is life in hunting but I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw two wild pigs 157 meters away (range finder). They were lying down in the sun.    It was an easy stalk in terms of sound as it was grass and the wind was providing good background noise, but absolutely no cover. Only a fence line running striaght to the pigs, at least it was a little cover but not much.

Long story short, my fellow bowman was kind enough to give me the stalk. I took very the stalk slowly, although it was fast if compared to bush stalking, but i had no cover for 110 meters so closing the gap quickly before the pigs moved or looked my way was important. Got to the last 40 meters and was then able to drop under a bank into position and pop up for an easy 25 meter shot. we didn't weigh him but felt like around 60kg.  happy days!