Adventures in Hunting: I Got a Bow!

    One of the first steps in this process was to figure out what kind of bow to get. This is a huge decision with so many choices from so many companies it can be easy to get overwhelmed.  Should I get a recurve or a compound. Duel cams? Single cams? Hybrid Cams? What the hell does any of that even mean? I like simple shit so recurve was what I initially started looking at. The more I read, however, the less I thought this was a good decision for me as a compete beginner. Why? Technology. As a novice I'm going to want every advantage I can get to make an ethical shot. I believe compound bows give you that.

    Firstly, the cam systems. Each bow has a draw weight associated with it. Basically, the force it takes to pull the string back. The legal minimum in Minnesota is 30 lbs. The weight was lowered in 2007 to promote youth hunting among other reasons. They say, however , you should shoot the heaviest weight you can accurately handle. Why? Well, more force means more energy in the arrow to drive it through. A more ethical shot. What cams do is hold a percentage of that full draw weight saving the hunter energy. For example a bow with a 50 lb draw weight and a 80% let off means you're holding 10 lbs at full draw. Some cams let off more than that. So this deer walks in, you draw while he's far enough away that he can't see you move. This guy gives zero effs and takes his happy ass time coming into a range for a clean shot. This could take 2 minutes or more. Can I hold 50 lbs with one arm for 2 minutes while trying to aim and maintain form? I doubt it. Not today anyway. And that's without a deer in front of me. Who knows how my body will react when one is.

    Secondly, design. The recurve hasn't really gone through much design change over the years whereas the compound seems to get an update nearly every year by nearly every company. Part of this constant attempt at improvement is part if the reason the draw weight was lowered in my state. Better materials and design have improved efficiency enough to make lower draw weights lethal. This ties in to what marketing people call "forgiveness". One of the latest buzzwords in archery but it has a little substance to it. Basically, forgiveness is the bow compensating for how shitty you are at shooting a bow. I usually strive to do things properly, but without a real life person who knows what they're talking about to help me, I'm on my own. I will gladly take any advantage I can get. The best example I can think of "forgiveness" is shooting a bow with a d-loop and release. Most recurve shooters shoot with their fingers. They grab the string with their fingers and pull it back. A potential disadvantage of this method is string distortion. Grabbing the string with 3 fingers is quite a big surface area. That's a lot of opportunity to twist the string. A d-loop keeps most of the distortion in the loop and off the string making for a cleaner release. One less thing to worry about.

    Lastly, adjustability. Bows come in all sorts of draw weights and draw lengths. Not knowing either of those numbers leaves me a golden opportunity to buy the wrong bow. Recurve bows aren't as picky about draw length since you have no cam system to stop you, but for the most part, you're stuck with that weight. Compound bows are typically a lot more adjustable and getting a bow that had more options along with the potential for me to grow with was important. Whatever bow I get is going to have to last me a long time.


    So what bow do I pick? Lucky for me the cost of these things eliminated a solid 90% of my choices. The stand out in my price range was the Diamond Infinite Edge Pro. Adjustable through nearly the entire spectrum of human dimensions at a cost of only one arm and a small chunk of leg. It comes with a quiver, a rest, a pin sight, and a tube peep sight. The only thing to do out of the box is install the peep sight.

This video is of my first shots with the bow. I took it to my local shop to get the peep sight installed, draw weight adjusted, get some general information and use their range. I gotta say, I was disappointed. I was hoping to get some tips and pointers from them, but not being a Mom and Pop type store your typical employee doesn't care. I don't really blame them,  people make it hard to care about anything. I chose to swap the tube peep sight for a fletcher style. Tube peeps are a little cylinder installed in your string similarly to a back sight on a gun. They have a tube attached from the peep to another cable so that the peep is always pointed in the right direction as cables can have a tendency to twist. My internet discoveries of people saying they can be noisy and break at the worst time lead me to choose a fletcher style. Same thing with no tube. Quieter, no tube breakage but potentially prone to twisting. I do know one real-life bow hunter and in a short conversation I was able to have with him, he said he's never had a problem with a properly installed fletcher style peep. The bow technician recommended a tube peep and in my head I wondered if that was because I'm a beginner or he sucks at installing peeps. My question was answered during my first draw. I pull back ready to shoot at this kick ass dinosaur, get set to aim and the fucking thing is twisted. So now I'm at full draw and I can't see my pin sight during the "first arrow ever" section of the video. I let it go anyway and luckily wasn't too far off. To fix it was a simple matter of twisting my d-loop so that it oriented the same as the peep sight. Is that the right way to fix it? I have no idea but it works so far. Had the tech guy actually looked at his work he might have noticed, but I guess that answers my earlier question.

This is going to be a ton of work and this is just the archery part. Work I'm looking forward to, but with the added challenge of going at it alone. Expect more videos of archery, property management, gear choices and my reasoning behind them and all sorts of stuff I'm sure I don't even know about yet. If you have any tips or suggestions, or know of a good archery shop in Minnesota I'd love to hear about it. In the meantime, enjoy the show.

Adventures in Hunting: My First Bow Season

    I used to tell people I would have just as much fun in the woods during hunting season with a camera as I would with a gun. This is still true, but that attitude, I think, may have prevented me from fully appreciating what hunting can be.

    The outdoors is a great place and sometimes I think people forget we're a part of it. We can have anything we can think of shipped to our homes, co-workers literally within arm's reach would rather send you an email than actually talk to you, grocery stores afford us the luxury of taking for granted the process and often dirty work involved in getting that cut of meat or exotic fruit into the store in the first place. To live is to consume, whether it's a carrot or a cow, something died to keep you alive. People forget that.

    I didn't really think that way until last year when I gutted my first fish. If you've ever watched me clean up dog barf you might know part of the reason it was kind of a big deal for me. A well told story about something gross can be enough to make me gag. Now, not only was I about to see the insides of a fish and touch them, something we're censored from in the stores, but I was going to have to end it's life. Me. It was that experience that it really dawned on me how sheltered I am. Every other piece of meat I've had my entire life went through a similar process. Those times, however, someone else did the dirty work.

    Add to that the effects large scale agriculture can have on the world and I was left with a pretty convincing reason to reevaluate my approach to hunting. If I'm going to continue to eat meat, and I plan to, providing it for myself, at least once, feels like a necessity if for nothing but the experience of what it really takes to feed yourself.

    So, I decided that this year I'm going to approach hunting season a little more deliberately. As is the theme with this blog, I don't know what I'm doing. Where previously not knowing what I'm doing might mean a less than flattering photo, or a no so level table, lack of knowledge and skill here could mean a wounded animal spends the last day of its life suffering. Not exactly something I want to happen.

    I started this video series not only to hopefully help people learn from my mistakes, but to keep myself accountable. I have a ton of work to do and I'm excited to start! I know it's a lofty goal to get a deer on my first bow hunting season, but if you prepare for success and expect failure anything that does work is a bonus and you might just have a good time.

    I would love feedback on anything and any tips or resources are greatly appreciated!