Ep. 79: Archery 202

then I got to think about successful bow hunting. And really to be a successful bow hunter, there's thousands of things that need to go right, and while much of it might seem out of your control, there's archers out there who seem to just find consistent success and I believe that this is due to limiting easy mistakes to

shift the odds slightly in the hunter's favor. So the last four episodes, we've been going over everything it takes to become a new bow hunter, from gear and setups to shooting in your backyard too then shooting a game. So this week in Bow Hunting two oh two, we're gonna just take it a step further and talk about the advanced considerations of things like wind, shot angle and then the noise in your setup, how to adjust it, and how to just push those odds in your favor.

But before we do that, I want to tell a story of a recent hunt of my own where I cut a corner and unfortunately paid for it. So last week I found myself down in Arizona chasing coups and meal dear. It was kind of a last minute decision. Really, I just kind of I actually got a new bow and I've been shooting it and I'm like, man, this thing is just driving tax I'm shooting it great. I didn't have a lot of time with it, but I thought, okay, i'd be fun to go take this out on a hunt.

The archery over the counter tags are available, and I just kind of figured it was like a Sunday and I'm like, I'm gonna to go to Arizona. So I started packing up my truck and then left like Monday morning and started driving down there. And I only had a few days of the week to hunt, so it was just kind of a bond's eye trip. I guess, just load up the stuff, head down, do a little solo exploring and see if I can't get on a buck.

So I got down there, and actually the place that I used to hunt, it seems like it's been pretty dry recently, but there's big storms moving in. I don't know if you're from the west right now, but we're getting hammered with some storms. So um it was. It was rainy and actually fairly cold, but I think it had been pretty dry before. And when I got into the area, the first thing I noticed was, okay, a

recent burn. Whereas planning on hunting now, hunting burns can be great, but in this particular instance, there is no grass um. The conditions just weren't great for the deer, and because of it, I didn't really see any deer. I saw the first day, I got on a small fork and horn meal deer buck and probably could have taken a shot, but I decided to pass. I had three more days left and figured first evening, I'm going to look around. Now. The place I was hunting was

quite a walk to get in there. It's I don't know, maybe four miles, I would say, just like to get into the hunting area. Not that that was necessary, but I just figured I go somewhere right enough to really run into other hunters, and I ended up spotting a lot, so I moved past the burn ended making me have to hike a little bit further. And I get past the burn and now I'm in good, good habitats, start spotting does, but just no box. It's like the rut.

I couldn't figure out if it should have been prime up, but it's like the rut was over. It's like the bucks were either locked down with does or they were just off on their own. And that makes it a little bit difficult, especially with deer that can be hard

to spot in the first place. So I started picking out lots and lots of doughs, just no bucks, which I'm like, all right, first full day and so I kind of got there a half day, spotted that meal there buck that evening, and then the first old day, I mean I hunted hard. I put on miles. I'd have to let me look at my watch. I think I put in like sixteen miles that day. Is is

something crazy. And I was doing a lot of glassing as well, so a lot of that walking was just in the dark to a good vantage and then moving along this long ridge up the mountain and then back down, and right at last light I spotted like a big cuse deer buck, a giant, but unfortunately he popped out seeing some doughs and then it was the only running activity I saw. Then he just started chasing those doughs, and uh so I go back the next day, a big like just heavy rains, hale starts moving in. I

don't actually see anything. I came up on a tiny spike cousebuck that I actually he was like ten yards away, and then outside of that nothing, So I decided I'm gonna go move areas and try somewhere a little bit different for mule deer. But I only had one day, so it was a five hour drive from where I was at on the other side of the state, but just a little bit better mule deer country. So I dry there, get their dark camp the night out, and then I'm looking at my on X map, just like

cruising through areas. I mean, while I'm out there, I'm constantly scouting for new spots, looking for areas, so I'm just flipping between my map layers, going through the regulations, kind of reading up on this area. I hunted this particular unit, but not this side of the unit for a very long time, maybe ten or fifteen years ago, so I just couldn't even remember the accesses and where legal access was to get into the area and all

that kind of stuff. So I'm just, like you know, at night, just spending time going through and planning out my hunt for the next day. I end up before daylight, getting up and start hiking in and get to a good glassing vantage and start picking out deer. Okay, cool. I spotted a small mule deer buck with a group of doughs, and he's kind of like moving to water, but there's been so much rainy they never had to

go to water, so they just started moving up the canyon. Feared, well, it's a good glassing area, a lot of great little breaks in here. If I see a buck, will probably be able to get a shot. Just how good the terrain was, and it was very glassful. So my plan was I'm gonna just kind of move up the ridge there's maybe a three four three mile long ridge or so, and then glass into the shade for the day because I'm imagining these bucks are probably gonna pull off by

themselves if there's anything. Like I was saying in the other spot, it's like the bucks were not with the does, and sure enough I started picking up groups of does, no bucks. So I hike up. You know, I'm quite a ways away from where I started, and it's starting to become evening, and I'm glassing. I'm just glassing every little fold in the mountains. It becomes available. As I'm moving up this ridge and I finally spot a mature buck.

I'm like, sweet, oh, this is so good. And he's bedded in a place where I can get to this ridge. He's gonna be facing where I'm coming from. But the wind is blowing in my direction. It's like perfect concealed approach. So I climb down. I make a big loop around so he doesn't see me, get up on the top and start working my way down on. This is my last day. It was a very short trip, but I put in some serious miles. I drove a long way. It's like a twenty something our drive, I don't know.

So I get into position, I get up on the ridge and I take my boots off. I'm like, all right, I'm gonna make this one stock count. Got the camera with me. I'm doing a little self filming, just to add insult to injury, you know, making things makes something that's already difficult more difficult. It's just the way I like to do it. And so I start creeping in.

I'm coming down the ridge. Well I figured out, you know, I've got on my map where he's at, and I'm looking and I'm just kind of dropped down this one canyon ahead where I'm gonna go up the next little rise and then creep in and I blew a buck out of there, a different buck that I didn't see, Like, oh crap, is he gonna take this deer with them? What's going on? So I just tell myself, look, you don't know what happened on that next two ridges over

where that buck was. Yeah, it's likely that deer took him. But if it's not, you don't want to go in there hastily and blow it. This is my best opportunity, probably gonna be my only opportunity, so I've got to make it count. So I creep in stocking just like I was going to, and sure enough I see the buck laying there. I'm like, sweet, now, I've been cloudy all day, but unfortunately it's like just decided to get sunny right right as I'm closing in. So I I

keep creeping in. I've got this bush on the ridge in front of me that I can keep in between the buck's eyes sight myself, and I get into position range the buck, and unfortunately, like where he's laying, there's just no way to get closer. But he's far but not too far. He's fifty yards perfect, Like that's a doable shot. I mean, I can definitely hit where I'm aiming. As long as the circumstances are right, it should be perfect.

So unfortunately, the sun's beating down on me, and I'm like, I'm not and he's kind of looking my direction, so there's no way that I'm just gonna draw back, stand up and try shooting him like this because he's gonna blow out. And so my thought is, I'm gonna would wait for a cloud to come over when he's looking way, or the better scenario. I'm just hoping he also asleep.

So I'm sitting there, I'm baking in the sun and just laying watching trying not to get a neck crank, and you know, the bucks like looking in my direction, then looking away, looking, but the clouds just will not come cast a shadow. I mean, I don't want to just be standing out in the open. So I'm just sitting there, right, thirty minutes goes by, cool, just waiting, waiting. Hour goes by, alright, sooner or later, this buck's either gonna stand up, start feeding, that will give me a shot,

fall asleep, like do something stupid. So I keep waiting, keep waiting, and then I just see the bucks starting to nod off, and I think, oh yeah, this is a done deal. This is perfect. Buck falls asleep. I'm like, all right, now I don't need to wait for the shade, because um, it should be good. So I'm there's the hill in front of me. I've got a good blockage of this bush, so I draw back on my knees. The buck doesn't move, anchor back and settle in nice.

I slowly stand up. There's no wind, it's dead calm, and I'm like, okay, sleeping buck, I'm just gonna put You know, he's got a good open quartering away. I picked my spot and I just hold on that spot and think I've got all the time in the world, which I do, and I the bow goes off. I release perfect shot. But that buck, it's like when my bow went off, it sounded like to meet like a

gun went off. It was just like so loud wap, and the arrow flew and that buck jumped up and that arrow hit exactly where I was aiming in that bucks bed, and that buck ran off. Not knowing what happened. The buck like ran off fifty yards making noises like a hundred and something yards now looking around, I just

sat down, was like, dang it. He heard the bow jumped the string, My arrow hit perfect where I wanted it to go, Yet there was no buck there by the time the arrow got there, and I started thinking about it, I'm like, okay, it was my other bow, I wouldn't have had any problem. But I generally go through my bow and try to find like things that are noisy and what have you. But I hadn't spent

a lot of time with this bow. I put pretty much the same equipment on it, but I decided since I didn't have a lot of time to broadhead tune, I was just shooting mechanical broadheads and they didn't really fit in the quiver right, So that was a little bit of noise. Then normally I go through and tape everything up, and I had a lot of sound dampening

tape on my bow already. But the one thing I didn't think about was my rest And I didn't notice how loud everything was because when I've been shooting at home it was slightly windy, and maybe it just wasn't that intense moment where you're sneaking in on a buck and you and you notice. And that's why I like to hunt with the same bow a lot. But every time I get a new bow, there's a few little

kinks I need to work out. Hopefully I work them out on the range, but I didn't take the time to do it this time, and unfortunately paid for it by a buck jumping the string in a situation that I thought for sure it was a done deal. So even as a professional that does these things all the time,

you know, I sometimes skip a few little corners. In those little corners, those little things that you can pay attention to mean the difference sometimes between going home successful and going home with the story of an arrow in

a bucks bed. When you're setting up a bow, there's a few advanced considerations you should include, especially for compound bow shooters, in both the setup and the practice, and they include a proper level of the bow site on all the access is understanding what to do and shooting on a slope, and then the ability to just for wind as well as silencing your setup. So I think that those things are very important and just little tiny details that make a big difference when it comes to

being successful in the field harvesting game animal. One little thing can go wrong and that can be the difference between you punching a tag and not. So let's start with the level of the bow. You know, a lot of guys might think this isn't really a big deal, and for all intents and purposes, it might not be.

If you're just shooting, you know, on very level terrain at twenty yards or from a tree stand at twenty yards, some of these things might not make as big of a difference as they do when you start to extrapolate that out over longer distances or start hunting mountains Western

big game. I think for Western big game hunting, especially when you're hunting in the mountains, having a site with a level that is actually level is make or break, especially when it comes to those longer distances, steep angles, or even just standing on a slope. All those things are going to affect the shot. So let's kind of break down your bow site, and what we're gonna be talking about is how to level your site. And we're gonna be working up to leveling it on the third axis.

And not all bow sites have this, but I think that if you're if you're gonna be serious about bow hunting, if you're gonna be hunting Western animals like elk deer, mostly mule deer, who knows maybe draw sheep, tag or antelope or whatever, having that ability to shoot a little bit further, but also knowing you're going to be encountering angles, you need to make sure that all these things are level. So I'm gonna break down right now, uh, steps for

for leveling the bubble on your bow site. So the first two measurements of I would say leveling your site housing are gonna be the first and second access and these things are gonna be done on level ground. All we're really doing is we're actually just making sure that the level on your bow is true so that the bubble on that level is true to the level of

the ground. So what we're gonna do, I mean, this can be done in a vice, This can be done However, we just need to make sure that when that bow is level up and down, left and right, that the level on the site is true to that. So you you have a baseline. UM, I'm gonna break down these like some people get confused on well, what's the first access, what's the second access? And some sites don't necessarily even have a first access. It's just it's just machined in

a certain way that it does this. So what the first access is would be like the site housing itself. Now my site, UM, I use the fast steady Xcel spot dog, so I can actually like turn that site housing. It's like the site housing thing that holds your pin. I could rotate that three D and sixty degrees like forward backward like roll it um like roll it forward if I wanted, or roll it back. So that would be the first access. And what I want to do is I want to make sure that that is level

with a level bow. So I put my bow in a vice straight up and down. I've got a level for the string is actually mine's kind of two ways such as the left and right can't. So the can't of the bow would be if you're holding the bow on its riser whether the top limbs bent left or right.

So we want to make sure that the bow is straight up and down, and then we're gonna level that first access based on like say the front of the riser of the bow, so you can put a level on that like a small carpenter's level, and then get that front site housing. I actually just put a level like a carpenter's level right back on that site housing and just level it once that bow is locked off level. Most bows don't have that, so you don't even really

have to worry about it. And I would say that this is out of leveling everything, this is probably the least important because most it just comes level that way. The most important level would be your second access. And what this is doing is this is just leveling the site so the left and right to tell if your bows canted. Um, So what this would do is, like

you know, just imagine a level on a table. What we're doing is we're leveling that site to the ground like a flat plane, so you know, to to make sure that that bubbles between the two indicator markers and just centered in the level itself that's on the site. So you don't want one end to be lifted higher than the other. So it's going to just be adjusting a site kind of like rocking it left or right,

if that makes sense. So it would be just like if you had a level on a table and the table wasn't level, so you had to shoom one side, so you're kind of just pushing one side up or down to level that actual level in the site. I hope that makes sense. Uh, this is the most It's important because it's kind of the baseline for everything, and

for most shooters, this is gonna be all you really need. UM. When you're shooting in the backyard, shooting at targets, shooting at short distances, you just want to make sure that the bow that you're holding back at full draw when you level it out, is truly level to the ground. And why that makes a big difference is because if your bows canted one way or another, it's axually going to change your point of impact. And sometimes you might not even notice the fact that you're canting that bow

one direction or another. So what canting is is, say the UM, when I shoot a traditional bow, I actually can't intentionally to push my arrow one direction and to open up my site picture, so it's the top limb leans one way. So if I'm canting right, the top limb is leaning to the right. Now, on a compound bow, you try to shoot that thing perfectly straight up and down.

But if your top limbs canted left, then your arrow will impact further left, and if it's right, it'll impact further right because it's changing your site picture and where that arrow is gonna go. So once we've got that second access level, um one way that you could do that if you don't have like a bow vice and or a shop that you can go to. I've done it many ways where I just put the two limbs up against a wall that I've already made sure as plum.

So I take just a carpenters square, put it up against a wall actually near a jam or a window opening, so the site can actually stick out into whatever you're doing. So I'll put the boat up against the wall. I'll put the carpenter's level like up against the boat. Make sure it's level like the left and right, it's not canting one way or another. So just you know, m maybe because of the design of the boat might allow

one side to be off a little bit. So I'll make sure if it is, then I'll shim it so it's it's level, and then I just look at the level on my site and say, okay, is this level as well? And if not, then I'll adjust it to where it's now level. Then i'll lock it down. We're good to go. It's as easy as that. You could do it just up against the wall if you want to, and and honestly that's how I do most mind. So now we're going to talk about the third axis, and that is really just kind of like I think of

it is the mythical third axis. What the third axis is going to do is it's going to make sure that that bow is level, not only on flat ground, but as we angle that bow down. So if you were to draw back and now you've got a forty five degree shot off of a ledge, which is about guaranteed and meal deer hunting, we need to make sure that that bow is still maintaining its level so as you move down or up, that that level is actually true to the level of the horizontal plane that you're

standing on. Now you're going to be on a slope, so that's changing a lot of things, like the way that things feel, But also we just on flat ground want to make sure that shooting at an angle that level is actually level. And to do this, we're gonna be doing it by pushing the site housing away or towards the shooter, kind of like a hinge on a door. So that's what the third axis is. And you're probably like thinking, like everybody else, well, how exactly does it work?

Why would it not be level if it's level? And I think the best answer comes from the movie Joe Dirt when he meets his dad and he's like, how exactly a rainbow is made? How exactly does the sun set? How exactly does the possi track re rand on a playmouth work? It just does. So if you know that that just works, here's just gonna be a lot better off. It doesn't really matter how it works. You go into a lot of different details of it, but it does work.

So when you're leveling that third access, it really needs to be done at full draw because your grip plays a lot into that factor of how your bows torqued in a certain direction. And so I like to make sure that it's I do the third access always at full draw, because it doesn't make any sense for me to do it when it's not at full draw because obviously it's it's for shooting and shooting at an angle. So there's there's a lot of different ways you could

do this. Um the way that I do, I actually have a little tool made by Hamski and what it is it's like, once I've leveled my site on level terrain in the vice or up against the wall, then I can clip this thing on the site and it's got this bar on it. And so what I'm trying to do is make sure that my pins and everything when I'm angling down at something that's plumb, that the

level in there reads true. So with that tool, I actually have a corner in my house that I've double checked with carpenter Square that it is plumb, and it should be because I made it myself. So in that corner I use to make sure that my access is on so drawback, and then that tool has like a bar with like a pin on the top and the bottom, and I level that bar in that plumb line in that crack of the corner and then make sure that

the level itself on the site is level. Now another way to do it would be doing used like a plumb bob where you could just run a string with I don't know, some washers or whatever tied to the bottom, nail it up on a raft or in your garage or something like that. Come to full draw, and then put your say, if you've got multiple pins, put your twenty yard pin and your bottom pin on the level line, and then slowly bend at the hips down to a fort or five degree following that line down, keeping your

twenty and your bottom pin on that plumb line. And then once you're down at that angle, check the level and see if when your pins that should be level. You know that the line of the pins are lined up on that plumb line, whether that bubble level is balanced out or not, and if not, then you either need to push the side away or bring it towards you, depending on which side it's on. You can play with that a little bit. So that's the way to do it.

It sounds very confusing, but I think it's a it's something that needs you know, a lot of people get these sites they say a third access and and nobody takes the time to adjust for it. And honestly, in many instances, there's very few times where I haven't had an angled shot at something because the way that you sneak in the type of stocks that are probably the most successful, or the type of terrain you're in, you're

gonna need that. And you know what stern hunting, you're shooting out at ranges from forty to fifty or six yards sometimes even in closer ranges of steep angles. I think it does make a different. I know it does make a difference because it could impact left or right somewhere. You don't want so do that. Once you've got that set it fold draw, then just go prove it out in the field shooting at a target and make sure that everything is right. And you can always adjust to

when you're shooting. Maybe find out when you're out there shooting, you know if you're left and right is different as you're shooting in an angle, Well adjust that third access level on the site and you should be good. Now that we've got our site completely level. I think there's some special shot considerations when you're shooting on a hill. If you go out into the field, if you think about hunting scenarios, you're probably not going to be on

level terrain. In most Western hunting situations. I guess the only one that probably bucks that would be antelope hunting. But even then I find some just like weird angles when I'm out there. And part of it is it's just when you're on a hill or on a slope, it's very deceiving to understand what's level. Your body holds you up naturally, and you think that, oh, this is level, But when you're trying to hold like a bow out there, it's completely different because what gravity is doing is it's

pulling you in the downhill direction. So the unfortunate part is, let's say I've got a deer across the canyon. I've got one slope going one way, and the deer's below me, so I would just think, okay, I'm gonna just draw back, and maybe so my slope imagine like a slope going downhill.

I'm standing on it, so obviously I'm facing downhill, probably if I'm right handed shooter, and the deer is like in this little goalie coming up the other side, or bedded on the other side, something like that shot that I've seen a thousand times, and I go to draw back, Well, what happens is I feel like it's level but gravity

is pulling the top of that limb downhill. So what that's gonna do is it's actually going to make my Now that I've got a level bow and everything, when I when I go to put my pin on that deer, I'm gonna look and it's gonna show that the bow is not level. So I'm canting one direction and that's going to push my arrow away that I don't want it to go. So I try to compensate, but it's really hard at full draw, I found to actually compensate

against gravity. What my go to is for this type of shot or when I'm on a hill, is before I draw back, it's way easier to fall into gravity and get level than it is to push against gravity to get level. So what I like to do is it can be a little deceiving, but I tried to like lean into the hill or lean into the direction

over compensate in the opposite direction on my draw. So I want to be drawn drawing back kind of leaning back towards the hill, and then once I settle in, it's a lot easier to bring it with gravity to that level position. By doing that, I think that you're gonna find a lot more success and a lot more precision shooting at hills or downhill. And then one other

consideration is when you're shooting up or downhill. You know, remember that you don't want to just move your arm down because you got to remember, as we talked about shooting anchor, is everything consistency in that in that repeatable consistency. So if I just move my arm down forty five degrees but keep everything the same, well my anchor point is not going to be the same. I'm not going to be looking through my peep the same and it's

gonna be a little bit off. So what I like to do is I like to bend at the hips. I know some people like way over exaggerate this, but you know I want to make sure all I'm doing is keeping my same form and then bending with the shots, so nothing changes in my form because I'm shooting up or downhill, and that's key to making those good shots. The next advanced consideration is going to be wind. And all these things really have to do with the level of the boat as well. So you think about wind.

Wind can affect your arrow in so many ways. Mostly it's gonna be affected in a left or right movement. There's a very few times that I've stocked something and there hasn't been wind. Where I practice, where I shoot a lot, it's always windy. Where I hunt a lot is always windy. Uh. You know, the ideal would be the wind in your face, and there are ways to compensate for out. But it's not necessarily as as drastic

as the left or right winds. But you will encounter a lot of cross wind in practice shooting at three D targets, three D ranges, whatever. But in hunting situations you're gonna encounter it a lot. And understanding how your arrow flies in the wind and how to compensate for it is huge. So there's two ways that you can do it, and there's two ways that I do it.

The first is just holding off. So let's say you've got a dear facing left, he's bedded into the wind or standing into the wind, and um you let's say it's like a ten mileon arrow wind, So you can just hold off. So if he's facing into the wind, I put it a little more forward on his shoulder, release the arrow, and hope that the wind pushes my arrow into the vitals. Now, another way to do it.

And one way that I use a lot is what people call bubbling, or like just can't in the direction that I want the arrow to go, so um, I can use my bubble in the level as a gauge, so it's a little bit more precise, and then I can aim at the exact spot that I want to hit. What I'll do it's like, let's say the winds coming from my left, you just can't the bow, so you put the top riser of the boat into the wind. What that's gonna do is that's actually gonna push my shot.

So if I'm canting the bow left, it's actually gonna push the arrow left. How I don't know. It just makes no sense, but it really works. And the further out you go, the more drastic that is. So I can use the level my bubble level. So I'll tip it left so that I'll push that bubble to the right side of that line, and I can gauge how much my arrow is gonna go left by seeing how

much that bubble is moved over to one side. So I can just go drastic full as much as I can, or I can kind of go just a little bit if it's a light breeze or whatever, and then that allows me to aim on one particular spot and hit

that spot. It involves a lot of practice, but I like using canting the bow left or right to adjust for the wind because I can actually practice that without wind, which is really cool because you can go out, go out to fourty yards, try this, shoot one perfectly level at the center, then aim at that same arrow, but go drastic with your with your bow like tip the top of the riser right, real hard, take a shot, then do it left to real hard and see where

the bubble is and see how much it moves. So you know, if I go all the way, it's about for me eight inches with my setup, you know for thirty yards or whatever, which is actually found is pretty good for a fairly stiff wind, so I can kind of hold in the right spot. I can camp the bow into the wind, and then I can hit where I'm aiming. There are times where I will choose to use the method where I just hold on one side

or the other. So a good way to figure that out to shoot in the wind, shoot at a target, aim at the center, see how much it drifted over, then just hold the opposite direction into the wind shoot. It's good to understand that as well as canting the bow, because you need to understand how much the wind is going to push your arrow, and by doing that, you're gonna be a lot, a lot more successful. So now let's ump to the last one and the one that

really got me this last week, and that's noise. This is something you can do at home and throughout your practice or throughout while you're practicing, understanding where different noises are coming from. And you want to do this by

kind of getting your hunting set up set up. So, like I said, you know, I normally use fixed blades, but I decided to try some mechanical broadheads and they I actually couldn't stick them in my quiver fully, so they were in there kind of shaking around, rattling around. You know. That's something that I knew about, but I didn't necessarily think would be as big of a deal until I took it into the field and was like, Okay, things are actually a lot louder then I was expecting.

I'm a big fan of I don't even know what they call it. It's like mole skin, you know, stuff you put over like a blister or whatever they've got it. For bows, it's just sound dampening tape. It's like fuzzy tape. I know it's super old school, but I live by that stuff. I cover everything I can in it. I cover my stabilizer in it. I try to find things like where my dropway rest drops down. I'll put some of that felt stuff. I put it all along the riser on the shelf where the arrow might rest when

I'm sneaking around. Just anything to take a little bit of a ting out to put it around any kind of moving part when not like a mechanical moving part that will affect the operation, but something that might release sound. And I found that it does dampen the noise a lot. There's other things you could do. Um. It's kind of old school, and I do it for my traditional gears, like string dampeners, like these little I don't know, whisker looking things on guy's bows, or like a tuft of beaver.

I actually used to use that a lot, like a like a ball of like beaver hair. UM, different stuff on the string to kind of silence the string. For most bows, there are like these rubber string silencers. Some bows come with them now actually a lot of bows come with some kind of thing to help dampen the noise. But it's one thing that you definitely want to consider and try to do it before you get out in the field as you're practicing. If something see is loud

and it's hard to say, well, what's loud. I mean, I've got one bow that I kind of thought was loud, and yet I've never had anything jump with it. So it's just a certain frequency that they were okay with um. But generally, what I like to do is go through my gear as things, the things that I know will make noise, I start to tape over and even make

some personal adjustments on stuff. I know there's some drop away the rest that I've just taken the bottom or the top kind of like cage if you will, out of there, because it's like it doesn't necessarily affect the function of it, maybe protects it a little bit, but you know, in the drop away drops and hits something that I like try to prevent that, or I like to put this noise dampening tape around a lot of

different parts that might emit sound at some point. So that's something really good to consider because one I would say, if I'm thinking about it, ninety percent of the times that I've either missed a deer or didn't hit exactly where I wanted is because the animal jumped the string. And maybe later on in a future podcast we should really talk about anticipating the jump and some of the strategy behind knowing where to aim and when to aim

off and things like that. But most of that comes from, you know, if you sneak in, everything is unnoticed, the animal hearing that sound and then reacting to that arrow coming their way. It doesn't matter how fast your bow

is at considerable distance. At some distance, they can definitely move enough to make your shot a good shot a bad shot, And that's really nothing you can control, but it is things you control by quieting down your setup and making sure that everything that might make a loud noise or a noise that sends the animal running can be damp into where they don't notice it or they don't make as big a reaction as fast. I just want to thank everybody again for listening and all the

great feedback. So many, so many people pumped on this kind of format of just kind of breaking down what you need to get ready for archery, especially early in the season. I think now is the perfect time to get started. There's a lot of people thinking about it. There's a lot of people that have been bow hunters our whole life. I hope some of this stuff, maybe these are things that you haven't considered in the past, and and we'll start to kind of think about and consider,

you know. I try to talk to the guy that's been hunting his whole life and the guy that's brand new, so I try to find some of the common ground things that we all need to know and those little advanced tactics that just make you better over time. Don't forget to send in your questions please at Remy Warren on Instagram, and if you have Instagram or whatever, feel free to follow me over there. That's uh, it's a great way to interact with each other and get those questions.

I just I'm going through there here pretty soon, so make sure you send those and and maybe they'll be for future episodes or whatever. But I'm sending your questions please. This is why I mean, we're concluding our bow stuff, so we're gonna go into the Q and A next week, and then I've got some cool stuff planned as far as uh next month. I kind of like the format that I've been doing and I got a lot of

great feedback. So one of the ideas that I'm tossing around just kind of like this gearing up i DA as well as getting ready for all the applications stuff. So we're gonna be doing a lot of that, just planning for hunt kind of content, but also some of the some of the things that you can get some of the things that you can get into, uh, some fitness stuff in the future. A lot of cool stuff

in the pipe. And I thank you guys all for you know, just sending me messages and ideas and things that you want to hear, because I say a million every time pretty much, but I really do want to tailor this toward the things that you guys want to learn and the things that I think will make everybody better hunters out there this coming fall season. So until then, stay level headed, Catch you guys later.