“IDIOT-PROOF
YOUR BOWHUNTING”
Spin-Check Your Arrows and Stop the Rattle
EDITOR’S NOTE: "Yes!" I exclaimed as
the arrow I released from my bow hit the bull's-eye
30 yards from my backyard deck. Well, I still seemed
to possess my bowhunting magic from the previous year's
season. Later, feeling confident after a week's worth
of practice in my backyard, I packed all my equipment
into my bow case and left my house in a last-minute
frenzy for a bowhunting trip to Montana. When I arrived
at the famous Milk River in Montana near the Canadian
border, I took a few practice arrows out of my bow case
and started shooting. Although my arrows did hit the
target, they wouldn't consistently fly straight. I asked
Ralph Cianciarulo, an archery pro from Lanark, Illinois,
to check out my equipment and my shooting form. I wanted
to know what changes he thought I should make in my
bowhunting tackle. I realized that when you hunted with
a master hunter, you needed to learn all you could from
him to idiot-proof your bowhunting. He'll enable you
to hunt better, shoot straighter and take game more
efficiently.
Although
my arrows grouped within the bull's-eye in my backyard,
they didn't group as tightly as they could have when
I shoot at deer camp. Cianciarulo first checked the
straightness of my arrows by spin-checking them. Some
of my arrows wobbled, indicating they had crooked shafts.
We checked the 12 arrows I'd brought on the hunt and
found that only eight of the shafts had arrived from
my trip unaltered. "When you spin-check your arrows,
often you'll find two to three floaters, arrows that
aren't quite straight, out of 10 to 12 arrows,"
Cianciarulo reported. "When you check your arrows,
number them from one to six in the order of their performance.
Then you can begin your hunt with your best arrows.
Make your number-one arrow in your quiver the straightest
and truest-flying one in the group. The other four or
five arrows in your quiver need to shoot just as accurately
as your number-one arrow." So what do you do with
the slightly-bent arrows to keep from wasting the money
you've spent to buy them? "Either use them to stake
tomatoes, or break them and throw them away," Cianciarulo
suggested. "An arrow shaft that's not perfectly
straight will make you miss the target where
you're aiming. Eliminate those shafts as soon as you
discover them. Spin-check your arrows after you get
to the hunt, regardless of how carefully you pack them."
Stop the Rattle:
While I practiced my shooting at the camp before the
hunt, Cianciarulo detected a rattling sound that I couldn't
hear coming from my bow when I released the arrow. "When
you ship your bow across the country, the bolts holding
the rest, the sight and the quiver to your bow often
will become loose," Cianciarulo said. "Even
the best-tuned bows will come out of the case making
noises they haven't made at home. This noise may be
coming from the arrow rest, the quiver or other parts
of the bow. When you take your bow out of its bow case,
tighten every bolt on the bow with your Allen wrench."
Keep in mind that the airport baggage handlers don't
handle your bow case as if it contains the finely-tuned
instrument it does. Look out the window of the plane.
You'll see the baggage handlers throwing, pitching and
stacking luggage as though it contains nothing more
important than dirty laundry.
To learn more about bowhunting, order John E. Phillips’
book “The Masters’ Secrets of Bowhunting”
for $13.50, which includes shipping and handling, and
his “Jim Crumley’s Bowhunting Secrets”
(Crumley is a longtime, avid bowhunter who created Trebark
camouflage) for $15.50, which includes shipping and
handling, by sending a check or money order to Night
Hawk Publications, 4112 Camp Horner Road, Birmingham,
AL 35243, or using PayPal, account – john7185@bellsouth.net
. You can see more information at http://www.nighthawkpublications.com/hunting/hunting.htm
To order both bowhunting books, pay only $25, which
includes shipping and handling.
TOMORROW: LISTEN FOR QUIVER
NOISE AND SQUEAKS
|