does anyone play with bows?

[beerftw]

Just wondering, ammo shortages have caused me to invest in a recurve bow, and a crossbow which should hopefully show up tomorrow. Either way I decided deer are too delicious and I need a backup if I could not get 30-06 30-30 or 7.62x54r ammo, it is not my fault if deer did not want to be killed they need to stop being so delicious!!!!

Either way I actually find it fun, used bows in the past but never got into them much, now with ammo shortages and me wanting a backup with arrows widely available and highly re useable, I got into it.

I have a gonex top archery 50 pound recurve bow, that thing shoots like a dream, and on order a 150 pound crossbow. The best part is they are quiet, I can shoot them all day at my friends house without cops getting called(his nearest neighbor is 3 miles away but apparently in texas people in rural nowhere move there to get away from guns and hunting for some stupid reason unexplainable by logic). Also I probably could fire it in my yard and get away with it though I will not due to city laws.

So anyone else play around with bows or am I a lone wolf here who branched out to backup pastures when the deer meat bringing rounds became scarce.

 

[Lord Tammerlain]

Just wondering, ammo shortages have caused me to invest in a recurve bow, and a crossbow which should hopefully show up tomorrow. Either way I decided deer are too delicious and I need a backup if I could not get 30-06 30-30 or 7.62x54r ammo, it is not my fault if deer did not want to be killed they need to stop being so delicious!!!!

Either way I actually find it fun, used bows in the past but never got into them much, now with ammo shortages and me wanting a backup with arrows widely available and highly re useable, I got into it.

I have a gonex top archery 50 pound recurve bow, that thing shoots like a dream, and on order a 150 pound crossbow. The best part is they are quiet, I can shoot them all day at my friends house without cops getting called(his nearest neighbor is 3 miles away but apparently in texas people in rural nowhere move there to get away from guns and hunting for some stupid reason unexplainable by logic). Also I probably could fire it in my yard and get away with it though I will not due to city laws.

So anyone else play around with bows or am I a lone wolf here who branched out to backup pastures when the deer meat bringing rounds became scarce.

Turtledude I believe has experience with Bows,

For some reason I think Bassman might well

 

[Slartibartfast]

Just wondering, ammo shortages have caused me to invest in a recurve bow, and a crossbow which should hopefully show up tomorrow. Either way I decided deer are too delicious and I need a backup if I could not get 30-06 30-30 or 7.62x54r ammo, it is not my fault if deer did not want to be killed they need to stop being so delicious!!!!

Either way I actually find it fun, used bows in the past but never got into them much, now with ammo shortages and me wanting a backup with arrows widely available and highly re useable, I got into it.

I have a gonex top archery 50 pound recurve bow, that thing shoots like a dream, and on order a 150 pound crossbow. The best part is they are quiet, I can shoot them all day at my friends house without cops getting called(his nearest neighbor is 3 miles away but apparently in texas people in rural nowhere move there to get away from guns and hunting for some stupid reason unexplainable by logic). Also I probably could fire it in my yard and get away with it though I will not due to city laws.

So anyone else play around with bows or am I a lone wolf here who branched out to backup pastures when the deer meat bringing rounds became scarce.

I have a bit of experience, but I am not an expert

 

[Rexedgar]

I was awarded a “Yeoman’s“ badge in summer camp, many years ago! What do you need to know?

 

[OlNate]

Just wondering, ammo shortages have caused me to invest in a recurve bow, and a crossbow which should hopefully show up tomorrow. Either way I decided deer are too delicious and I need a backup if I could not get 30-06 30-30 or 7.62x54r ammo, it is not my fault if deer did not want to be killed they need to stop being so delicious!!!!

Either way I actually find it fun, used bows in the past but never got into them much, now with ammo shortages and me wanting a backup with arrows widely available and highly re useable, I got into it.

I have a gonex top archery 50 pound recurve bow, that thing shoots like a dream, and on order a 150 pound crossbow. The best part is they are quiet, I can shoot them all day at my friends house without cops getting called(his nearest neighbor is 3 miles away but apparently in texas people in rural nowhere move there to get away from guns and hunting for some stupid reason unexplainable by logic). Also I probably could fire it in my yard and get away with it though I will not due to city laws.

So anyone else play around with bows or am I a lone wolf here who branched out to backup pastures when the deer meat bringing rounds became scarce.

Love archery, but not much of a hunter. I love target shooting with a recurve, though. I've played with the fancier compound bows, but since I'm not trying to bring down meat with them, I prefer the challenge of the recurve. There's a range not far from me that features a trail through the woods and lifesize rubber targets - turkey, deer, coyote, bear - in different shot setups - uphill, downhill, from a blind, etc. It's a good challenge, and I'm a pretty good shot at rubber animals that aren't moving...hehe

I do have friends that hunt with them with great success, but they mostly use blinds - I think the skill level required to go from blinds to stalking is pretty steep. One of them brought down a moose a couple years ago with a compound bow. For me the main reason I wouldn't hunt with them is that I'm not as confident at my ability to get a clean kill... I would say practice a lot before taking the shot.

 

[beerftw]

Love archery, but not much of a hunter. I love target shooting with a recurve, though. I've played with the fancier compound bows, but since I'm not trying to bring down meat with them, I prefer the challenge of the recurve. There's a range not far from me that features a trail through the woods and lifesize rubber targets - turkey, deer, coyote, bear - in different shot setups - uphill, downhill, from a blind, etc. It's a good challenge, and I'm a pretty good shot at rubber animals that aren't moving...hehe

I do have friends that hunt with them with great success, but they mostly use blinds - I think the skill level required to go from blinds to stalking is pretty steep. One of them brought down a moose a couple years ago with a compound bow. For me the main reason I wouldn't hunt with them is that I'm not as confident at my ability to get a clean kill... I would say practice a lot before taking the shot.

Animal stalking/tracking is an art of it's own, knew a black man in the national guard, never was a hunter grew up in the city, married to a woman from western part of virginia(she is also black this is where stereotypes get broken) But basically he went with her to visit her family and they invited him hunting, and he knew nothing about hunting except from tv.

Needless to say his story coming back was about expecting a deer blind only to be told that around those parts deer blinds were for cowards who could not hunt, and that he was supposed to track the deer and stalk it. In the end his story went to walking around for 6 hours or so in the woods tracking deer for his father in law to bag one and him getting none, and of course having to gut the deer then drag it back.

I myself am not a tracker, from what he said it is nothing like on tv and you have to actually recognize natural patterns, deer tracks, wind direction and the directions and movements of other wildlife including herbivores and carnivores to track them, and he admitted if you dropped him anywhere and expected him to do it he could not, his father in law had done it for decades, and his father taught him at a young age to do it, tracking was not something you could pick up in a youtube video or read a book and master.

 

[OlNate]

Animal stalking/tracking is an art of it's own, knew a black man in the national guard, never was a hunter grew up in the city, married to a woman from western part of virginia(she is also black this is where stereotypes get broken) But basically he went with her to visit her family and they invited him hunting, and he knew nothing about hunting except from tv.

Needless to say his story coming back was about expecting a deer blind only to be told that around those parts deer blinds were for cowards who could not hunt, and that he was supposed to track the deer and stalk it. In the end his story went to walking around for 6 hours or so in the woods tracking deer for his father in law to bag one and him getting none, and of course having to gut the deer then drag it back.

I myself am not a tracker, from what he said it is nothing like on tv and you have to actually recognize natural patterns, deer tracks, wind direction and the directions and movements of other wildlife including herbivores and carnivores to track them, and he admitted if you dropped him anywhere and expected him to do it he could not, his father in law had done it for decades, and his father taught him at a young age to do it, tracking was not something you could pick up in a youtube video or read a book and master.

lol....yup, sounds about right... I think stalking / tracking will be a lost art soon enough... You need someone to teach you, and it's a lot of experience and learning required. The few people I know that actually do it were taught by their dads, who were taught by their dads, and so on - they were on hunts starting at an early age. Of the few who do know how to track animals through the forest, I can think of only two that were taught with a bow, most were taught with rifles and had to adapt their style to bow.

I always chuckle a little at the "__________ is for cowards", though. I'm sure there was some half drunk caveman talking about how only bows are for cowards, as he lovingly stroked his spear...lol...and some big knuckled bastard looking at him sideways for not doing it with his bare hands....lol There's always the guy that wants to act like every advancement, or even method, outside their preferred method, is for wussies... Me, if I'm hunting, I'm like, whatever takes the least amount of calories spent to get the most calories in me...lol... Snobbery is for people who want to starve....

 

[Luce]

Just wondering, ammo shortages have caused me to invest in a recurve bow, and a crossbow which should hopefully show up tomorrow. Either way I decided deer are too delicious and I need a backup if I could not get 30-06 30-30 or 7.62x54r ammo, it is not my fault if deer did not want to be killed they need to stop being so delicious!!!!

Take classes.

Also, crossbows should be trained with for years before hunting (stick with the bow), as when you get a little buck fever, it's super easy to chop your fingers off in a crossbow.

 

[can2man]

I used to hunt with bows. I have a compound and recurve and I made one out of wood, three actually - but only one I’m proud of. It is a standard bow made out of osage orange Wood from Arkansas. Myself, I was never confident enough to use my home made bow for hunting - that skill (like tracking) takes a longtime to acquire and hunting was not really a passion. Same as the recurve - takes a lot of practice. Compound bows I like - you can set your draw weight but you need to practice with them too, can be hard to draw. Crossbow is basically a firearm, accurate, deadly, easy to,use. Just watch your fingers.

 

[joko104]

For what you have spent on bows you could have bought enough 30.06 ammo for killing deers to last multiple lifetimes. Your ammo excuse is just that, an excuse. There are pluses to being quiet circumstantially.

At close range a crossbow is like a low energy firearm. Generally, when hunting deer with a bow you have to find where the deer ran off to where it bleeds to death. Assuming you can find it, it is unlikely it is in a location close to where you can drive - so you're dragging or carrying back, possibly a long distance. There is a very good chance it will ultimate die but that you'll never find it. Bows against big game are almost always a slow kill or a lethal wounding that you can't track down.

Bow shooting is - like most skills - a matter of practice and consistency - doing exactly the same thing every time. I used to have an archery range set up at our home and got to where I could hit a quarter size bullseye at 10 yards 95% of the time. BUT in hunting you are dealing with different angles and distances. Arrows don't track flat like a bullet over distance and the angle of your shot also matters.

Simply put, it is going to take a lot of practice with a straight or compound bow. A crossbow is a short range low energy weapon for which it's greatest killing ability is by bleeding the animal out, rather than dropping it dead on the spot.

 

[longview]

I play around with Archery, but have tried my hand at making some bows out pf PVC pipe.
The bows seem to shoot really good! The idea reshaping the PVC after heating has led me to try other projects.

 

[beerftw]

lol....yup, sounds about right... I think stalking / tracking will be a lost art soon enough... You need someone to teach you, and it's a lot of experience and learning required. The few people I know that actually do it were taught by their dads, who were taught by their dads, and so on - they were on hunts starting at an early age. Of the few who do know how to track animals through the forest, I can think of only two that were taught with a bow, most were taught with rifles and had to adapt their style to bow.

I always chuckle a little at the "__________ is for cowards", though. I'm sure there was some half drunk caveman talking about how only bows are for cowards, as he lovingly stroked his spear...lol...and some big knuckled bastard looking at him sideways for not doing it with his bare hands....lol There's always the guy that wants to act like every advancement, or even method, outside their preferred method, is for wussies... Me, if I'm hunting, I'm like, whatever takes the least amount of calories spent to get the most calories in me...lol... Snobbery is for people who want to starve....

Prior to modern times, there were no deer stands, and people did not bait deer with corn as corn was food, and hunting deer war not sport but survival. Prior to modern methods tracking was all there was, you would be correct it is a dying breed, most could not track where the deer are let alone going, or do so with other animals either.

 

[beerftw]

For what you have spent on bows you could have bought enough 30.06 ammo for killing deers to last multiple lifetimes. Your ammo excuse is just that, an excuse. There are pluses to being quiet circumstantially.

At close range a crossbow is like a low energy firearm. Generally, when hunting deer with a bow you have to find where the deer ran off to where it bleeds to death. Assuming you can find it, it is unlikely it is in a location close to where you can drive - so you're dragging or carrying back, possibly a long distance. There is a very good chance it will ultimate die but that you'll never find it. Bows against big game are almost always a slow kill or a lethal wounding that you can't track down.

Bow shooting is - like most skills - a matter of practice and consistency - doing exactly the same thing every time. I used to have an archery range set up at our home and got to where I could hit a quarter size bullseye at 10 yards 95% of the time. BUT in hunting you are dealing with different angles and distances. Arrows don't track flat like a bullet over distance and the angle of your shot also matters.

Simply put, it is going to take a lot of practice with a straight or compound bow. A crossbow is a short range low energy weapon for which it's greatest killing ability is by bleeding the animal out, rather than dropping it dead on the spot.

You must not have priced 30-06 ammo lately, it used to be a buck a round, recently it is 2-3 bucks a round if you can find it, it went from plentiful to hunters buying it up like hunting ammo was never going to be made ever again.

I got 45 rounds of it a few days ago by trading 40 rounds of 22-250 I aquired which happened to be the last two boxes in the entire area unless you were willing to drive hours to find it. I also got lucky and found the other die to my 30-06 reloading die set so I can load about another 40-50 rounds of it before I run out of brass and lead.

 

[beerftw]

Take classes.

Also, crossbows should be trained with for years before hunting (stick with the bow), as when you get a little buck fever, it's super easy to chop your fingers off in a crossbow.

Never had a problem with my fingers, but I know where the string is, years of practice is not needed. Now my recurve that might need years of practice, I fires it off at 20 yards, with no sights I could often get 1/4 inch groupings or smaller without a sight, my issue was not how tight the grouping was but getting it to hit where I wanted it to, had I been shooting at a slow moving deer he would have a tight grouping of arrows in his ass but be able to run off.

 

[joko104]

You must not have priced 30-06 ammo lately, it used to be a buck a round, recently it is 2-3 bucks a round if you can find it, it went from plentiful to hunters buying it up like hunting ammo was never going to be made ever again.

I got 45 rounds of it a few days ago by trading 40 rounds of 22-250 I aquired which happened to be the last two boxes in the entire area unless you were willing to drive hours to find it. I also got lucky and found the other die to my 30-06 reloading die set so I can load about another 40-50 rounds of it before I run out of brass and lead.

Hadn't thought of it that way as I've never bought them. I have a gzillion military surplus 30.06 and .308 that I inherited - still in sealed in original heavy plastic bricks or in sealed metal ammo belt boxes. Not as ideal as a soft, round tipped hunting round, but certainly lethal. Thinking about it, $2 to $3 per round sounds realistic.

 

[beerftw]

Hadn't thought of it that way as I've never bought them. I have a gzillion military surplus 30.06 and .308 that I inherited - still in sealed in original heavy plastic bricks or in sealed metal ammo belt boxes. Not as ideal as a soft, round tipped hunting round, but certainly lethal. Thinking about it, $2 to $3 per round sounds realistic.

30-06 surplus was 14 bucks per 20 2 weeks ago, now it is completely sold out, and only a few makers that have it in stock are price gouging. The surplus ammo that was going cheap was european made 30-06 made during ww2 as an alternate supply for american troops and allies using 30-06 like the british(british used 30-06 until the 90's, amazing since they prefer their own .303)

 

[joko104]

Never had a problem with my fingers, but I know where the string is, years of practice is not needed. Now my recurve that might need years of practice, I fires it off at 20 yards, with no sights I could often get 1/4 inch groupings or smaller without a sight, my issue was not how tight the grouping was but getting it to hit where I wanted it to, had I been shooting at a slow moving deer he would have a tight grouping of arrows in his ass but be able to run off.

I always used a 3 finger trigger for my bow, but that was fixed station 10 yard target shooting for extreme precision. However, a trigger can be dangerous - easier for an accidental release. A target compound bow (old school) has longer arms and simple pulleys - and lighter draw weight (75 to 90 lb), while a hunting bow has short arms and more complex pulleys - and much more draw weight - 150 lb and up.

 

[it's just me]

Never had a problem with my fingers, but I know where the string is, years of practice is not needed. Now my recurve that might need years of practice, I fires it off at 20 yards, with no sights I could often get 1/4 inch groupings or smaller without a sight, my issue was not how tight the grouping was but getting it to hit where I wanted it to, had I been shooting at a slow moving deer he would have a tight grouping of arrows in his ass but be able to run off.

The thing you are going to have to get used to is hitting targets at different ranges. I used to do something called "stump shooting", which literally was shooting at stumps while just walking around picking out targets. Don't laugh, in my hunting career I shot a deer through the heart at 62 yards, hit a pheasant in flight, and shot a snapping turtle in the head at 30 yards.

Of course, I practiced almost constantly. I had a 70 lb longbow at the time, and I still have a 60 lb. Longbow and a recurve. The important thing is to have fun with it.

 

[ModerationNow!]

I used to own a recurve and a compound bow(as a teenager), but haven't shot one in at least 25 years. I was just recently thinking about getting back into it a little, and I looked at bows at a Cabela's a couple years ago. But compound bows have changed dramatically since my days of owning a $75 "Bear Whitetail Hunter"! Now they are shorter, more complex, and WAY more expensive! My bow was adjustable from about 35-65lbs pull, and I had it set at 45lbs as a 13 year old kid. I never hunted with it though, only target practice and at Boy Scout events.

 

[beerftw]

The thing you are going to have to get used to is hitting targets at different ranges. I used to do something called "stump shooting", which literally was shooting at stumps while just walking around picking out targets. Don't laugh, in my hunting career I shot a deer through the heart at 62 yards, hit a pheasant in flight, and shot a snapping turtle in the head at 30 yards.

Of course, I practiced almost constantly. I had a 70 lb longbow at the time, and I still have a 60 lb. Longbow and a recurve. The important thing is to have fun with it.

The aiming and ranges do mess me up, hitting in the same spot is usually fine, but getting it center target is the hard part, the stacked arrows I got were at 20 yards and all in the top right of the target not center mass where I aimed.

I also mostly used aluminum arrows mostly as they were cheap and I would not care about damage, I bent every one of them, my carbon fiber arrows shoot straight still while the aluminum ones do not. The carbon fiber arrows follow a different path as well even compared to the aluminum ones before being bent, so it is another learning curve where a different arrow material produced an entirely different result.

 

[it's just me]

The aiming and ranges do mess me up, hitting in the same spot is usually fine, but getting it center target is the hard part, the stacked arrows I got were at 20 yards and all in the top right of the target not center mass where I aimed.

I also mostly used aluminum arrows mostly as they were cheap and I would not care about damage, I bent every one of them, my carbon fiber arrows shoot straight still while the aluminum ones do not. The carbon fiber arrows follow a different path as well even compared to the aluminum ones before being bent, so it is another learning curve where a different arrow material produced an entirely different result.

Sometimes you will have "porpoising" of the arrows caused by improperly placed nocking point or the wrong arrow rest. You will be able to tell if you shoot through a piece of paper at close range, the holes will be oblong and arrows not shooting straight is always a problem, so check to make sure your bow setup is optimal.

 

[beerftw]

Sometimes you will have "porpoising" of the arrows caused by improperly placed nocking point or the wrong arrow rest. You will be able to tell if you shoot through a piece of paper at close range, the holes will be oblong and arrows not shooting straight is always a problem, so check to make sure your bow setup is optimal.

Mine uses an elevated arrow rest as my arrows use vanes, the recurve also has an arrow shelf but I need to buy arrows with feathers to use it proper.

On the big hole thing, my bent aluminum arrows did that to the target, it was funny watching an arrow pull a zigzag pattern sharp left and sharp right only to straighten at the last moment and drive through the target, usually at an odd angle but fairly close to where I aimed.