The shoot that pushed me over the edge

[Chunky]

Chris, you know I will respect you regardless of what you hunt with.

I am sorry you are having this bad luck. You are one of the best trad shooters out there.

If you decide to come back, I think adding a hundred grains and using a 2 blade head will help.

The bottom line is we hunt to have fun. It really doesn't matter what you hunt with as long as you are enjoying yourself. Make yourself happy and don't worry about the rest of the world. You are a part of our communty in any case.

[Night Wing]

Your arrow is real light weight wise (GPP) for the poundage you shoot. That could be the problem.

[m'gobo]

Dont give up brother. Keep slingin those sticks every chance you get.

[muzzlebrake]

Well, you can't feel any worse than me. I am so sick it's taken me two days to even be able to talk about my bad shot this past weekend.
I went for the last buck hunt of the year and stuck what would have been my biggest ever with Trad equipment, a true book deer.
He was a mature wide and heavy 11pt that was about 18"-19" wide and 20-22" main beams with a lot of mass.
I waited for the perfect shot and he was at 15yds hard quartering away. He ducked and I hit him a bit high right at the back of the rib cage and he left with nothing but the fletchings sticking out. He had 2 feet of arrow shaft in him. My buddy who was with me saw the hit thru his binos and said it still looked good enough but we looked for 2 hours and never even found a spec of blood or the arrow. I just hope he loses the arrow and recovers. Maybe because the deer are so fat that the fat layer is closing off the wound but that Sasquatch is a lot of broad head so I just don't know.
Next morning I took the Mathews SB wheelie and shot a 5+ year old 8pt management buck. I had him at 15yds also and this time allowed for the deer to duck. Well, he didn't and the arrow hit exactly where my pin was placed, about an inch above the bottom of it's chest. The impact knocked him down on the spot and he got up and ran about 40yds and stopped then started just walking slowly off. After a while I retrieved the arrow and the only thing on it was hair and white fat with no blood. We looked for about an hour and found no blood or any place he might have laid down. Sucks to be me this day but we still have the extend doe and spike season thru middle of the month and Angie has her Axis hunt next week at Diamond C so maybe the tides of luck will change in our favor.
I will hopefully redeem myself somewhat on some swine next month down on the Briscoe Caterina.
And yeah, my confidence is shaken but I ain't quiting ----just yet

[bob sarrels]

Ditto on the weight thing. I am sorry about your misfortne. It has happend to all of us. I think you should consider going up to a minimum of 10 grns. per pound. I think, if I have read this correctly that you are about 100 grns shy of that. Folks say 10 per lb is about right but I personally try to stay about 13 to 14 grns per lb on my tackle. I have had trouble in the past on ribs with some heads. For sure when the critter was falling away from the shot. I have had really good luck with the Zwicky No Mercy. Seems like that head pays little or no attention to ribs. The 425 lb red deer I shot busted the leading rib in half, traveled thru both lungs and punched a hole in the off rib cage, between the bones I might add. Don't give up, just try adding some weight to your gear.

[grunt]

No expert but i would suggets more arrow weight. At 58# an arrow weight at 580grn would still be light to some. Something in the range of 640grn would give a 35% increase in mass and you would be at 11gpp

[huntinpool]

Non recovery of game when Muzzy is in the equation is a common denominator in many stories. Don't blame yourself or your bow, that was a pretty good shot.

[Bisch]

I must apologize to Bisch for my comments early in the season when he picked up a compound.

Chris, You have no reason to apologize to me. I took no offense to any comment/s you made in my thread. I, 100%, totally understand where you are though. Confidence is the name of the game when you are shooting with no sights. Back in October, after several bad shots in a row, my confidence was shot. When I went to the woods with my stickbow in hand I was worried about weather I COULD make a shot not to mention if I would make that shot. That is not a good place to be when playing such a mental game as trad archery. I only shot the compound for about two weeks and killed two deer with it. It was in those two weeks that I realized that I needed simpler things; that the wheel bow was just too much of a mechanical contraption for me, and that I truely loved traditional archery. At that point it seemed to all come back to me. I have been shooting better and better ever since then and have taken several animals. I am having fun again....and that it what it is all about.

Chris, you are one of the best trad shooters I know. You do what you need to do to get you head rigjht. If that means never hunting with trad again, then so-be-it. I know I, for one, would be happy to share a camp with you, at any time in any place, no matter what the weapon of choice was.

See ya soon,

Bisch

[Stykbow]

Hey Chris, sorry for the bad luck.
Like Chunky was indicating...maybe adding a little weight and doing it up front would be good.
I certainly can't point any fingers because I use eithery trad bows or my wheelie bow, just depending on the particular stand or setup I'm hunting at the time.
Last year I took good 9pt with the recurve, and this year I took a real nice 8pt with the wheels.
Regardless just have fun doing what your doing and don't worry about what you think that others may think about the equipment you use.
Good luck,
Bobby

[TradAg02]

Thanks for the kind words.

The name of the game is kinetic energy, which is a function of mass and speed. My current setup is producing 40.78 (450grn 202fps). If I assume (haven’t chronographed) that a 600grn arrow will shoot 180fps the KE=43.18. Just my assumption, but I don’t feel that 2.40 increase in kinetic energy would have made a difference. The compound I setup is shooting a 424grn arrow 280fps for a KE=73.83.

Out of curiosity what kind of kinetic energy are yall shooting? Here is a simple calculator: http://www.archeryhq.com/kin.htm

[Bisch]

I'm shooting 33.12 ft/lbs KE. 516gr arrow at 170fps.

Bisch

[moe monsarrat]

It's not an exact science & weird things can happen. I've never even shot a compound so I don't have that option. You just have to understand that these things happen even with guns. It's hard to believe a shot like that wasn't fatal, but I ain't letting nothing change me. The arrow don't know what kind of bow shot it & your shot placement w/ a compound would be the same.

[Night Wing]

I'm shooting 33.12 ft/lbs KE. 516gr arrow at 170fps.

Bisch

I thought you might find this interesting. Just goes to show what a long draw length can do for a 66", 42# @ 30" recurve with long limbs. BTW, the riser on my recurve is 19" long and the limbs are 23.5" long so I suspect the long limbs come into play shooting a very heavy arrow.

With that said, I'm shooting the exact 33.12 ft/lbs KE you're shooting, but with a 637 grain arrow at 153 fps.

What poundage are you shooting?

[Txnrog]

202fps? That's smokin for a trad bow!

Completely off topic, but KE is NOT the best indicator of terminal performance. It's a bit overplayed in archery circles, and definately gives the advantage to speed over weight (velocity is squared in the equation) - a game that a trad bow will NEVER win. It's a measure of the energy imparted to the system and is not highly influencable by changing projectiles (there will be a 'sweet spot' for every rig where max energy is imparted to the arrow, but most setups only swing a couple ft/lbs in either direction within accepted limits). You can't 'create' energy, but you can tweak your setup a bit so that the projectile absorbs the most energy possible.

You're also measuring it at a point less than 5 feed from the bow.

IMO Momentum is a better measure of terminal performance as it's a measure more directly related to the projectile. Just like how with bullets we look at Ballistic Coefficient to measure the ability of a round to maintain momentum thruout it's flight and upon impact - this is why you don't see 125gr bullets for a 30-06 very often - they don't retain energy as well as a 150 or 180. With arrows, you're looking at mostly similar aerodynamic profiles, but as you add mass to the projectile, you increase the ability to retain energy, and retain that energy upon impact. Since an arrow kills by slicing and blood loss, we want a projectile to retain as much energy as possible upon impact, to get that blade to the next vein and out the other side. . . NOT 'transfer' that energy to the impacted body. Take it to the extreme, and would you rather be hit by a pingpong ball going 100mph or a bowling ball going 10mph??

FOC is also another good measure for archers since our projectiles are long and flexible. The greater % of weight rearward, the more energy that can be bled out upon impact in lateral motion of the arrow 'flexing'.

Anyway, long way of saying, it couldn't hurt to add more weight up front to your setup. You may lose some Fps, and the KE may not look that different, but terminal performance could be greatly enhanced.

[widdler]

With my short draw length and a primitive bow with a 600 grain arrow the bow shoots 140 fps which is about 26 ft/lb I put the arrow up to the feathers in a white tail deer. Chris I think you just had a freak shot on your deer and it happens to us at times. With the arrow speed you are getting from your bow put some weight on your arrows and you will pound your next deer.