Shootability: Light Colored Versus Dark Shafts

[Honest Jon]

Perhaps this has been batted around before but I don’t recall it. I recently made up a set of dark walnut colored arrows that I think are pretty nice but when I shoot them under certain light conditions (like very early morning or late evening) they seem to disappear while still on the arrow rest. I always believed that I shoot instinctive but apparently I do use the arrow as a reference, at least to some degree. When I go to light colored shafts my confidence and accuracy immediately improve.  Maybe this means I suck at building arrows  ! But let’s ignore that probability for this discussion. Anyone else run in to this phenom?
Honest Jon

[The Whittler]

If you do wraps just cut a1/16"-1/8" off the end and put it around near the fieldpoint/broadhead and see if that helps.

[Terry Green]

It's not that you aren't shooting instinctive, you still are.  It's that you have removed a portion of awareness of your subconscious.  You have remove sight, I have no idea where my arrow is when I shoot, but my subconscious sure does.

I have shot a LOT at night, with very little light, even shot a nice 8 pointer on a recovery on late night. The guy with the tracking dog was holding a little pen light, before LEDs existed, and this was his reply....

"I've seen it ALL now. I thought this was just going to be some kind of goose chase but I have never seen anything like that.  I had now clue you could shoot one of them bows like that in the dark.  If I hadn't of heard about you killing that night hog a few years back I'd have thought you just gotten lucky back then, but two for two ain't just luck."

A few years after that I killed a charging hog at night with 5 witnesses. All those were shots were with gun metal colored shafts.

That reminds me, I need to try something in total darkness.  Maybe I'll do it after this latest Ice Age of the "climate change" like what happened int TX a couple of years back.

[Ryan Rothhaar]

Yep, absolutely makes a difference in my opinion. Even shooting instinctively your subconscious uses the arrow shaft to align. The better you can see it the better the alignment, whether consciously or subconsciously aiming. Dad started spraying aluminum arrows primer gray and then giving then a couple coats of wipe in car wax to make them slick way back at least as early as the 70's. I have a couple arrows he shot deer with back then that are primer gray. I paint most of my arrows, lighter colored woodgrain colored shafts I don't bother if they are light enough already. Aluminum and carbon.

R

[Ryan Rothhaar]

 

[BAK]

Terry to try it out you'll need a place with absolute darkness.  That is not all that easy to find.   I think I've mentioned I ran such an experiment years back in a basement range at night with no lights or windows anywhere.   TOTAL darkness.   I used glow in the dark plastic stars from Walmart as targets at 15 yards.   NO ONE came anywhere close to hitting them.   

[durp]

For me and only me...if my poor little pea brain notice my arrow while drawing Ive all ready missed, don't matter what the color is...ymmv...for me it's all about concentration and repeatable form   

[Buggs]

I think shooting in the dark is an excellent way to determine how "instinctive" you really are.
I do what BAK was recommending, with a glow in the dark button in a blacked out shop.
Great way to hone your focus to a pinpoint.

The shaft color should not be an issue, unless you are looking at it and if thats the case you have other problems.
The only part of the arrow you should be aware of visually, is the point and thats only if you are using it as a point of aim.

[Orion]

I'm not a gap shooter, but there's no doubt I see the arrow in my peripheral vision when I shoot.  My wood arrows can vary from the very light tan of unstained cedar to walnut and black stained shafts, and most of my carbon arrows are black axis shafts.  Can't say that's ever been a problem in low light conditions.  When it gets so dark i can't see the arrow, it's usually after shooting hours.  I realize that it's legal to hunt hogs in some places after dark, but I've never had that opportunity. 

[Walt Francis]

Yep, absolutely makes a difference in my opinion. Even shooting instinctively your subconscious uses the arrow shaft to align. The better you can see it the better the alignment, whether consciously or subconsciously aiming. Dad started spraying aluminum arrows primer gray and then giving then a couple coats of wipe in car wax to make them slick way back at least as early as the 70's. I have a couple arrows he shot deer with back then that are primer gray. I paint most of my arrows, lighter colored woodgrain colored shafts I don't bother if they are light enough already. Aluminum and carbon.

R

^^^^^ X2

Ryan,

I read an article where your dad discussed using arrows as you described.  Might have been by him, but I think it was somebody interviewing him and a few others; might have been Gene.

Anyway, I hadn’t paid much attention to the color I dyed my arrow shafts until after reading the article, changed to staining all my arrows an Osage orange/yellow color.  Another thing he mentioned was using a light colored broadhead would help.  I was already using silver/gray broadheads, mounted horizontally

[BAK]

I always have mounted my broadheads horizontally, and, I spray paint the broadheads white.  For me the visual cue helps.

[5deer]

 

[Deertaker]

I learnt this lesson on a black bear hunt! My first trad hunt and had a monster come in right at last light and of course I was shooting black arrows! Next year I put some white wrap around the first 2 inches of the arrow and worked out well!

[Kelly]

Yup, been there, still do that to this day and evermore. Learned it from Roger many a moon ago. Grey primer on my carbons/aluminums and woods are either clear sealed with no stain or painted full length white or yellow. My very first arrows from from 1961 were white full length painted POC. Back then all wood shafts were full length painted, rarely saw a stained/sealed shaft.

[Terry Green]

This was posted on a thread in 2018... my best shot in the dark..... at a Target non game.

"Stepped out of my truck on a hunt I had been invited to(everyone else shooting compounds) at 12:00 midnight as 6 of those guys were having fun launching arrows in the dark at 100 yards hoping to connect with the target.  Just a small dot barely lit up by the flood light of the bunk house behind them 35 yards away. One of the guys new me and asked me to join them, so I hauled my bow out of my truck and waked up to the line....all 6 of them bought Jim Reynolds Thunderstick MOABS after that weekend clinic I put on....don't believe me...ask Jim "

Great Memories for sure.