Bow Camo idea

[Kurt Miller]

after reading Guru's ghillie build up, I decided to do a little work to my longbow.  I had my original homemade suit a lot like Guru's I don't use any more so I salvaged some pieces I off it. I have a rancho safari i got for donating a certain amount to Farmers and Hunters Feeding the Hungry a few years ago.  I trimmed the arm and chest so had extra material from it also. I just tied and camo taped a bunch on. I need to add a few to the bottom, but looks pretty good.  Planning on hunting out of the blind soon.  

But then, whereas Gurus build a neat "shield" to block draw arm, I came up with a very simple and pretty effective shield of my own by merely tying extra long 2-3" wide strips about 12" long from the sight window up about 2/3.  On some of them I tied a few extras bows with other material part way down.  Cannot really reverse cant a la Terry Green, but even vertical they stay pretty much out of the way, but since I cant, they form a nice curtain blocking draw arm.  I think it works since I drew on a tom looking at me from 5 yds today.  I was in a blind that had a large window, no roof so I was actually probably quite visible and think he would have surely seen the movement at such close range.  Unfortunately the shot wasn't so successful as I lament on another post.
     

[lpcjon2]

This is how I did mine
 
I do like the ghillie look

[Guru]

Looks good bud, couple observations...


What happens if the wind is blowing crosswind? Won't it blow the material into your sight pic?

It also seems with the material that long that wind might create enough movement that it may unnatural to gobblers.  Ya know more than natural leaf/branch movement.

Just some things that come to mind quickly as I look at the pic.....probably just me over-thinking as usual      

Go get-um!!!

[Kurt Miller]

very good points.  I am usually overthinking things myself.  Just threw it together really quick last night.  breeze not a real problem in a blind but i really built for ghillie hunting so i must test it soon.  Thanks for possibly saving the day.  Yours is awesome, i just don't use a bow quiver.

[outbackbowhunter]

Might slow your bow just a tad........

[wingnut]

It is going to effect the bow performance quite a bit.  You've added weight and wind resistance to the limbs.

Mike

[Kurt Miller]

The material is quite light but then so are the limbs and I suspect definitely losing some but at my somewhat limited effective range(12-15 yds)for turkey I have seen very little loss of performance.  I'm sure out past that it will make a difference, just haven't tested that far because I'm in a bit of a slump and rarely am able to effectively shoot past 15 lately.  Will check it out before deer season for sure.  Thanks

[Ragnarok Forge]

I have to second the affects on the bow performance.  I would do some shooting at varying hunting ranges to see what if any change in tuning and arrow impact point has changed.

[Kurt Miller]

After studying the picture again I realized I could get rid of some of the higher up stuff and still hide draw arm pretty well.  So i removed a lot off top and even a few on bottom. As far as I could tell with my less than stellar groups (not a result of new camo-just me), point of impact seems little if any different out to 12 yds.  Although I guess 3 of my last 4 at 8yds were within an inch of the 1/2" square of electrical tape I use as aim pt--so not too bad of a group- just took a little warm up to get to that point.  Critters don't give us any warmup shots.   Will fling a few long ones tomorrow.  

In reference to crosswinds, I had decent breeze today and it was not a problem but any real winds, like you midwest folks so often deal with may require trimming a few a little more.