Honest and sincere questions here, and a few points to ponder.
First one has bugged me literally for years. When there are so many real sources of information, why would anyone get their advice from someone who's barely if ever hunted and never killed anything with a bow? Seriously. I've seen it more times than I care to remember and it always just puzzles me.
Why would anyone think that tuning is "hardly critical" for hunting???? Besides affecting accuracy it also affects bow noise and penetration.
Even if you believe the above, why in the world are you hunting with traditional gear if it's your habit to half-a** it? We hear all sorts of stories about wanting to "up" the challenge is why lots of people went to traditional bows for hunting. We know that hunting with this gear is more difficult. Why in the world would you want to handicap yourself further? I've never met a hunter who said deer hunting with traditional gear had just gotten too easy, so they figured they would do stupid things like half-way tune their set-up to make it more of a challenge. To the contrary, there are countless debates about how to get BETTER penetration! Heavier heads, more FOC, heavier arrows, faster arrows...BETTER TUNING...
A perfect tune, or at least as close as you can reasonably get, DOES MATTER. IT MATTERS AT AT 20 YARDS AND UNDER. I remember being at the Lost Tribe club in Collierville, TN several years ago. They had an "aerial" novelty. Since space was limited, the targets weren't thrown very high and they had archery backstop netting behind the thrower in case of misses. I was shooting a 66# bow and heavy arrows...and I missed several times. Net stopped my arrows, no problem. Rod Jenkins was there. He was shooting around 40#. He didn't miss many, but when he did his arrow WENT THROUGH THE NETTING! Reckon why? Simple. Because Rod is anal about tuning, and very good at it. He was getting better penetration with a bow that was at least 20# lighter, AND ON A MOVING TARGET (i.e. a hunting type shot).
Another "excuse" is "well, you will be wearing extra clothing, shooting from an unfamiliar position, maybe an awkward position, yadda yadda yadda...". Here in Northeast MS we aren't even expecting a frost until mid November. Our bow season opened October first. I've been hunting in 80+ degrees. I ain't exactly been wrapped up in wool. That's what happens when you make blanket statements based on...well, I don't know what it was based on, but it wasn't actual experience or from actually talking to different hunters. Imagination? Even when we do hunt in the cold, there's this thing called "hunting ethics" that most bow hunters are proud to have. That means you practice in the clothes you hunt in. You practice from the position you hunt in. You practice "cold" shots. You pass on shots that require you to get contorted and awkward. Pretty simple.
Then you have the claim of "empirical evidence". What evidence? Read it on the internet so it must be true? It's true because some joker on the internet said so? Someone who isn't even a hunter and never has been? Hey, he said "empirical". That's got to count for something, right? Actually no. Pulling crap from your imagination doesn't make it fact, even if you label it "empirical".
Why in the world would anyone think that tuning is important for punching paper, but not for hunting? Targets don't bleed. Targets don't go for days before they die when you make a lousy shot, or get poor penetration because some idiot on the internet convinced you that you don't have to worry about tuning for hunting. Yeah, thanks internet.
I ask that the actual questions and points be addressed in replies. If you want to attack the messenger and ignore the message, my e-mail is
[email protected]. Knock yourself out.
Topic: Hunting Advice: Questions and Comments (Read 5909 times)
