This is interesting stuff. I happened to be part of a group who pioneered the video recording of bowhunting whitetail deer (Bowhunting October Whitetails). To my knowledge, there had never been a whitetail killed on production video at that time yet. This was in the early 1980s. Now days there have been tens of thousands, or more taken "on film."
Back then we were using pretty much state of the art camcorders that were huge and very similar to those used for TV productions. They were about the size of a small suitcase. They also weighed a ton and were downright dangerous to maneuver around while perched in a treestand.
I recall one sequence that was very educational. In fact, I believe it was the first time anything like this was ever taped. We taped three separate scenarios. All three guys were shooting over 70 lb. bows. Two were shooting compounds and myself shooting a #72 lb. recurve. All three filmed shots were taken at approximately a distance of 14 to 15 yards. All three deer had no clue anyone was around and were totally relaxed. All three bowhunters made good, broadside shots and we successfully showed all three arrows cleanly/ totally missing the deer.
It wasn't until we got to the editing room that we realized what our eyes were missing. The professional editing equipment had the capabilities to pause each second of footage into one-hundredths of a second. We set up the timers, so the editing clock started timing the shot audibly at the "plunk" of the bow string. And the clock stopped at the sound of the arrow hitting the ground. We tried this multiple times so there would be no human deviations. The three complete misses showed an AVERAGE of 29/100s of a second. Think about this. A deer is casually feeding; he hears something, and his mind registers, "I heard something; it's on my right and I have to go to the left... and he's completely GONE in 29/100s of one second! It's a wonder we ever get one!
Putting this footage in slow-motion really taught us something. When a deer "jumps the string", he immediately drops straight downward, thus cocking his legs for the initial leap to freedom. Aiming halfway up the body depth caused the arrow to fly just over his back, or a flesh wound more often than not. Whereas by aiming one-third up from the bottom, if the deer dropped you would much more likely get into the chest cavity. Of course, there are variations, but that little tidbit of information likely helped lower the wounding factor considerably over the last forty years or so. Yes, the newer high-tech compounds that shoot ultra-fast flat arrows may not be as relevant, but we traditionalists need to keep this in mind to minimalize any wounding loss. Try to keep your shots fairly close and hold just a tad low. Merry Christmas to all. BW
Topic: Just How Fast Can a Deer Drop? (Read 1903 times)
