Pheasant hunting with a bow

[oxnam]

Originally posted by bowzonly:
You will not see any video of me shooting at birds beyond 15 yards, because over the years I have developed the lightning fast reflexes needed to take them at close range

You are so right about getting a good shot off fast, it really ups the odds of a kill.  In hunting wild chukars, I have come to the conclusion that I will kill more birds if I always get my shot off (within reason).  I won't hesitate to shoot at a crossing bird at 30 yards.  It is impossible to kill a bird unless I put an arrow in the air, even if the odds are stacked against me.  By shooting, my mind can start to get processing the information from every shot and hopefully expand my abilities over time.  

No one should hold back with aerial archery, it is the only arena in which the most difficult shots are expected and archers are still encouraged to shoot.  I like the idea of stripping away our regularly imposed limitations and being amazed at what can happen.  Put arrows in the air!!

[instinctivebowman]

Originally posted by 23feetupandhappy:
Our TG hunt with Jeremy is on Sun and Im stoked    

6 trad gangers, 28 pheasant. i too am stoked
jeremy

[bowzonly]

DO NOT use the SNARO heads. WAY to heavy and wire loops just flex to much.  Again evev they will work under the right conditions.  My buddy hit a pheas broadside with a 70 pound compound, bird dropped like  a rock. I took the head off a quail flying left to right with one and believe it or not I actually planned it. I was shooting at quail all morning and just nicking them with nothing to show but a few feathers. When one flew past at about 8 -10 yards I intentionnaly overled (if thats even a word) it an that did the trick. The following year I was invited to cohost a long running ESPN outdoor show. We were to hunt quail on a Georgia plantation.  I brought a shotgun just for filming purpose. With pen raised birds, by the second day I was closing my eyes and shooting cause I felt bad for the birds LOL. On the third day I brought out the bow and Snaros. I missed the first three, but when the fourth got up in front of me and flew straight away I drilled it square in the back.  It went down in a big puff of feathers but when I went to pick it up it flew away.  That was the last time I used the Snaros. Even with just a field point instead I would have had quail on a stick.

[bowzonly]

Here is an example of why sometimes only a broadhead will work. I THINK this math is correct. 5280 feet per mile x 40 mph (how fast a pheas can fly.  That gives uou 211200 feet per hour. Divide by 60 minutes gives you 35200 feet per minute divide again by 60 (secs in a min) gives you 58.66666 feet per sec. Lets say a bird is flying straight away.  You then need to subtract this # from you arrow speed. My speed off the bow is about 180 (this next number is shear guesswork) At 20 yards, with flu flus lets say my speed is now 100 fps - the speed of the bird 58.666.... means my arrow is now hitting the bird at about 42 fps.  Not much energy left to take down a bird as tough as a pheas.

[oxnam]

Those snaros generally don't hook or cut anything.  And for the amount of wire hanging out there, they have too much wind resistance, spread the impact energy over a huge area, and flex too much (the wires) to allow the proper energy transfer for a kill.  Super fast arrows and small birds are the best case scenario for this head.

[BobCo 1965]

I like the G5 small game, however, they were more delicate then I thought they'd be. My son ended up breaking tips on all three or them with his Pearson 37# bow. We did take a nice partridge with them though and the head was deadly. Almost too much so as it tore up an aweful lot of meat. I don't think I'll be buying them again considering the price.

[ARCHER2]

Well, from what you guys are saying, maybe I don't need any of these heads. Expensive, not very tough, plus I shoot woodies so I guess they're out since I didn't see any glue on's in this head anyway. I appreciate all the info. guys, as always plenty of folks willing to help.
Tradgang is tops!
Thanks!
Charlie

[two4hooking]

.38/.357 casing and some banding steel.

 

[ARCHER2]

There ya go, I can build these cheap! Thanks!

[bowzonly]

two4hooking if you grind down the rounded edges of the blunt case, maybe, but now youre back to step one with basically a broadhead. Yes there is a blunt surface on the SGH but for some reason the configuration of that head provides a perfect combo of what I call shocktrauma. If I get my photobucket working again I will post a pic of a pair of birds hit square in the breast.  The head punched a hole about the size of a quarter and about a half inch deep then bounced out. Those birds dropped like a rock and I just cut that quarter out and enjoyed a great meal (Jack Daniels grilled pheas, google it, its my new fav game recipe.) Anyway, with pheas in flite I would worry about hitting them first and salvaging the meat later. The hook on the SGH greatly increases the # of birds I take cause it grabs a hold, digs in and slices them open. I stopped using broadheads because many times they actually deflected off leg bones and quill feathers The SGH hold up very well when used for pheas in flite with flu flus cause they parachute to the ground and dont take a beating.

[two4hooking]

I have also heard you can crimp a 1/2 a penny in a vice after inserting it into steel blunt notched with a hacksaw.  You can file sharpen the penny edges. I have not tried this.

It just seems like this combo of shock and laceration is the ticket without buying expensive heads IMO.  You can make the edges dull enough to not readily hurt a dog yet sharp enough to cause a laceration with bow velocities.

[beachbowhunter]

What about a field point with the Adder point behind it?

[bowzonly]

Tried that as well beachbowhunter not nearly as good as the SGH (back to what I said before, almost anything will work sometime. But let me put it this way. The best device for taking a bird out of the air (aside from the shotgun) was invented by mother nature tens of thousands (or is it hundreds, I dont really know) of years ago.  Its called the talon. In all that time mom has never felt the need to improve on her design. Look at the shape of the SGH.

[bowzonly]

For you religous zealots, LOL, who believe the earth is only 4000 years old. I apology for that last post. But can we please leave religion out of this discussion cause I'm finding it hard enough to make my point as it is. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha.

Well, I am going in two days! I have some of Jeremy's pheasant heads and I have just feild points also (I also have some old broadhead ferruls that are sharp pointed chisel points). My plan is to try the pheasant heads first, with regular feathers, and see how that works.

I'll be back with a report on Monday!

Bisch

[1screagle]

When I see different modifications and designs I wonder about simply modifying the broadheads by taking a file to the edges, rounding them off. Flatten the tip. If you make it so a dog cannot cut itself would it still be able to penetrate the bird? Stick a Scorpio catcher on it. Would this be ok? Or why not? This thread has proven to be very helpful thatnk you!

[BobCo 1965]

For the people that have killed many pheasants in flight with broadheads or any type of sharpened head including G5 SGH, do you find that arrow stays in the bird often? Just asking.

[oxnam]

Originally posted by 1screagle:
Flatten the tip. If you make it so a dog cannot cut itself would it still be able to penetrate the bird? Stick a Scorpio catcher on it. Would this be ok?

If you consider the the very small surface area of the modified broadhead, in general I would expect good penetration.  If the blunt tip of a broadhead is 1/4" wide, it should easily penetrate.  But if the blunt tip is 3/4" wide, the impact force is not distributed onto over three times the surface area.  It may not be an issue for killing birds but I would expect less penetration.


 

Originally posted by BobCo 1965:
you find that arrow stays in the bird often? Just asking.

I find that the arrow stays in fairly regularly with a broadhead and I am shooting a heavy bow.

[owlbait]

I dubbed the ends of Bodkin broadheads and left the edges unsharpened. The owner I shot with said they were dog safe. The birds felt they were too, because I never hit one. What a blast though. Unfortunately, the organization I belonged to screwed up the hunt the next year and I haven't gone since. The owner said the best success he saw was from the biggest Snaro heads.

[oxnam]

If he thought the snaros were great, he would probably really like the Pheasant Spear.  Most guys struggle with direct hits so those big heads do have their advantages.