Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, and now your host,
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson. Hey everyone, welcome to the wire to Hunt
Speaker 1: Foundations podcast, which is brought to you by First Light.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is all about choosing bow accessories, specifically sites
Speaker 1: and peep sites, so that you'll be a better shot
Speaker 1: in the field. I know, I know, it just seems boring,
Speaker 1: but bear with me. While we often focus on bow
Speaker 1: choice as the most important thing for hitting deer in
Speaker 1: the ribs, that mentality really glosses over how important some
Speaker 1: of your accessory choices are. I plan to get into
Speaker 1: rest and quivers and stabilizers next week, but for now,
Speaker 1: I want to focus on what we used to aim
Speaker 1: with our sites and our peep sites, and why you
Speaker 1: might choose certain styles over others, and what that means
Speaker 1: to you as an individual and more importantly, as a
Speaker 1: white tail hunt. In September two thousand and eight, a
Speaker 1: good buddy and I were sitting on a hillside in
Speaker 1: western North Dakota as the mid morning sun started to
Speaker 1: cause heat mirages in the distance. The mule deer we're
Speaker 1: all likely to be bedded up in the shade, and
Speaker 1: it just felt like time to head back to the
Speaker 1: camp for a little bit of lunch. And as we
Speaker 1: walked single file through the bad lands and towards my truck,
Speaker 1: I ended up spotting a silhouette of a mule deer
Speaker 1: where there probably shouldn't have been any deer, and through
Speaker 1: my binos I could see it was a spike buck,
Speaker 1: which meant it was a shooter. I hit the dirt,
Speaker 1: and in response, my buddy, who was behind me, did too.
Speaker 1: There really wasn't much to work with between the little
Speaker 1: buck and I, but I started crawling anyway. I used
Speaker 1: a slight fold in the terrain and some sage brush,
Speaker 1: and somehow that buck, probably because he was alone and
Speaker 1: young and dumb and browsing away not paying attention, he
Speaker 1: just let me get way closer than I expected. And
Speaker 1: as I was worming my way into that bow range,
Speaker 1: I realized he wasn't alone. There was a bigger buck,
Speaker 1: although not like a big big buck, that was feeding
Speaker 1: behind him on the same ridge, going the same way.
Speaker 1: Now that four by four actually took a rope a
Speaker 1: little closer to me, and after I arranged him at
Speaker 1: thirty five yards, I drew a shot and I watched
Speaker 1: him drop on my arrow hit. It was a spine shot,
Speaker 1: so I put another one in him and I sat down.
Speaker 1: It was my first mule deer, and I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 1: I also couldn't believe that I had kicked off my
Speaker 1: season with such a good start. Well, you could definitely
Speaker 1: say I had peaked early that year, and you wouldn't
Speaker 1: be lying. After that buck, I went on an embarrassing streak.
Speaker 1: I missed dear. I shoulder hit a toad of a
Speaker 1: buck in northern Minnesota that never ended up wearing my tag.
Speaker 1: It was brutal and an absolute melt down of a season.
Speaker 1: It got so bad that I was almost scared to
Speaker 1: see a deer walking down the trail because I didn't
Speaker 1: want to shoot for fear screwing things up. And as
Speaker 1: soon as that season wrapped up, I said to myself
Speaker 1: that I either need to make a real change or
Speaker 1: consider a career writing about something else, like returning to
Speaker 1: my fishing roots. I mean, I don't know, you can
Speaker 1: make a bad cast and it doesn't ruin your season
Speaker 1: unless I don't know, you hook yourself or a nearby
Speaker 1: toddler or something Anyway, the first switch that I decided
Speaker 1: to make because I didn't want to go back to
Speaker 1: my fishing writing roots, was with my site. I knew
Speaker 1: that I was panicking during my shot sequence, and then
Speaker 1: as soon as I got enough of the deer in
Speaker 1: my side aperture, I was going to punch that trigger.
Speaker 1: That's one of the reasons that I hit that old
Speaker 1: deer high. It's also one of the reasons that if
Speaker 1: i'd miss I almost always shot over deer, never under
Speaker 1: the same thing happens to me if I get a
Speaker 1: little too geeked up when I'm rifle hunting, well, I
Speaker 1: don't do it often. I really have to force myself
Speaker 1: to hold my crossairs where they need to be instead
Speaker 1: of just dropping them in and shooting as soon as
Speaker 1: the deer fills up my scope. It took some not
Speaker 1: so fun reflection on my part to decide how to
Speaker 1: make a change. I realized that if I had a
Speaker 1: top pin shot like a twenty yards and under, I
Speaker 1: had a chance of making it happen. I've done it
Speaker 1: dozens and dozens of times over the course of my
Speaker 1: bow hunting career, but I wasn't happy about how often
Speaker 1: it didn't work out that way, and if I had
Speaker 1: to use a different pin or gap with my pins,
Speaker 1: I was in real trouble. I'd panic and bad stuff
Speaker 1: would happen. So I dumbed down the whole thing with
Speaker 1: a single pin site. And I've talked about this a lot,
Speaker 1: and this might sound like hyperbole, but hear me out.
Speaker 1: After getting used to dialing into the specific shot distance,
Speaker 1: which took I don't know, a couple of months, for sure,
Speaker 1: I felt like a new man. It honestly reminds me
Speaker 1: of how it felt to finally sober up and realize
Speaker 1: that I didn't need to feel like shit every morning
Speaker 1: or plan most of my social engagements around having enough
Speaker 1: alcohol to function. It was freeing now. That spring and summer,
Speaker 1: I shot a lot because I was truly enjoying it,
Speaker 1: and honestly, I had a lot of time in my
Speaker 1: life during those pre kid days. I had never done
Speaker 1: the really long range thing before that year, but I
Speaker 1: did it a lot. Then. Being able to shoot a
Speaker 1: fairly tight group at eight yards isn't real confidence booster,
Speaker 1: and I got there, but I was still nervous about
Speaker 1: hunting with a new site, especially one that i'd have
Speaker 1: to move at certain times. So the first test came
Speaker 1: for me on familiar ground in North Dakota on opening
Speaker 1: night of that year, but this time it was a
Speaker 1: trio of young antelope betted near a pond. I took
Speaker 1: the longest shot on my bow hunting career on one
Speaker 1: of those speed goats, and I hit him perfectly, and
Speaker 1: it felt like a good omen. And it only got
Speaker 1: better when I went back to Minnesota for the opener
Speaker 1: and had my first chance to fill a doteg and
Speaker 1: she only went fifty yards. Later that season, after drawing
Speaker 1: my first Iowa tag, had a mid one ten pointers,
Speaker 1: standing broadside at thirty five yards looking for whoever had
Speaker 1: just northwest at him. As I was about to hit
Speaker 1: the trigger, he turned toward me and walked into seven yards.
Speaker 1: This was the moment that everyone had warned me about,
Speaker 1: because I had to let down and dial into point
Speaker 1: blank range. Now that buck never made it out of sight,
Speaker 1: and those fears of having to potentially move with the
Speaker 1: deer close they subsided. And since that season, I've mostly
Speaker 1: shot single pin movers, but I have gone back to
Speaker 1: fix multi pin sites a few different times for white tails.
Speaker 1: They don't make sense for me personally, So here's my
Speaker 1: pitch on this. Think about your your mistakes, think about
Speaker 1: the shots that went wrong, and ask yourself, why do
Speaker 1: you actually know why you missed? Like did you actually
Speaker 1: misjudge the range and use the wrong pin or did
Speaker 1: you actually hit an unseen twig? Or did you just
Speaker 1: flame out in spectacular fashion and then just fill in
Speaker 1: the blanks later to save some face. We do that
Speaker 1: a lot, and we never admit it. In fact, those
Speaker 1: common excuses are so generally accepted amongst us bow hunters
Speaker 1: that they are a sure way out. We all just
Speaker 1: allow them because we know we've used them or we
Speaker 1: might use them in the future. It's like an unspoken pact.
Speaker 1: But instead of taking that route, ask yourself, I don't
Speaker 1: know if you usually miss high or low? Why why
Speaker 1: always high or why always low? If you tend to
Speaker 1: hit shoulders and guts more often than hearts and lungs,
Speaker 1: why what's going on that is causing you to blow
Speaker 1: an opportunity that you should be able to make with
Speaker 1: a speed year, let alone a modern compound outfitted with
Speaker 1: all the bells and whistles. The thing here is that
Speaker 1: a lot of us have to figure out a way
Speaker 1: to work with our buck fever. This was my case
Speaker 1: and I needed to dumb down my aiming process. I
Speaker 1: put the dialing in part outside of the aiming part,
Speaker 1: or before the aiming part, I guess I should say,
Speaker 1: which means that when I am drawn and aiming, all
Speaker 1: I have to do is float one green pin where
Speaker 1: it needs to be better. Yet, I've got a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of open space and a big site aperture that
Speaker 1: lets me see the front and the back end of
Speaker 1: the deer, so I'm not trying to peek around a
Speaker 1: rack of pins, and I know through trial and error
Speaker 1: that this is right for me, especially if that site
Speaker 1: has a two inch aperture and is fitted with a
Speaker 1: single vertical pin that measures nineteen ths of an inch
Speaker 1: and just so happens to be green. Now, that might
Speaker 1: not be right for you, but you should be thinking
Speaker 1: about it unless every day you shoot at ends up
Speaker 1: running less than a hundred yards and piling up with
Speaker 1: foamy pink blood on its lips. You should be thinking
Speaker 1: about it every season when your shots, or should I say,
Speaker 1: if your shots don't go the way you expect them to.
Speaker 1: Now I just mentioned this, but I'm going to go
Speaker 1: over it again, because it's real important. Being a good
Speaker 1: shot on deer is something we should all strive for.
Speaker 1: We should obsess about it as much as we obsess
Speaker 1: about trying to get into range of bucks all season long.
Speaker 1: It's something we can control, or at least learn to control,
Speaker 1: and it's often the difference maker between loving deer hunting
Speaker 1: as much as possible and not. But it's not easy though.
Speaker 1: Admitting that you just can't keep your ship together on
Speaker 1: a big buck is tough, especially when you can flip
Speaker 1: on the sports miss channel and watch privileged twelve year
Speaker 1: old shoot hunter and seventy deer every day. Now, those
Speaker 1: kids don't know any better, and if they missed her
Speaker 1: screw up, they believe, because it's true, that there'll be
Speaker 1: other booners coming down the trail now, You though, for
Speaker 1: the average hunter hunting, average ground shot opportunities on good
Speaker 1: bucks are rare. For many of us, they're so rare
Speaker 1: that they might not happen. But once every couple of
Speaker 1: seasons are longer, now that's the breeding ground for buck fever.
Speaker 1: And the more time it takes for those rare encounters
Speaker 1: to come around, the more that buck fever can fester
Speaker 1: and grow and take over your brain when that buck
Speaker 1: finally does start walking down the trail. Now, a change
Speaker 1: in sights won't fix that meltdown issue, but it can
Speaker 1: smooth some of the sharp edges. It can give you
Speaker 1: off season confidence in your abilities, which is more important
Speaker 1: to carry into the woods than any bottle of dopes
Speaker 1: ever will be. If you figure out that a three
Speaker 1: pin site with all green pins and a one in
Speaker 1: three quarter inch aperture is ideal for you to be
Speaker 1: able to shoot tight groups at the range all summer long,
Speaker 1: then some of that will tag along into the woods
Speaker 1: with you, and that's a good thing. All I'm saying
Speaker 1: is pay attention to the shots that go right and
Speaker 1: the ones that go wrong for the latter. If you
Speaker 1: find yourself looking for an excuse but really have to
Speaker 1: dig deep into your imagination to conjure up one, it
Speaker 1: might be time to think through your setup, which should
Speaker 1: start with how you aim. Now. Of course, your site
Speaker 1: is part of the deal, but so is a peep site.
Speaker 1: In fact, I don't know, so is a kisser button,
Speaker 1: or even a little bit of serving tight on your
Speaker 1: string to touch the tip of your nose at full draw.
Speaker 1: Anything that you're comfortable with. It also allows you to
Speaker 1: reinforce consistent anchoring during your draw cycle. That's a good thing. Now,
Speaker 1: I don't use a kiss or a little bit of serving,
Speaker 1: but that's just me. I am sort of weirdly obsessed
Speaker 1: with peep sites. This comes mostly from having a few
Speaker 1: revelatory moments in the field with them. The first, which
Speaker 1: I guess I don't know it wasn't really so much
Speaker 1: revelatory as it was just an introduction, started when I
Speaker 1: was twelve years old and our peep site options were
Speaker 1: very limited. They were built with an oversized plastic piece
Speaker 1: that was served into the string and aligned via section
Speaker 1: of rubber band tubing. That tubing was loud, and occasionally
Speaker 1: we'll get brittled in cold weather and snap and hitch
Speaker 1: in the eye. The peep site itself was a great idea,
Speaker 1: but they were bad products because the whole was barely
Speaker 1: big enough to fit a sewing needle through. In broad daylight,
Speaker 1: you could line it up and find your non fiber
Speaker 1: optic pin, but in the woods, when the deer were
Speaker 1: most prone to be walking around, it was a rough deal.
Speaker 1: And again not being able to find your target easily
Speaker 1: when you know that the target has the real chance
Speaker 1: of walking out of your life at any moment, can
Speaker 1: create panic, buck fever. Panic and panic is bad, bad, bad,
Speaker 1: and it happens to all of us anyway. Those pinhole
Speaker 1: peeps with the slingshot attachment eventually gave way to the
Speaker 1: precursors to the peep options we have today. Many of
Speaker 1: them were built with slightly bigger apertures, but still use
Speaker 1: the alignment tube. Over the years, we figured out that
Speaker 1: we could train a peep and our stringths to work
Speaker 1: together to come back square to our eyes. We also
Speaker 1: figured out that we could go pretty large with them
Speaker 1: to really allow light to hit her eyes. I think
Speaker 1: this is one of them underappreciated advancements in archery technology.
Speaker 1: I really do now. I know it's not as sexy
Speaker 1: as the first single cam designs or I don't know,
Speaker 1: carbon risers or you name it, but the ability to
Speaker 1: center a site ring during every shot while light actually
Speaker 1: reaches your eye and allows you to see the whole
Speaker 1: site window is an absolute gift. Not only does that
Speaker 1: help most folks shoot better at the range and in
Speaker 1: the woods, but it also allows you to customize your
Speaker 1: shot sequence to some extent. You can choose a peep
Speaker 1: to center on a single pin if you want, and
Speaker 1: that is an option you see some really talented shooters use,
Speaker 1: especially some of the Western hunters. Or you can upsize
Speaker 1: it and center the inside your aperture to your sight
Speaker 1: ring or something else. I guess personally, a one quarter
Speaker 1: inch peep site or a three a cinch peep site
Speaker 1: is ideal because I really like to center my sight
Speaker 1: ring when I aim. That is a good way for
Speaker 1: me to see that things haven't moved and that from
Speaker 1: shot to shot I'm doing the exact same thing. This
Speaker 1: is something that seems pretty simple and intuitive, but it's
Speaker 1: not necessarily so it's also something that can lead to
Speaker 1: misses that we just don't understand. So once again we
Speaker 1: gotta make up some excuses. Now, am I being evasive
Speaker 1: enough for you? There? Let me explain. When your peep site,
Speaker 1: no matter the size you choose, because whatever you like,
Speaker 1: is tied into your string, it should be tied so
Speaker 1: that it comes back to your eye in the exact
Speaker 1: same spot every time you draw. Now, you might have
Speaker 1: to train your string by twisting it to get it
Speaker 1: to come back truly square, but the height of the
Speaker 1: peep in your string shouldn't change. Sometimes it does, however,
Speaker 1: and we usually don't know that it does, so we
Speaker 1: shoot higher or low and we don't know why. And
Speaker 1: here's the thing about this. If your peep site creeps
Speaker 1: ever so slightly up or down, then your point of
Speaker 1: impact is going to change. You're not going to notice
Speaker 1: that the peep site moved a sixteenth of an inch,
Speaker 1: and you'll just ref lexibly and unconsciously adjust your anchor
Speaker 1: or your head position to see the sight window you
Speaker 1: know you're supposed to be seeing at the moment. And
Speaker 1: when you do that, you're going to change the point
Speaker 1: of impact. And when you change the point of impact, well,
Speaker 1: your arrows don't go where they're supposed to. A little
Speaker 1: bit of movement like this can come from a few
Speaker 1: different sources. If your peep site isn't tied incorrectly, it
Speaker 1: could slide up or down. String materials, as awesome as
Speaker 1: they are these days, can still potentially stretch, and when
Speaker 1: this happens, your peep site will move. Among a few
Speaker 1: other things. Oh, this isn't as common as it used
Speaker 1: to be, but it's not so rare that it never happens.
Speaker 1: Plus the odds of it increase the more the bow
Speaker 1: is exposed to heat and cold and the elements and
Speaker 1: the hot interior of your vehicle after summer shooting sessions,
Speaker 1: and just plain old time in the wear and tear
Speaker 1: that comes with it. Bows, by the nature of their design,
Speaker 1: are under a lot of stress all the time. The
Speaker 1: bow you buy today brand new, isn't it's the same
Speaker 1: bow you'll own after three years of hard hunting. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like driving a new truck off the lot.
Speaker 1: Isn't really like you have the same truck after three
Speaker 1: years of driving. I mean, it is the same truck,
Speaker 1: but stuff wears out there slowly degrades, and that's just
Speaker 1: something worth being aware of. And with peep sites, no
Speaker 1: matter what style you choose, it's a good idea to
Speaker 1: do a simple exercise where you close your eyes and draw.
Speaker 1: When you settle into your anchor, open your eye and
Speaker 1: take note where your peep site is. If it's under
Speaker 1: over rotated, that's a pretty easy fix, you know, just
Speaker 1: twist the string a little bit. But if it's a
Speaker 1: hair high or low, you know that it is moved,
Speaker 1: and that can be an easy fix as well. But
Speaker 1: it's also something you absolutely want to be aware of.
Speaker 1: I checked this on my bows often, because if my
Speaker 1: peep moves even a little bit, I could go from
Speaker 1: a lung shot to a spine shot or a miss
Speaker 1: all over something I can diagnose and remedy in a
Speaker 1: matter of a few seconds. Think about your sites, think
Speaker 1: about your peep sites. And now I know this isn't
Speaker 1: as exciting as the latest and greatest hunting tactics that
Speaker 1: are guaranteed to help you kill monster public landbox every season.
Speaker 1: But the truth is, it's the little things we can
Speaker 1: control that separate the dear killers from the deer hunters.
Speaker 1: Thinking about site choice and why you choose this single
Speaker 1: pin mover or maybe a three pin multi pin or
Speaker 1: a five pin multipin, as well as your peep site choice,
Speaker 1: are just two of those differentiators, and they matter, even
Speaker 1: if they aren't all that much fun to talk about
Speaker 1: or listen to some idiot talk about. I guess and
Speaker 1: other accessories matter too, and that's what I'm going to
Speaker 1: get into next week. As I always, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for listening to the Wire to Hunt Foundations podcast,
Speaker 1: which is brought to you by First Light. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson. If you want to read some of my
Speaker 1: articles or articles from quite a few really talented white
Speaker 1: tail hunters, head on over to the meat eater dot com,
Speaker 1: slash wired, and if that's not an enough, check out
Speaker 1: our wire to Hunt YouTube channel as well, where Mark
Speaker 1: and I dropped knew how to videos every single week.
Speaker 1: M