Speaker 1: As a guide and hunter, I've spent thousands of days
Speaker 1: in the field. This show is about translating my hard
Speaker 1: won experiences into tips and tactics they'll get you closer
Speaker 1: to your ultimate goal success in the field. I'm Remy Warren.
Speaker 1: This is cutting the distance. Welcome back, everybody. I hope
Speaker 1: you've been enjoying these podcasts. You know, we're talking a
Speaker 1: lot about bow hunting, and if I think about bow hunting,
Speaker 1: then I got to think about successful bow hunting. And
Speaker 1: really to be a successful bow hunter, there's thousands of
Speaker 1: things that need to go right, and while much of
Speaker 1: it might seem out of your control, there's archers out
Speaker 1: there who seem to just find consistent success and I
Speaker 1: believe that this is due to limiting easy mistakes to
Speaker 1: shift the odds slightly in the hunter's favor. So the
Speaker 1: last four episodes, we've been going over everything it takes
Speaker 1: to become a new bow hunter, from gear and setups
Speaker 1: to shooting in your backyard too then shooting a game.
Speaker 1: So this week in Bow Hunting two oh two, we're
Speaker 1: gonna just take it a step further and talk about
Speaker 1: the advanced considerations of things like wind, shot angle and
Speaker 1: then the noise in your setup, how to adjust it,
Speaker 1: and how to just push those odds in your favor.
Speaker 1: But before we do that, I want to tell a
Speaker 1: story of a recent hunt of my own where I
Speaker 1: cut a corner and unfortunately paid for it. So last
Speaker 1: week I found myself down in Arizona chasing coups and
Speaker 1: meal dear. It was kind of a last minute decision. Really,
Speaker 1: I just kind of I actually got a new bow
Speaker 1: and I've been shooting it and I'm like, man, this
Speaker 1: thing is just driving tax I'm shooting it great. I
Speaker 1: didn't have a lot of time with it, but I thought, okay,
Speaker 1: i'd be fun to go take this out on a hunt.
Speaker 1: The archery over the counter tags are available, and I
Speaker 1: just kind of figured it was like a Sunday and
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm gonna to go to Arizona. So I
Speaker 1: started packing up my truck and then left like Monday
Speaker 1: morning and started driving down there. And I only had
Speaker 1: a few days of the week to hunt, so it
Speaker 1: was just kind of a bond's eye trip. I guess,
Speaker 1: just load up the stuff, head down, do a little
Speaker 1: solo exploring and see if I can't get on a buck.
Speaker 1: So I got down there, and actually the place that
Speaker 1: I used to hunt, it seems like it's been pretty
Speaker 1: dry recently, but there's big storms moving in. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you're from the west right now, but we're
Speaker 1: getting hammered with some storms. So um it was. It
Speaker 1: was rainy and actually fairly cold, but I think it
Speaker 1: had been pretty dry before. And when I got into
Speaker 1: the area, the first thing I noticed was, okay, a
Speaker 1: recent burn. Whereas planning on hunting now, hunting burns can
Speaker 1: be great, but in this particular instance, there is no
Speaker 1: grass um. The conditions just weren't great for the deer,
Speaker 1: and because of it, I didn't really see any deer.
Speaker 1: I saw the first day, I got on a small
Speaker 1: fork and horn meal deer buck and probably could have
Speaker 1: taken a shot, but I decided to pass. I had
Speaker 1: three more days left and figured first evening, I'm going
Speaker 1: to look around. Now. The place I was hunting was
Speaker 1: quite a walk to get in there. It's I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe four miles, I would say, just like to get
Speaker 1: into the hunting area. Not that that was necessary, but
Speaker 1: I just figured I go somewhere right enough to really
Speaker 1: run into other hunters, and I ended up spotting a lot,
Speaker 1: so I moved past the burn ended making me have
Speaker 1: to hike a little bit further. And I get past
Speaker 1: the burn and now I'm in good, good habitats, start
Speaker 1: spotting does, but just no box. It's like the rut.
Speaker 1: I couldn't figure out if it should have been prime up,
Speaker 1: but it's like the rut was over. It's like the
Speaker 1: bucks were either locked down with does or they were
Speaker 1: just off on their own. And that makes it a
Speaker 1: little bit difficult, especially with deer that can be hard
Speaker 1: to spot in the first place. So I started picking
Speaker 1: out lots and lots of doughs, just no bucks, which
Speaker 1: I'm like, all right, first full day and so I
Speaker 1: kind of got there a half day, spotted that meal
Speaker 1: there buck that evening, and then the first old day,
Speaker 1: I mean I hunted hard. I put on miles. I'd
Speaker 1: have to let me look at my watch. I think
Speaker 1: I put in like sixteen miles that day. Is is
Speaker 1: something crazy. And I was doing a lot of glassing
Speaker 1: as well, so a lot of that walking was just
Speaker 1: in the dark to a good vantage and then moving
Speaker 1: along this long ridge up the mountain and then back down,
Speaker 1: and right at last light I spotted like a big
Speaker 1: cuse deer buck, a giant, but unfortunately he popped out
Speaker 1: seeing some doughs and then it was the only running
Speaker 1: activity I saw. Then he just started chasing those doughs,
Speaker 1: and uh so I go back the next day, a
Speaker 1: big like just heavy rains, hale starts moving in. I
Speaker 1: don't actually see anything. I came up on a tiny
Speaker 1: spike cousebuck that I actually he was like ten yards away,
Speaker 1: and then outside of that nothing, So I decided I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go move areas and try somewhere a little bit
Speaker 1: different for mule deer. But I only had one day,
Speaker 1: so it was a five hour drive from where I
Speaker 1: was at on the other side of the state, but
Speaker 1: just a little bit better mule deer country. So I
Speaker 1: dry there, get their dark camp the night out, and
Speaker 1: then I'm looking at my on X map, just like
Speaker 1: cruising through areas. I mean, while I'm out there, I'm
Speaker 1: constantly scouting for new spots, looking for areas, so I'm
Speaker 1: just flipping between my map layers, going through the regulations,
Speaker 1: kind of reading up on this area. I hunted this
Speaker 1: particular unit, but not this side of the unit for
Speaker 1: a very long time, maybe ten or fifteen years ago,
Speaker 1: so I just couldn't even remember the accesses and where
Speaker 1: legal access was to get into the area and all
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. So I'm just, like you know,
Speaker 1: at night, just spending time going through and planning out
Speaker 1: my hunt for the next day. I end up before daylight,
Speaker 1: getting up and start hiking in and get to a
Speaker 1: good glassing vantage and start picking out deer. Okay, cool.
Speaker 1: I spotted a small mule deer buck with a group
Speaker 1: of doughs, and he's kind of like moving to water,
Speaker 1: but there's been so much rainy they never had to
Speaker 1: go to water, so they just started moving up the canyon. Feared, well,
Speaker 1: it's a good glassing area, a lot of great little
Speaker 1: breaks in here. If I see a buck, will probably
Speaker 1: be able to get a shot. Just how good the
Speaker 1: terrain was, and it was very glassful. So my plan
Speaker 1: was I'm gonna just kind of move up the ridge
Speaker 1: there's maybe a three four three mile long ridge or so,
Speaker 1: and then glass into the shade for the day because
Speaker 1: I'm imagining these bucks are probably gonna pull off by
Speaker 1: themselves if there's anything. Like I was saying in the
Speaker 1: other spot, it's like the bucks were not with the does,
Speaker 1: and sure enough I started picking up groups of does,
Speaker 1: no bucks. So I hike up. You know, I'm quite
Speaker 1: a ways away from where I started, and it's starting
Speaker 1: to become evening, and I'm glassing. I'm just glassing every
Speaker 1: little fold in the mountains. It becomes available. As I'm
Speaker 1: moving up this ridge and I finally spot a mature buck.
Speaker 1: I'm like, sweet, oh, this is so good. And he's
Speaker 1: bedded in a place where I can get to this ridge.
Speaker 1: He's gonna be facing where I'm coming from. But the
Speaker 1: wind is blowing in my direction. It's like perfect concealed approach.
Speaker 1: So I climb down. I make a big loop around
Speaker 1: so he doesn't see me, get up on the top
Speaker 1: and start working my way down on. This is my
Speaker 1: last day. It was a very short trip, but I
Speaker 1: put in some serious miles. I drove a long way.
Speaker 1: It's like a twenty something our drive, I don't know.
Speaker 1: So I get into position, I get up on the
Speaker 1: ridge and I take my boots off. I'm like, all right,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make this one stock count. Got the camera
Speaker 1: with me. I'm doing a little self filming, just to
Speaker 1: add insult to injury, you know, making things makes something
Speaker 1: that's already difficult more difficult. It's just the way I
Speaker 1: like to do it. And so I start creeping in.
Speaker 1: I'm coming down the ridge. Well I figured out, you know,
Speaker 1: I've got on my map where he's at, and I'm
Speaker 1: looking and I'm just kind of dropped down this one
Speaker 1: canyon ahead where I'm gonna go up the next little
Speaker 1: rise and then creep in and I blew a buck
Speaker 1: out of there, a different buck that I didn't see, Like,
Speaker 1: oh crap, is he gonna take this deer with them?
Speaker 1: What's going on? So I just tell myself, look, you
Speaker 1: don't know what happened on that next two ridges over
Speaker 1: where that buck was. Yeah, it's likely that deer took him.
Speaker 1: But if it's not, you don't want to go in
Speaker 1: there hastily and blow it. This is my best opportunity,
Speaker 1: probably gonna be my only opportunity, so I've got to
Speaker 1: make it count. So I creep in stocking just like
Speaker 1: I was going to, and sure enough I see the
Speaker 1: buck laying there. I'm like, sweet, now, I've been cloudy
Speaker 1: all day, but unfortunately it's like just decided to get
Speaker 1: sunny right right as I'm closing in. So I I
Speaker 1: keep creeping in. I've got this bush on the ridge
Speaker 1: in front of me that I can keep in between
Speaker 1: the buck's eyes sight myself, and I get into position
Speaker 1: range the buck, and unfortunately, like where he's laying, there's
Speaker 1: just no way to get closer. But he's far but
Speaker 1: not too far. He's fifty yards perfect, Like that's a
Speaker 1: doable shot. I mean, I can definitely hit where I'm aiming.
Speaker 1: As long as the circumstances are right, it should be perfect.
Speaker 1: So unfortunately, the sun's beating down on me, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm not and he's kind of looking my direction, so
Speaker 1: there's no way that I'm just gonna draw back, stand
Speaker 1: up and try shooting him like this because he's gonna
Speaker 1: blow out. And so my thought is, I'm gonna would
Speaker 1: wait for a cloud to come over when he's looking way,
Speaker 1: or the better scenario. I'm just hoping he also asleep.
Speaker 1: So I'm sitting there, I'm baking in the sun and
Speaker 1: just laying watching trying not to get a neck crank,
Speaker 1: and you know, the bucks like looking in my direction,
Speaker 1: then looking away, looking, but the clouds just will not
Speaker 1: come cast a shadow. I mean, I don't want to
Speaker 1: just be standing out in the open. So I'm just
Speaker 1: sitting there, right, thirty minutes goes by, cool, just waiting, waiting.
Speaker 1: Hour goes by, alright, sooner or later, this buck's either
Speaker 1: gonna stand up, start feeding, that will give me a shot,
Speaker 1: fall asleep, like do something stupid. So I keep waiting,
Speaker 1: keep waiting, and then I just see the bucks starting
Speaker 1: to nod off, and I think, oh yeah, this is
Speaker 1: a done deal. This is perfect. Buck falls asleep. I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, now I don't need to wait for the shade,
Speaker 1: because um, it should be good. So I'm there's the
Speaker 1: hill in front of me. I've got a good blockage
Speaker 1: of this bush, so I draw back on my knees.
Speaker 1: The buck doesn't move, anchor back and settle in nice.
Speaker 1: I slowly stand up. There's no wind, it's dead calm,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, okay, sleeping buck, I'm just gonna put
Speaker 1: You know, he's got a good open quartering away. I
Speaker 1: picked my spot and I just hold on that spot
Speaker 1: and think I've got all the time in the world,
Speaker 1: which I do, and I the bow goes off. I
Speaker 1: release perfect shot. But that buck, it's like when my
Speaker 1: bow went off, it sounded like to meet like a
Speaker 1: gun went off. It was just like so loud wap,
Speaker 1: and the arrow flew and that buck jumped up and
Speaker 1: that arrow hit exactly where I was aiming in that
Speaker 1: bucks bed, and that buck ran off. Not knowing what happened.
Speaker 1: The buck like ran off fifty yards making noises like
Speaker 1: a hundred and something yards now looking around, I just
Speaker 1: sat down, was like, dang it. He heard the bow
Speaker 1: jumped the string, My arrow hit perfect where I wanted
Speaker 1: it to go, Yet there was no buck there by
Speaker 1: the time the arrow got there, and I started thinking
Speaker 1: about it, I'm like, okay, it was my other bow,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have had any problem. But I generally go
Speaker 1: through my bow and try to find like things that
Speaker 1: are noisy and what have you. But I hadn't spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time with this bow. I put pretty
Speaker 1: much the same equipment on it, but I decided since
Speaker 1: I didn't have a lot of time to broadhead tune,
Speaker 1: I was just shooting mechanical broadheads and they didn't really
Speaker 1: fit in the quiver right, So that was a little
Speaker 1: bit of noise. Then normally I go through and tape
Speaker 1: everything up, and I had a lot of sound dampening
Speaker 1: tape on my bow already. But the one thing I
Speaker 1: didn't think about was my rest And I didn't notice
Speaker 1: how loud everything was because when I've been shooting at
Speaker 1: home it was slightly windy, and maybe it just wasn't
Speaker 1: that intense moment where you're sneaking in on a buck
Speaker 1: and you and you notice. And that's why I like
Speaker 1: to hunt with the same bow a lot. But every
Speaker 1: time I get a new bow, there's a few little
Speaker 1: kinks I need to work out. Hopefully I work them
Speaker 1: out on the range, but I didn't take the time
Speaker 1: to do it this time, and unfortunately paid for it
Speaker 1: by a buck jumping the string in a situation that
Speaker 1: I thought for sure it was a done deal. So
Speaker 1: even as a professional that does these things all the time,
Speaker 1: you know, I sometimes skip a few little corners. In
Speaker 1: those little corners, those little things that you can pay
Speaker 1: attention to mean the difference sometimes between going home successful
Speaker 1: and going home with the story of an arrow in
Speaker 1: a bucks bed. When you're setting up a bow, there's
Speaker 1: a few advanced considerations you should include, especially for compound
Speaker 1: bow shooters, in both the setup and the practice, and
Speaker 1: they include a proper level of the bow site on
Speaker 1: all the access is understanding what to do and shooting
Speaker 1: on a slope, and then the ability to just for
Speaker 1: wind as well as silencing your setup. So I think
Speaker 1: that those things are very important and just little tiny
Speaker 1: details that make a big difference when it comes to
Speaker 1: being successful in the field harvesting game animal. One little
Speaker 1: thing can go wrong and that can be the difference
Speaker 1: between you punching a tag and not. So let's start
Speaker 1: with the level of the bow. You know, a lot
Speaker 1: of guys might think this isn't really a big deal,
Speaker 1: and for all intents and purposes, it might not be.
Speaker 1: If you're just shooting, you know, on very level terrain
Speaker 1: at twenty yards or from a tree stand at twenty yards,
Speaker 1: some of these things might not make as big of
Speaker 1: a difference as they do when you start to extrapolate
Speaker 1: that out over longer distances or start hunting mountains Western
Speaker 1: big game. I think for Western big game hunting, especially
Speaker 1: when you're hunting in the mountains, having a site with
Speaker 1: a level that is actually level is make or break,
Speaker 1: especially when it comes to those longer distances, steep angles,
Speaker 1: or even just standing on a slope. All those things
Speaker 1: are going to affect the shot. So let's kind of
Speaker 1: break down your bow site, and what we're gonna be
Speaker 1: talking about is how to level your site. And we're
Speaker 1: gonna be working up to leveling it on the third axis.
Speaker 1: And not all bow sites have this, but I think
Speaker 1: that if you're if you're gonna be serious about bow hunting,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna be hunting Western animals like elk deer,
Speaker 1: mostly mule deer, who knows maybe draw sheep, tag or
Speaker 1: antelope or whatever, having that ability to shoot a little
Speaker 1: bit further, but also knowing you're going to be encountering angles,
Speaker 1: you need to make sure that all these things are level.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna break down right now, uh, steps for
Speaker 1: for leveling the bubble on your bow site. So the
Speaker 1: first two measurements of I would say leveling your site
Speaker 1: housing are gonna be the first and second access and
Speaker 1: these things are gonna be done on level ground. All
Speaker 1: we're really doing is we're actually just making sure that
Speaker 1: the level on your bow is true so that the
Speaker 1: bubble on that level is true to the level of
Speaker 1: the ground. So what we're gonna do, I mean, this
Speaker 1: can be done in a vice, This can be done However,
Speaker 1: we just need to make sure that when that bow
Speaker 1: is level up and down, left and right, that the
Speaker 1: level on the site is true to that. So you
Speaker 1: you have a baseline. UM, I'm gonna break down these
Speaker 1: like some people get confused on well, what's the first access,
Speaker 1: what's the second access? And some sites don't necessarily even
Speaker 1: have a first access. It's just it's just machined in
Speaker 1: a certain way that it does this. So what the
Speaker 1: first access is would be like the site housing itself.
Speaker 1: Now my site, UM, I use the fast steady Xcel
Speaker 1: spot dog, so I can actually like turn that site housing.
Speaker 1: It's like the site housing thing that holds your pin.
Speaker 1: I could rotate that three D and sixty degrees like
Speaker 1: forward backward like roll it um like roll it forward
Speaker 1: if I wanted, or roll it back. So that would
Speaker 1: be the first access. And what I want to do
Speaker 1: is I want to make sure that that is level
Speaker 1: with a level bow. So I put my bow in
Speaker 1: a vice straight up and down. I've got a level
Speaker 1: for the string is actually mine's kind of two ways
Speaker 1: such as the left and right can't. So the can't
Speaker 1: of the bow would be if you're holding the bow
Speaker 1: on its riser whether the top limbs bent left or right.
Speaker 1: So we want to make sure that the bow is
Speaker 1: straight up and down, and then we're gonna level that
Speaker 1: first access based on like say the front of the
Speaker 1: riser of the bow, so you can put a level
Speaker 1: on that like a small carpenter's level, and then get
Speaker 1: that front site housing. I actually just put a level
Speaker 1: like a carpenter's level right back on that site housing
Speaker 1: and just level it once that bow is locked off level.
Speaker 1: Most bows don't have that, so you don't even really
Speaker 1: have to worry about it. And I would say that
Speaker 1: this is out of leveling everything, this is probably the
Speaker 1: least important because most it just comes level that way.
Speaker 1: The most important level would be your second access. And
Speaker 1: what this is doing is this is just leveling the
Speaker 1: site so the left and right to tell if your
Speaker 1: bows canted. Um, So what this would do is, like
Speaker 1: you know, just imagine a level on a table. What
Speaker 1: we're doing is we're leveling that site to the ground
Speaker 1: like a flat plane, so you know, to to make
Speaker 1: sure that that bubbles between the two indicator markers and
Speaker 1: just centered in the level itself that's on the site.
Speaker 1: So you don't want one end to be lifted higher
Speaker 1: than the other. So it's going to just be adjusting
Speaker 1: a site kind of like rocking it left or right,
Speaker 1: if that makes sense. So it would be just like
Speaker 1: if you had a level on a table and the
Speaker 1: table wasn't level, so you had to shoom one side,
Speaker 1: so you're kind of just pushing one side up or
Speaker 1: down to level that actual level in the site. I
Speaker 1: hope that makes sense. Uh, this is the most It's
Speaker 1: important because it's kind of the baseline for everything, and
Speaker 1: for most shooters, this is gonna be all you really need. UM.
Speaker 1: When you're shooting in the backyard, shooting at targets, shooting
Speaker 1: at short distances, you just want to make sure that
Speaker 1: the bow that you're holding back at full draw when
Speaker 1: you level it out, is truly level to the ground.
Speaker 1: And why that makes a big difference is because if
Speaker 1: your bows canted one way or another, it's axually going
Speaker 1: to change your point of impact. And sometimes you might
Speaker 1: not even notice the fact that you're canting that bow
Speaker 1: one direction or another. So what canting is is, say
Speaker 1: the UM, when I shoot a traditional bow, I actually
Speaker 1: can't intentionally to push my arrow one direction and to
Speaker 1: open up my site picture, so it's the top limb
Speaker 1: leans one way. So if I'm canting right, the top
Speaker 1: limb is leaning to the right. Now, on a compound bow,
Speaker 1: you try to shoot that thing perfectly straight up and down.
Speaker 1: But if your top limbs canted left, then your arrow
Speaker 1: will impact further left, and if it's right, it'll impact
Speaker 1: further right because it's changing your site picture and where
Speaker 1: that arrow is gonna go. So once we've got that
Speaker 1: second access level, um one way that you could do
Speaker 1: that if you don't have like a bow vice and
Speaker 1: or a shop that you can go to. I've done
Speaker 1: it many ways where I just put the two limbs
Speaker 1: up against a wall that I've already made sure as plum.
Speaker 1: So I take just a carpenters square, put it up
Speaker 1: against a wall actually near a jam or a window opening,
Speaker 1: so the site can actually stick out into whatever you're doing.
Speaker 1: So I'll put the boat up against the wall. I'll
Speaker 1: put the carpenter's level like up against the boat. Make
Speaker 1: sure it's level like the left and right, it's not
Speaker 1: canting one way or another. So just you know, m
Speaker 1: maybe because of the design of the boat might allow
Speaker 1: one side to be off a little bit. So I'll
Speaker 1: make sure if it is, then I'll shim it so
Speaker 1: it's it's level, and then I just look at the
Speaker 1: level on my site and say, okay, is this level
Speaker 1: as well? And if not, then I'll adjust it to
Speaker 1: where it's now level. Then i'll lock it down. We're
Speaker 1: good to go. It's as easy as that. You could
Speaker 1: do it just up against the wall if you want to,
Speaker 1: and and honestly that's how I do most mind. So
Speaker 1: now we're going to talk about the third axis, and
Speaker 1: that is really just kind of like I think of
Speaker 1: it is the mythical third axis. What the third axis
Speaker 1: is going to do is it's going to make sure
Speaker 1: that that bow is level, not only on flat ground,
Speaker 1: but as we angle that bow down. So if you
Speaker 1: were to draw back and now you've got a forty
Speaker 1: five degree shot off of a ledge, which is about
Speaker 1: guaranteed and meal deer hunting, we need to make sure
Speaker 1: that that bow is still maintaining its level so as
Speaker 1: you move down or up, that that level is actually
Speaker 1: true to the level of the horizontal plane that you're
Speaker 1: standing on. Now you're going to be on a slope,
Speaker 1: so that's changing a lot of things, like the way
Speaker 1: that things feel, But also we just on flat ground
Speaker 1: want to make sure that shooting at an angle that
Speaker 1: level is actually level. And to do this, we're gonna
Speaker 1: be doing it by pushing the site housing away or
Speaker 1: towards the shooter, kind of like a hinge on a door.
Speaker 1: So that's what the third axis is. And you're probably
Speaker 1: like thinking, like everybody else, well, how exactly does it work?
Speaker 1: Why would it not be level if it's level? And
Speaker 1: I think the best answer comes from the movie Joe
Speaker 1: Dirt when he meets his dad and he's like, how
Speaker 1: exactly a rainbow is made? How exactly does the sun set?
Speaker 1: How exactly does the possi track re rand on a
Speaker 1: playmouth work? It just does. So if you know that
Speaker 1: that just works, here's just gonna be a lot better off.
Speaker 1: It doesn't really matter how it works. You go into
Speaker 1: a lot of different details of it, but it does work.
Speaker 1: So when you're leveling that third access, it really needs
Speaker 1: to be done at full draw because your grip plays
Speaker 1: a lot into that factor of how your bows torqued
Speaker 1: in a certain direction. And so I like to make
Speaker 1: sure that it's I do the third access always at
Speaker 1: full draw, because it doesn't make any sense for me
Speaker 1: to do it when it's not at full draw because
Speaker 1: obviously it's it's for shooting and shooting at an angle.
Speaker 1: So there's there's a lot of different ways you could
Speaker 1: do this. Um the way that I do, I actually
Speaker 1: have a little tool made by Hamski and what it
Speaker 1: is it's like, once I've leveled my site on level
Speaker 1: terrain in the vice or up against the wall, then
Speaker 1: I can clip this thing on the site and it's
Speaker 1: got this bar on it. And so what I'm trying
Speaker 1: to do is make sure that my pins and everything
Speaker 1: when I'm angling down at something that's plumb, that the
Speaker 1: level in there reads true. So with that tool, I
Speaker 1: actually have a corner in my house that I've double
Speaker 1: checked with carpenter Square that it is plumb, and it
Speaker 1: should be because I made it myself. So in that
Speaker 1: corner I use to make sure that my access is
Speaker 1: on so drawback, and then that tool has like a
Speaker 1: bar with like a pin on the top and the bottom,
Speaker 1: and I level that bar in that plumb line in
Speaker 1: that crack of the corner and then make sure that
Speaker 1: the level itself on the site is level. Now another
Speaker 1: way to do it would be doing used like a
Speaker 1: plumb bob where you could just run a string with
Speaker 1: I don't know, some washers or whatever tied to the bottom,
Speaker 1: nail it up on a raft or in your garage
Speaker 1: or something like that. Come to full draw, and then
Speaker 1: put your say, if you've got multiple pins, put your
Speaker 1: twenty yard pin and your bottom pin on the level line,
Speaker 1: and then slowly bend at the hips down to a
Speaker 1: fort or five degree following that line down, keeping your
Speaker 1: twenty and your bottom pin on that plumb line. And
Speaker 1: then once you're down at that angle, check the level
Speaker 1: and see if when your pins that should be level.
Speaker 1: You know that the line of the pins are lined
Speaker 1: up on that plumb line, whether that bubble level is
Speaker 1: balanced out or not, and if not, then you either
Speaker 1: need to push the side away or bring it towards you,
Speaker 1: depending on which side it's on. You can play with
Speaker 1: that a little bit. So that's the way to do it.
Speaker 1: It sounds very confusing, but I think it's a it's
Speaker 1: something that needs you know, a lot of people get
Speaker 1: these sites they say a third access and and nobody
Speaker 1: takes the time to adjust for it. And honestly, in
Speaker 1: many instances, there's very few times where I haven't had
Speaker 1: an angled shot at something because the way that you
Speaker 1: sneak in the type of stocks that are probably the
Speaker 1: most successful, or the type of terrain you're in, you're
Speaker 1: gonna need that. And you know what stern hunting, you're
Speaker 1: shooting out at ranges from forty to fifty or six
Speaker 1: yards sometimes even in closer ranges of steep angles. I
Speaker 1: think it does make a different. I know it does
Speaker 1: make a difference because it could impact left or right somewhere.
Speaker 1: You don't want so do that. Once you've got that
Speaker 1: set it fold draw, then just go prove it out
Speaker 1: in the field shooting at a target and make sure
Speaker 1: that everything is right. And you can always adjust to
Speaker 1: when you're shooting. Maybe find out when you're out there shooting,
Speaker 1: you know if you're left and right is different as
Speaker 1: you're shooting in an angle, Well adjust that third access
Speaker 1: level on the site and you should be good. Now
Speaker 1: that we've got our site completely level. I think there's
Speaker 1: some special shot considerations when you're shooting on a hill.
Speaker 1: If you go out into the field, if you think
Speaker 1: about hunting scenarios, you're probably not going to be on
Speaker 1: level terrain. In most Western hunting situations. I guess the
Speaker 1: only one that probably bucks that would be antelope hunting.
Speaker 1: But even then I find some just like weird angles
Speaker 1: when I'm out there. And part of it is it's
Speaker 1: just when you're on a hill or on a slope,
Speaker 1: it's very deceiving to understand what's level. Your body holds
Speaker 1: you up naturally, and you think that, oh, this is level,
Speaker 1: But when you're trying to hold like a bow out there,
Speaker 1: it's completely different because what gravity is doing is it's
Speaker 1: pulling you in the downhill direction. So the unfortunate part is,
Speaker 1: let's say I've got a deer across the canyon. I've
Speaker 1: got one slope going one way, and the deer's below me,
Speaker 1: so I would just think, okay, I'm gonna just draw back,
Speaker 1: and maybe so my slope imagine like a slope going downhill.
Speaker 1: I'm standing on it, so obviously I'm facing downhill, probably
Speaker 1: if I'm right handed shooter, and the deer is like
Speaker 1: in this little goalie coming up the other side, or
Speaker 1: bedded on the other side, something like that shot that
Speaker 1: I've seen a thousand times, and I go to draw back, Well,
Speaker 1: what happens is I feel like it's level but gravity
Speaker 1: is pulling the top of that limb downhill. So what
Speaker 1: that's gonna do is it's actually going to make my
Speaker 1: Now that I've got a level bow and everything, when
Speaker 1: I when I go to put my pin on that deer,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna look and it's gonna show that the bow
Speaker 1: is not level. So I'm canting one direction and that's
Speaker 1: going to push my arrow away that I don't want
Speaker 1: it to go. So I try to compensate, but it's
Speaker 1: really hard at full draw, I found to actually compensate
Speaker 1: against gravity. What my go to is for this type
Speaker 1: of shot or when I'm on a hill, is before
Speaker 1: I draw back, it's way easier to fall into gravity
Speaker 1: and get level than it is to push against gravity
Speaker 1: to get level. So what I like to do is
Speaker 1: it can be a little deceiving, but I tried to
Speaker 1: like lean into the hill or lean into the direction
Speaker 1: over compensate in the opposite direction on my draw. So
Speaker 1: I want to be drawn drawing back kind of leaning
Speaker 1: back towards the hill, and then once I settle in,
Speaker 1: it's a lot easier to bring it with gravity to
Speaker 1: that level position. By doing that, I think that you're
Speaker 1: gonna find a lot more success and a lot more
Speaker 1: precision shooting at hills or downhill. And then one other
Speaker 1: consideration is when you're shooting up or downhill. You know,
Speaker 1: remember that you don't want to just move your arm
Speaker 1: down because you got to remember, as we talked about
Speaker 1: shooting anchor, is everything consistency in that in that repeatable consistency.
Speaker 1: So if I just move my arm down forty five
Speaker 1: degrees but keep everything the same, well my anchor point
Speaker 1: is not going to be the same. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to be looking through my peep the same and it's
Speaker 1: gonna be a little bit off. So what I like
Speaker 1: to do is I like to bend at the hips.
Speaker 1: I know some people like way over exaggerate this, but
Speaker 1: you know I want to make sure all I'm doing
Speaker 1: is keeping my same form and then bending with the shots,
Speaker 1: so nothing changes in my form because I'm shooting up
Speaker 1: or downhill, and that's key to making those good shots.
Speaker 1: The next advanced consideration is going to be wind. And
Speaker 1: all these things really have to do with the level
Speaker 1: of the boat as well. So you think about wind.
Speaker 1: Wind can affect your arrow in so many ways. Mostly
Speaker 1: it's gonna be affected in a left or right movement.
Speaker 1: There's a very few times that I've stocked something and
Speaker 1: there hasn't been wind. Where I practice, where I shoot
Speaker 1: a lot, it's always windy. Where I hunt a lot
Speaker 1: is always windy. Uh. You know, the ideal would be
Speaker 1: the wind in your face, and there are ways to
Speaker 1: compensate for out. But it's not necessarily as as drastic
Speaker 1: as the left or right winds. But you will encounter
Speaker 1: a lot of cross wind in practice shooting at three
Speaker 1: D targets, three D ranges, whatever. But in hunting situations
Speaker 1: you're gonna encounter it a lot. And understanding how your
Speaker 1: arrow flies in the wind and how to compensate for
Speaker 1: it is huge. So there's two ways that you can
Speaker 1: do it, and there's two ways that I do it.
Speaker 1: The first is just holding off. So let's say you've
Speaker 1: got a dear facing left, he's bedded into the wind
Speaker 1: or standing into the wind, and um you let's say
Speaker 1: it's like a ten mileon arrow wind, So you can
Speaker 1: just hold off. So if he's facing into the wind,
Speaker 1: I put it a little more forward on his shoulder,
Speaker 1: release the arrow, and hope that the wind pushes my
Speaker 1: arrow into the vitals. Now, another way to do it.
Speaker 1: And one way that I use a lot is what
Speaker 1: people call bubbling, or like just can't in the direction
Speaker 1: that I want the arrow to go, so um, I
Speaker 1: can use my bubble in the level as a gauge,
Speaker 1: so it's a little bit more precise, and then I
Speaker 1: can aim at the exact spot that I want to hit.
Speaker 1: What I'll do it's like, let's say the winds coming
Speaker 1: from my left, you just can't the bow, so you
Speaker 1: put the top riser of the boat into the wind.
Speaker 1: What that's gonna do is that's actually gonna push my shot.
Speaker 1: So if I'm canting the bow left, it's actually gonna
Speaker 1: push the arrow left. How I don't know. It just
Speaker 1: makes no sense, but it really works. And the further
Speaker 1: out you go, the more drastic that is. So I
Speaker 1: can use the level my bubble level. So I'll tip
Speaker 1: it left so that I'll push that bubble to the
Speaker 1: right side of that line, and I can gauge how
Speaker 1: much my arrow is gonna go left by seeing how
Speaker 1: much that bubble is moved over to one side. So
Speaker 1: I can just go drastic full as much as I can,
Speaker 1: or I can kind of go just a little bit
Speaker 1: if it's a light breeze or whatever, and then that
Speaker 1: allows me to aim on one particular spot and hit
Speaker 1: that spot. It involves a lot of practice, but I
Speaker 1: like using canting the bow left or right to adjust
Speaker 1: for the wind because I can actually practice that without wind,
Speaker 1: which is really cool because you can go out, go
Speaker 1: out to fourty yards, try this, shoot one perfectly level
Speaker 1: at the center, then aim at that same arrow, but
Speaker 1: go drastic with your with your bow like tip the
Speaker 1: top of the riser right, real hard, take a shot,
Speaker 1: then do it left to real hard and see where
Speaker 1: the bubble is and see how much it moves. So
Speaker 1: you know, if I go all the way, it's about
Speaker 1: for me eight inches with my setup, you know for
Speaker 1: thirty yards or whatever, which is actually found is pretty
Speaker 1: good for a fairly stiff wind, so I can kind
Speaker 1: of hold in the right spot. I can camp the
Speaker 1: bow into the wind, and then I can hit where
Speaker 1: I'm aiming. There are times where I will choose to
Speaker 1: use the method where I just hold on one side
Speaker 1: or the other. So a good way to figure that
Speaker 1: out to shoot in the wind, shoot at a target,
Speaker 1: aim at the center, see how much it drifted over,
Speaker 1: then just hold the opposite direction into the wind shoot.
Speaker 1: It's good to understand that as well as canting the bow,
Speaker 1: because you need to understand how much the wind is
Speaker 1: going to push your arrow, and by doing that, you're
Speaker 1: gonna be a lot, a lot more successful. So now
Speaker 1: let's ump to the last one and the one that
Speaker 1: really got me this last week, and that's noise. This
Speaker 1: is something you can do at home and throughout your
Speaker 1: practice or throughout while you're practicing, understanding where different noises
Speaker 1: are coming from. And you want to do this by
Speaker 1: kind of getting your hunting set up set up. So,
Speaker 1: like I said, you know, I normally use fixed blades,
Speaker 1: but I decided to try some mechanical broadheads and they
Speaker 1: I actually couldn't stick them in my quiver fully, so
Speaker 1: they were in there kind of shaking around, rattling around.
Speaker 1: You know. That's something that I knew about, but I
Speaker 1: didn't necessarily think would be as big of a deal
Speaker 1: until I took it into the field and was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: things are actually a lot louder then I was expecting.
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of I don't even know what
Speaker 1: they call it. It's like mole skin, you know, stuff
Speaker 1: you put over like a blister or whatever they've got it.
Speaker 1: For bows, it's just sound dampening tape. It's like fuzzy tape.
Speaker 1: I know it's super old school, but I live by
Speaker 1: that stuff. I cover everything I can in it. I
Speaker 1: cover my stabilizer in it. I try to find things
Speaker 1: like where my dropway rest drops down. I'll put some
Speaker 1: of that felt stuff. I put it all along the
Speaker 1: riser on the shelf where the arrow might rest when
Speaker 1: I'm sneaking around. Just anything to take a little bit
Speaker 1: of a ting out to put it around any kind
Speaker 1: of moving part when not like a mechanical moving part
Speaker 1: that will affect the operation, but something that might release sound.
Speaker 1: And I found that it does dampen the noise a lot.
Speaker 1: There's other things you could do. Um. It's kind of
Speaker 1: old school, and I do it for my traditional gears,
Speaker 1: like string dampeners, like these little I don't know, whisker
Speaker 1: looking things on guy's bows, or like a tuft of beaver.
Speaker 1: I actually used to use that a lot, like a
Speaker 1: like a ball of like beaver hair. UM, different stuff
Speaker 1: on the string to kind of silence the string. For
Speaker 1: most bows, there are like these rubber string silencers. Some
Speaker 1: bows come with them now actually a lot of bows
Speaker 1: come with some kind of thing to help dampen the noise.
Speaker 1: But it's one thing that you definitely want to consider
Speaker 1: and try to do it before you get out in
Speaker 1: the field as you're practicing. If something see is loud
Speaker 1: and it's hard to say, well, what's loud. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've got one bow that I kind of thought was loud,
Speaker 1: and yet I've never had anything jump with it. So
Speaker 1: it's just a certain frequency that they were okay with um.
Speaker 1: But generally, what I like to do is go through
Speaker 1: my gear as things, the things that I know will
Speaker 1: make noise, I start to tape over and even make
Speaker 1: some personal adjustments on stuff. I know there's some drop
Speaker 1: away the rest that I've just taken the bottom or
Speaker 1: the top kind of like cage if you will, out
Speaker 1: of there, because it's like it doesn't necessarily affect the
Speaker 1: function of it, maybe protects it a little bit, but
Speaker 1: you know, in the drop away drops and hits something
Speaker 1: that I like try to prevent that, or I like
Speaker 1: to put this noise dampening tape around a lot of
Speaker 1: different parts that might emit sound at some point. So
Speaker 1: that's something really good to consider because one I would say,
Speaker 1: if I'm thinking about it, ninety percent of the times
Speaker 1: that I've either missed a deer or didn't hit exactly
Speaker 1: where I wanted is because the animal jumped the string.
Speaker 1: And maybe later on in a future podcast we should
Speaker 1: really talk about anticipating the jump and some of the
Speaker 1: strategy behind knowing where to aim and when to aim
Speaker 1: off and things like that. But most of that comes from,
Speaker 1: you know, if you sneak in, everything is unnoticed, the
Speaker 1: animal hearing that sound and then reacting to that arrow
Speaker 1: coming their way. It doesn't matter how fast your bow
Speaker 1: is at considerable distance. At some distance, they can definitely
Speaker 1: move enough to make your shot a good shot a
Speaker 1: bad shot, And that's really nothing you can control, but
Speaker 1: it is things you control by quieting down your setup
Speaker 1: and making sure that everything that might make a loud
Speaker 1: noise or a noise that sends the animal running can
Speaker 1: be damp into where they don't notice it or they
Speaker 1: don't make as big a reaction as fast. I just
Speaker 1: want to thank everybody again for listening and all the
Speaker 1: great feedback. So many, so many people pumped on this
Speaker 1: kind of format of just kind of breaking down what
Speaker 1: you need to get ready for archery, especially early in
Speaker 1: the season. I think now is the perfect time to
Speaker 1: get started. There's a lot of people thinking about it.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of people that have been bow hunters
Speaker 1: our whole life. I hope some of this stuff, maybe
Speaker 1: these are things that you haven't considered in the past,
Speaker 1: and and we'll start to kind of think about and consider,
Speaker 1: you know. I try to talk to the guy that's
Speaker 1: been hunting his whole life and the guy that's brand new,
Speaker 1: so I try to find some of the common ground
Speaker 1: things that we all need to know and those little
Speaker 1: advanced tactics that just make you better over time. Don't
Speaker 1: forget to send in your questions please at Remy Warren
Speaker 1: on Instagram, and if you have Instagram or whatever, feel
Speaker 1: free to follow me over there. That's uh, it's a
Speaker 1: great way to interact with each other and get those questions.
Speaker 1: I just I'm going through there here pretty soon, so
Speaker 1: make sure you send those and and maybe they'll be
Speaker 1: for future episodes or whatever. But I'm sending your questions please.
Speaker 1: This is why I mean, we're concluding our bow stuff,
Speaker 1: so we're gonna go into the Q and A next week,
Speaker 1: and then I've got some cool stuff planned as far
Speaker 1: as uh next month. I kind of like the format
Speaker 1: that I've been doing and I got a lot of
Speaker 1: great feedback. So one of the ideas that I'm tossing
Speaker 1: around just kind of like this gearing up i DA
Speaker 1: as well as getting ready for all the applications stuff.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna be doing a lot of that, just
Speaker 1: planning for hunt kind of content, but also some of
Speaker 1: the some of the things that you can get some
Speaker 1: of the things that you can get into, uh, some
Speaker 1: fitness stuff in the future. A lot of cool stuff
Speaker 1: in the pipe. And I thank you guys all for
Speaker 1: you know, just sending me messages and ideas and things
Speaker 1: that you want to hear, because I say a million
Speaker 1: every time pretty much, but I really do want to
Speaker 1: tailor this toward the things that you guys want to
Speaker 1: learn and the things that I think will make everybody
Speaker 1: better hunters out there this coming fall season. So until then,
Speaker 1: stay level headed, Catch you guys later.