After re-reading Fred Eichler's article in Traditional Bowhunter Magazine "You Didn't Miss", I got to thinking about bow noise. (This was after I experienced yet another doe "ducking the string" followed shortly by a 6-point buck doing the same thing. 2 deer in one afternoon less than 30 minutes apart WILL get you to thinking!) My bow is quiet (at least to me!) but I have noticed that different arrow materials make different sounds when shooting.
I shot at those 2 deer with Douglas Fir wooden arrows and my bow makes a dull "thump" (for lack of a better word) upon release. When I shoot my weighted carbon arrows (yes, I use both wood and carbon :rolleyes: ),my bow is still quiet but the sound is a higher pitch.
I wonder if the frequency is as important as the decibles? We all strive for a "quiet" bow (decibles) but doesn't a lower frequency sound (like the dull thump of the wood arrows) travel farther than a higher frequency sound (like the carbon)? Have you noticed this yourself? Has anybody done a study on this? Does it really make that much of a difference or am I just over-thinking this? Thanks for your feedback. :wavey:
I think we all over "think" this. We should try to get our bows as quiet as possible, however the only way to remedy this is if our arrows travelled faster than the speed of sound. Also, at this point in the season, deer are more spooky because of the increased human run ins and will react to anything slightly out of the norm. So, what am I saying...expect it to occur and shoot low or when the deer appears relaxed.
Ditto Rick
I agree with above statements. Also I like those close shots less reaction time for them.
In the words of the former owner of "Black Widow bows, Ken Beck..."Hold low Kimosabi,they're riding Shetland ponies!"
Allow me to muddy the waters even further... why is it that the majority of selfbows that I have shot are so quiet that second and 3rd shots are often there for the taking with the game still unaware that they've been shot at?
If my post detracts from your intent, please pm me and I will gladly edit or delete mine.
God bless,Mudd
Agree,nervous deer jump more easely.BTW Superk,did they jumped the string with the wood or carbon arrows?
We've all learned how to wait for that perfect broadside or quartering shot. I wonder how many people watch the ears? I do. I wait until the ears are turned away when I draw, and try to do the same when I shoot. This is also why I try to get them in a close. I've missed enough times, due to my own mistakes, but I've rarely had deer jump the string. I hold a little low, just in case.
I have noticed a trend on TV hunting shows where the hunters are taking longer shots, simply because they have flatter shooting, faster bows. I've noticed a lot of those shots are "higher than I'd like" or "farther back than I'd like". Play those back in slow motion and you'll see the animals jump the string (and cables and pullies...)
Like Rick said above, we over think this.
Let's face it deer can hear A LOT better than us and if a "quiet" bow can scare them into ducking the string is a "noisy" bow going to make them duck more.
Just shoot at white line in crease just above elbow!
Body language of the animal dictates how high/low I aim in certain situations or if I take the shot at all.
That said my 2 top priorities for a bow are good grip and it has to be quiet. I have taken the same deer after a miss and others standing close.
Had this problem yesterday. I shot a doe that was alert and she jumped the string. I had compensated for the downward motion but she actually moved forward more than down causing me to hit much further back than I had intended. Does anybody compensate by focusing a little further forward than you would ideally want the arrow to impact?
Have someone else tell ya if you're bow is noisey.
You have all sorts of unconscious evaluations when you drop the string.
The other person, standing next to and slightly behind you, with back turned to the target, will have a much better idea if you have a 'loud' setup.
The only way to roll.
On the tv "hunts" those guys always burp to stop the deer but then the deer is alert. set your shots up close and personal so that there is less time for deer movement. and pray.
The higher pitched frequency will carry farther. So you are incorrect about that. If the bow is quiet that is about all you can do other than aim a little low but, know that aiming low is no cure all. Because if a deer is really tuned up, they will drop and turn out of the way before the arrow even gets there.
Got a video here somewhere that has my buddy shooting a doe at 30 yards with a compound blaziing about 280 fps. His shot was horrible and was going to miss the deer behind it, but the poor deer spun upon releaese, switching directions and the arrow caught her about mid neck 3 inches below the jaw line. She ran about 40 yards.
All you can do is the best you can control and as suggested above, Pray it all works out. God Bless
Getting the bow quiet is part of the solution, but the fletching causes a fair bit of noise too-some cuts more than others and more helical means more noise as well. You can try this yourself by standing near the target and listening to the arrow after it leaves the bow and flies downrange towards you.
Position yourself behind something to do this-duh!
Animals are also alerted by catching a glimpse of the bow being raised and you coming to full draw. There is a lot going on and it all needs to be covered when you need to close distance to 20 yds or less before taking a shot.
Background noise plays a part as well. (rustling leaves in the wind, nearby road noise, etc)
How many of us hear the bass of an oncoming vehicle with loud music playing. We usually hear it long before we hear the car's engine or see it, if it comes close enough. Think of jake brakes on a semi. We hear them long distances away. (low frequency). Think of the thump as a low freq warning device. Think of the high pitch string twang as a warning device.
Plus, you're dealing with an animal that can hear things we only hope to hear without amplification.
Catch them at ease, looking away, and with ears away. No bow will be absolutely silent upon release. But, the more quiet, the better. Close is good too.
Of all the bows I own the most quiet is a string follow Howard Hill Big Five.
I read that article too and it soothed some of my self-loathing from a recent miss high. It reinforced what I know to be true... pick a spot on the lower third of the body! Looking back at my last miss, I don't think I picked a spot at all.... just kind of generally looking at the vital area. :banghead: I also tried to shoot here while she was walking because I know that stopping them puts them on alert. But the walking shot felt really disorienting. What's the trick there?
I also found the recent TBM Email tip of the week by Don Thomas helpful. He makes that point that it is really easy to let your bow arm drop when shooting down from a stand. Got to bend at the waist!
So, about shooting dear while walking... Is that something you guys practice?
Tsalt, One of the local clubs has a deer target on a track that slowly walks by. My boys could shoot at that thing all day. We have put 3D targets in little red wagons and pulled them by. I think the best practice is squirrel/rabbit hunting and aerials though.
Rob
QuoteOriginally posted by AWPForester:
The higher pitched frequency will carry farther. So you are incorrect about that.
That is incorrect. Low frequency sounds travel farther than high frequency. Perfect example, if you are near lightning you hear the loud, high frequency crack. But far away from the lightning you only hear the low pitch, rolling boom of thunder. The high frequency sound from the crack you hear close up does not make it very far from the source.
Once again , Justin....right on. All you can do ....ist thebest you can. experienced or inexperienced, bow /arrow set up irrelevant. The specific situation is a single case study each time ....thats why bowhunting is great. Yes ,they duck ...sometimes. yes, they dont....sometimes and you miss 4x. And yes , they die in seconds from a "perfect" shot and you are on top of the world. It all happens multiple times if you hunt enough. It is my favorite.
QuoteOriginally posted by Landshark160:
QuoteOriginally posted by AWPForester:
The higher pitched frequency will carry farther. So you are incorrect about that.
That is incorrect. Low frequency sounds travel farther than high frequency. Perfect example, if you are near lightning you hear the loud, high frequency crack. But far away from the lightning you only hear the low pitch, rolling boom of thunder. The high frequency sound from the crack you hear close up does not make it very far from the source. [/b]
Right on, Chris. http://dev.physicslab.org/Document.aspx?doctype=3&filename=WavesSound_IntroSound.xml
Allan
Rob, that does sound like fun. I'll have to try that.
Rob, that does sound like fun. I'll have to try that.
QuoteOriginally posted by Bjorn:
the fletching causes a fair bit of noise too-some cuts more than others and more helical means more noise as well.
I firmly believe, that more deer react, and duck due to arrow noise than to bow noise.
I shot at the same buck 3 times in '11. He would come in on high alert and give me a 30 yard broadside. I was shooting my elk setup, 12 grains per lb, 170 fps. The buck would hear and see the arrow. He would jump forward and over it. On the last shot he jumped forward and up, I watched the arrow traveling on the line I wanted but, with his jump, I just scratched his belly, almost circumcised him. All I found was patch of white hair and one drop of blood. He never came back???
I've had to many flocks of ducks fly over me and or deer. Scares the heck out of me, but I have yet to see deer react..
Arrow noise means nada to me.
I focus on visual and bow noise and always hold low.
I am a firm believer in a quiet bow. My longbow is a very slight noise, so slight that my brother standing next to me looks to see if I shot. Wood arrows in my opinion is what quiet's my bows down more than anything. I believe in what the master say, use a heavy arrow get all the Kinetic energy out of the bow and it will be quiet (tuned right). Yesterday, I shot at a buck in mild wind, he heard the arrow hit the leafs low, and looked around, I got another arrow on and he left before I shot. As i turned to look around, there was 3 Does 20 yards behind me feeding, they didn't hear a thing. I was on the ground hunting. Years ago I used aluminum and carbon but couldn't get my bow quiet and I detest string silencers, so went to wood and all well.
High pitches don't carry as far thats why you hear the kid with his bass thumping car way before you hear any of the other music.
I have had deer bounce their bellies off the ground while jumping the string here in central Texas...amazing.
These days I really try to shoot at deer that are not alert....just feeding and messing around like they do.. But once they go on alert, I stand down cause I know what's gonna happen. If I do shoot at alert deer I sometimes aim just for the bottom of the chest so they'll duck down into the shot.
Real close shots help with this too.
Our deer in Arkansas are pros at ducking the string. I bet if I were to have videoed some of my shots nearly every one of my "misses" would have hit the deer around mid body level if they wouldn't have ducked it. We do all we can to make sure our bows and arrows are quiet but the reality of it is that deer are almost always on high alert and have much better hearing than we could ever hope for.
I have sold several very fine bows due to the fact i couldnt tune them well enough to get them as quiet as i want. On walking deer, its a shot I perfer, but its gotta be fairly close. I have never had a walking deer jump string...
QuoteOriginally posted by amar911:
QuoteOriginally posted by Landshark160:
QuoteOriginally posted by AWPForester:
The higher pitched frequency will carry farther. So you are incorrect about that.
That is incorrect. Low frequency sounds travel farther than high frequency. Perfect example, if you are near lightning you hear the loud, high frequency crack. But far away from the lightning you only hear the low pitch, rolling boom of thunder. The high frequency sound from the crack you hear close up does not make it very far from the source. [/b]
Right on, Chris. http://dev.physicslab.org/Document.aspx?doctype=3&filename=WavesSound_IntroSound.xml
Allan [/b]
Yeah Yeah Yeah...but lets not outsmart ourselves. Don't lose the main point. The deer ARE close to the source of the sound. So, whether it travels far or not doesn't matter, they are surely going to hear it.
Always shoot a lil low,I don't care how quiet you think your bow is,with a whitetail it's never quiet enough!
I can't ever get my bow as quiet as I'd like. I'm trying all the different types of string silencers out to see what I like. That doesn't mean I still won't miss however.
Great discussion. I don't think we can get our bows quiet enough so deer don't hear them but I will say that I killed 30 or so deer with home made self bows never remember one jumping the srtring. Got me a good ole Black Widow and wow them critters were ducking arrows. I fought and fought to get it quiet never with complete success. Lot's of time had does duck arrows. Started shooting low and bingo. I still don't know if it was the selfbows quietness or just all of the shots were under 10 yards. Now I shoot longbow and still shoot low on purpose as Chris says above and it works great.
Some vented broadheads make a heck of a sound also. The only deer that I know for certain ducked my arrow, I was using a 3 blade vented broadhead. I killed 4 other deer with the same bow and never had a reaction but I was using a non-vented 2 blade on them. I don't own the 3 blade broadheads anymore.
I think one of the biggest culprits of bow noise, is the design and materials of the bow itself. I have had much less of a problem eliminating sting noise than I have had with limb noise. It doesn't seem to matter where the brace is set, with some bows, the limbs always seem to hum or ring a little.
I've NEVER had a deer drop at the shot before the arrow arrived. I've shot a lot of em, our season is mid sept to Jan 3
It does not matter how quiet you get your bow or how fast it shoots,,they even duck my bullets from a 270 weatherby,lol. Thats my story and im stickin to it!
I had a deer duck this year and it hit him high and below the spine. 5 days later I got him on trail camera and you could see the hole or the mark. I also missed one after that but it may have been me, everything happens so fast you cant see for yourself what happens . I was in a ground blind and I though my bow was the problem so I had my son shoot out of the blind to see how much noise it made ,I was surprised at how quite the bow was, I could hardley hear it, but boy were my arrows buzzing .I trimmed my fletching to parabolic and hit the next buck right where I was looking . Have someone shoot your bow while you are in front and to the side of your target then youll know !!