Hi gang, just wondering your thoughts. Got back from spring break with the kids and had to so a little stumping in the front yard. Now, I was shooting at a favorite target and aimed a tad low in front of the target in my grass. No problem right? WRONG! I cannot for the life of me (or my son) find the darn arrow. I shot into the grass as a low angle and thought for sure the arrow would be easy to find. No dice, it must have burrowed beneath my sod or been abducted by aliens! Anyone else have this happen? Got me to thinking where was the strangest place you have found your "lost" arrows?
Happy Easter to all!
Grass is the worst unless maybe snow.
At least with snow you can usually find them later.
Grass swallows them up, for sure!
Bisch
Any suggestions to find one? I had my son crawling on all four looking.
Metal detector or use a rake very softly
I shot a deer 3 years ago it ran off with the arrow still in it but the arrow had came out and was not in the deer when I recovered the deer. I looked that day and several other days along the trail the deer took to find the arrow with no luck. Last year in scouting before the season I was scouting in the same area, had not even thought about that being the area the shot deer had run through. Anyway I heard and then saw some deer get up and run off so I stopped to watch them. Before moving I happened to look down and there was my arrow mostly burried in the leaves. My first thought was someone lost an arrow, then I remembered that was where the deer I had shot the year before. If those deer had not ran off exactly when they did causing me to stop exactly where I did I would probably never found that arrow.
Metal detector!!! Even the cheapest model You can find will work.
Unless Your shooting Cane arrows with Horn nocks and Bone points. LOL
bretto
Had the same thing happen to me the other day Roverrich. Actually I went back out today to see if I could them, no luck. Guess they end up in the same place as the socks from the laundry dryer.LOL. God bless.
The arrow Gnomes collect them to build fences around their homes.....helps keep the trolls away...... :saywhat:
I once found an arrow that buried in some tall grass even with a judo point on it...three years later.
Walk the area barefoot. Crossing the direction of the shot. Move about a foot and repeat. You'll feel it underfoot. DO NOT! Do this with broad head arrows.
Get a large nail and drill a hole in the end of an old rake or broom handle and tap and/or expoxy the nail in. Then bend the nail into a right angle hook. You can gently pull the nail through the grass until you hook the arrow. Those buggers can really hide under the sod. I usually use Ace hex head blunts when shooting in the yard.....helps a BUNCH. Good luck!
If you shot carbon just take one with a field tip and run it through the grass perpendicular to the line of arrow flight. Make sure to cover a good width so you don't miss it. Do passes close enough that you don't skip it. About two foot apart. Run the shaft down to the roots our lower if the dirt is loose. Lift up in the shaft often as you work. Don't give up. They can skid a lot farther than you think and even track off to the side sometimes. You can do this with wood our aluminum also but be a lot more careful.
I have one of those ace arrow finders also. Works well for some cover like leafs, but not as well as a field tip arrow in thick grass.
Barefoot is the way to do it. Once someone from TradGang suggested that to me, I have never lost an arrow to the grass (in my backyard) again.
I sucked one up with the lawn mower one time. I was sorry I chopped it up but glad I finally found the SOB!
Barefoot has worked for me, but I'm still amazed how they just disappear off the face of the earth, and are bright colors to boot!!
I love to shot around the yard. leaves, tennis balls and dandelions make great random targets.I use blunts like hammer heads, vpa sgt's or a judo. If I don't use them I spend most of the time looking for arrows in the grass.
I lost an arrow out to the farm shooting this winter out by the barn. we are out this weekend and the snow is off so I figured it would be east to find that arrow. I looked all over down range of where it hit and skidded on the frozen ground. No luck. I went all over shooting and them back to the barns to shoot back and forth up and down a little hill side. After about an hour of this I stopped to pick up arrows and looked up to see my lost arrow partly proped up against a tree in the mowed area where I had been shooting and walking past over and over. In my defense I must say the feathers on that one are not very bright and it was a long way off to the side of where it first hit the ground weeks ago.
Barefoot method works for me. I'm the one that my buddies get to find there arrows in the grass.
QuoteOriginally posted by bretto:
Metal detector!!! Even the cheapest model You can find will work.
Unless Your shooting Cane arrows with Horn nocks and Bone points. LOL
bretto
Steel points read "09" on my Fisher F-75. ;-)
I keep a slightly bent aluminum shaft in my stumping quiver. Dragging it over grass/sod/leaves in rows every 6" will often give the telltail "plink" of a wood shaft.
Usually I find them closer than expected rather than far behind the target.
I like when you find a different arrow that you had forgot all about losing while looking for the arrow you just lost. So long ago the steel tip is all crusty with rust. This didn't happen to me last week or anything just sayin.... :knothead:
I dunno, I've never lost an arrow:)
Maybe it skipped up off the ground instead of getting buried in the grass. I've had that happen, and found it further up embedded into a tree. The grass does really suck them up though.
QuoteOriginally posted by magnus:
Walk the area barefoot. Crossing the direction of the shot. Move about a foot and repeat. You'll feel it underfoot. DO NOT! Do this with broad head arrows.
The very first archery range I ever went to back in the 70's was just a large grass field that people could bring their targets to and shoot. Well after we were done and the was no on around. My dad would tell my brother and I to take our shoes off and walk across the grass we always found bunches of them. This way
QuoteOriginally posted by Red Beastmaster:
I sucked one up with the lawn mower one time. I was sorry I chopped it up but glad I finally found the SOB!
Lol.
I'm gonna have to try that barefoot thing. I've got an arrow in my backyard/edge of the woods I haven't been able to find yet, and I watched it hit the ground when I missed and skip but I guess I didn't see where it stopped because I went straight out to go get it and never found it and I've searched up and down back and forth scraping leaves and grass for hours lol. I hate losing arrows, its like throwing away $8.
I use our three prong cultivator hoe to rake them out. I rake across the direction of the arrow. Have tried to train my lab to sniff them out for me but no luck there yet. I'm sure someone better at training dogs than me could though.
I have a Beautiful little Lab.retriever that finds my errant arrows. It doesn't take long to train a dog to find them. So far she has found them all,even in my wheat field.Incredible noses on these critters.
QuoteOriginally posted by Ajooter:
I like when you find a different arrow that you had forgot all about losing while looking for the arrow you just lost. So long ago the steel tip is all crusty with rust. This didn't happen to me last week or anything just sayin.... :knothead:
Sounds like you made the same mistake twice :knothead: Of course I have never done that :rolleyes:
advice.... don't shoot into hard snow banks, seems you still get great penetration. :banghead:
I consider myself a true conservationist when I release one of my woodies back into the wild.
God bless,Mudd
They go into a time warp. They are gone for a few years, and then bam, you find them clear as day with the fletching gone except for the quill.
Found one last week just like that.
QuoteOriginally posted by Mudd:
I consider myself a true conservationist when I release one of my woodies back into the wild.
God bless,Mudd
:biglaugh: :biglaugh: :biglaugh:
Lost one just yesterday....I know exactly where it is though but it's still LOST.
Give it several months and they fester like a sliver :saywhat:
QuoteOriginally posted by Red Beastmaster:
I sucked one up with the lawn mower one time. I was sorry I chopped it up but glad I finally found the SOB!
LOL!
Last spring turkey season, I took a shot on a bird that ducked and bolted. Arrow missed, skipped off in the dirt and grass and I heard it ricochet off a couple of trees on its way through the woods. Went looking for it to no avail. Exactly one week later, hunting in the same spot, I decided why not go look again. About 100 yards from where the arrow was shot, still nothing, until I turned around to check the angle. There at eye level stuck in a tree at a 90 degree angle to the direction it came from, was my arrow. Go figure.
It's the same group of "aliens" that hang around golf courses. They like to reach up out of the water and grap your golf ball out of mid air. In my area they seem to prefer the little water holes on the par 3 holes the best.
I use an old broom handle with a coat hook attached at the end. I can find most of them with that. But still some get a way. I don't think I could find them with a plow and a tractor. Gary
Every once in a while you must send a arrow to the arrow Gods. If not they get mad and cause you to lose or break many arrows at one time which causes the archer to wonder what happened. This leads to second guessing your shooting and your equipment which can lead to money being spent. This leads you........... I think you get the idea.
QuoteOriginally posted by Bowwild:
They go into a time warp. They are gone for a few years, and then bam, you find them clear as day with the fletching gone except for the quill.
LOL! Ya mean like this? Found this one the other day,lost it behind my target about a year ago.
(http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc156/goshawkin/photo_zpsf83aa749.jpg)
I missed a turkey last year.I was telling my buddy about it and said I didn't really mind the miss(hit my limb on a branch),but was bummed about losing a brand new arrow and broadhead. He gave me his metal detector to try out. I went back and found the arrow in about 30 seconds. Knee high pasture grass,without the detector I'd probably still be looking for it.
Thats what a dog is for, finding lost arrows. I also use a four prong rake to find them . But a dog can sniff them out when your not sure where they are at. But I never miss. :rolleyes:
I figure all my lost arrows are somewhere near all my lost socks and some car keys.
A metal detecter will pay for itself just finding arrows. I took mine to a field archery course and found a bundle of arrows in just a couple of hours.
The real truth about Area 51 has never been revealed. They are studying our arrows and then returning them when they are done. We have wood shavings on the floor of an indoor range here, with 3_D targets and artificial Christmas trees. The shavings are only a couple inches deep, but the aliens can find them and snatch them out of there before we can even get down range to pick them up. They're usually returned the following week - often in plain sight. Amazing how the govt has kept this secret so long.
Once I switched to Ace Hex heads I now no longer loose any arrows....before that...lots.
Arrow Gods gotta eat too.
shooting a 3D course some years back my buddy made a bad shot and when we found his arrow and pulled it out of the leaves it had another arrow he had telescoped attached. The club gave him an award for that shot.
I have a trick for finding them that works every time! You must walk barefoot heel to toe perpendicular to the path of the arrow slowly making your way from where you think it hit the ground basically until you reach. It's surprising how far they go sometimes. It's worth looking silly and getting my feet dirty to me because arrows are expensive!
Dogs work the best and are easy to train just put a little vanilla extract on the arrows, you may have to do it only once .I have a Jack Russell that finds lost arrows and it takes him some time on arrows with no vanilla, he gets so excited with himself when he finds one. I had chesapeaks that never failed ,I sent one out to find an arrow in tall grass and she came back with a shaft that had been lost 3 years prior.
x2 on the barefoot way. I did that and it worked great.
The earth just opens up and swallows them, doesn't matter what's on the end of it for me, broad heads, field points judo, gone, never to be seen again. :banghead:
If I can't find it with one of these then I'll do the barefoot trick in my own lawn but not on the 3-D course. There are still a couple lost ones on my property.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/0603/reddogge/Archery/IMG_1486.jpg)
reddongge, looks cool, what did you use to make that tool?
Your arrow is not lost.
It knows exactly where it is.
Don't worry, your arrow is resting comfortably and making new friends. Once they got all their feathers some of my arrows realized that it was time to leave the nest.
When I assemble my Hill single bevel broadheads, I need to hammer in the rivet. I drop about one out of three. Over the years I have dropped about 20 of the little buggers and have yet to find one back. I am pretty sure that they are all in rivet heaven. When I shoot a Schulz Hunter's Head tipped arrow, whether I hit or miss, that arrow goes to first time shot arrow heaven. The one that really bites my butt is the first shot I made last year with a judo tipped tapered cedar in a disced bean field, about 30 yards, and gone in broad daylight. However, when I was tracking my wifes deer I found three arrows shot a long time back by other hunters on my way to the deer. Go figure, I can find other peoples arrows by accident, but mine completely disappear.
Back around 2001 or 2002 I was into making wood arrows. I sealed, dipped, and crested them. They had beautiful shield-cut 5" feathers. I even painted little deer, bear or turkey tracks in the crest pattern.
Then I lost one at the edge of the yard in tall grass. I hunted for that arrow for hours and never found it. My wife thought I was nuts (or maybe I confirmed it for her?) I vowed then and there it was a bad idea for me to put so much effort in an arrow because I couldn't stand losing them.
I can't even stand to lose an arrow that is given too me.
Oh and this.
How many of you have had the bright idea of shooting another arrow the same way, figuring the follow-up shot will take you to the lost arrow....yep, you guessed it I lost two that way once.
If all my lost cedar arrows sprouted into trees there would several area in Georgia with massive cedar forests and absolutely no shortage of material for new arrow making. Periodic sacrificices to the arrow gods have always been a part of my archery experience.
I have never taken a metal detector to a shoot but have considered it several times. I have a very small one that would be easy to carry. I use it a lot in the yard.
Adab of duck training scent on them makes fun for your Lab and you do lose as ,many. My present Lab is not falling for it, but my last one loved the game