Last night I had one of those shots that you sit and wait ages for.  16 yards, great shooting lane, lots of light (4:30pm), 40 degrees, young fork horned buck, on my left side, both of us calm.  Picked my spot, arrow flew great, bright fletching, and he ducked it completely.  He stayed around about 10 minutes more until a coyote came through.  I thought my Shrew was whisper quiet with heavy cedars.  Anyway, as a friend said, this time he just won.

That sucks, it must have been his 6th sense or something. Don't worry it will happen!

What type of silencers are installed on your bowstring?

The reason I'm asking is because when I stand next to someone and listen to their bow upon arrow release, sometimes the person shooting the bow thinks his bow is quiet, but to me, it sounds like a brass band warming up.

My two recurve bows were slightly too noisy for my taste upon arrow release and they both came with rubber cat whiskers already installed on the bowstrings. I removed them and installed a pair of yarn wool puffs (80% acrylic, 20% wool) and this really made my recurves quiet.

Just picked up an old bear that came with yarn balls on the string, I thought my other recurve was fairly quiet, the old bear is like a mouse fart. Now my other bow scares me it's so loud, may just be bow quality, gonna try the puffs on it next, though the beaver balls seem well liked.

Sure is fun aye!    

The bow is quiet.  I have Wooly Whispers (Yarn balls) on all my strings.  Still is great fun.  Sat the same tree tonight just to live it again.

Was not your turn,happened to me Sunday evening at about 18 or 20 yards

The deer can hear the arrow coming.  Try shooting past someone who is (safely) down range.

Some feather set ups are better than others.
ChuckC

i consider my bows pretty quiet
and have been told there quiet by other shooters
but i had my wife stand behind the shed and she could hear the thump of the bow and the arrow in flight  before the impact at the target

kevin