I am almost afraid to jump into this one!<img src=icon_smile_blackeye.gif border=0 align=middle> I don`t need one of those right before the season starts.
First, I think I know what ArthurP is trying to get across here, and I agree with him.
As with many of us on this board, I have been hunting with archery gear since before the compound was invented. So I have heard it said countless times by people who are less than knowledgable on the subject, or who are just plain old BS`ers that their one pin can hit out to 30 yards and beyond without holding higher, thus making a faster bow the way to go for hunting.
Until two years ago, I averaged shooting at least one hundred arrows a day, every day of the year. I add that little tidbit of information to hopefully lend some credence to my next statement.
If your bow is shooting Easton ACE`s at 315fps and you are sighted in dead on at 20 yds., if you hold your 20yd. pin dead on at 30yds., you WILL hit roughly 3 inchs low. Slow your bow down to the 285-290 range, now you will hit roughly 4" low.
So, all the speed in the world cannot make up for gross misjudgements in yardage.
High speed can help on a yardage miss of a couple yards at close range, at 50yds, if you misjudge by 3yds., you got trouble.
If you are 10 yards off at 50 yds., you just completely missed the intended target.(which is much better than the alternative on live game!)
I am not saying that speed is a bad thing, I shoot my hunting rigs at around 285fps.
Several people have stated that we should practice yardage judging much more than most of us do. I agree completely.
Bowfanatic states that some people just plain suck at it. He is 100% right.
I have shot in 3-d tournaments on a local and national level for many years, and have enjoyed some success from time to time. But even with me shooting all those 3-d`s, I still don`t trust myself to judge yardage in the timber, with shadows and other things to mess me up. Before laser rangefinders I would step off yardage to different reference points around my stand. Now I simply zap them with my rangefinder.
I am NOT implying that everyone should use a rangefinder, some people are much better than me at judging distance. Everyone should be honest with themselves on whether they need to do something besides just looking and judging.
Everyone should also be honest about their limitations of how far they should shoot, too! I can put 3 arrow volleys inside of a softball size circle at 50yds. on my worst day. Much tighter on average, but I would be hard pressed to take a shot over 30yds. I actually can`t remember the last time I took one over 26 yds.
But again, that is me, many of you may feel extremely confident shooting further.
Stealthy, I agree that when mech. heads first came out, the vast majority of people using them were simply looking for a bandaid for poor bow tuning.
While I don`t use them myself, I do check out the new ones, and I believe that alot of guys use them responsibly, out of well tuned rigs nowadays!
silentassassin, I am pretty much of an old fashioned guy, I`m not into most of this newfangled stuff. However, I really think we should look into some of those anger management classes.<img src=icon_smile_dissapprove.gif border=0 align=middle>
NRA,UBP,BASS Member
New Stanton,PA