I'm not too far away, jimmy.

I'll tackle those two 'problems', gonzodemon...

Feathers only get wet when the hunter allows them to get wet. Keep them covered and out of the rain, they don't get wet. The waterproofing is to keep the feathers from being soaked on the short trip from the quiver, to string, to animal. It's not meant to keep feathers dry while sitting out in a monsoon all day.

On the other hand, if it's raining hard enough to work it's way through the waterproofing to soak your feathers, you're not likely to be out hunting in it either. If it's raining that hard, any blood trail you manage to get will be washed away and lost. But that's not likely to happen since the deer won't be moving anyway.

If you do let feathers get wet and matted down, they're easy to fix. You let them dry out, then a quick pass through the steam from the spout of a teapot puts them right back into shape. A lot easier to fix than a crumpled vane.

I've shot many tournaments - 3D and field archery - during the rain and, frankly, my accuracy with wet feathers has never degraded any worse than it did for the guys shooting vanes. Shake the water out of the feathers, then spin the arrow between your palms a few times to fluff the feathers out, and you're ready to shoot.

Noise. New feathers are usually more noisy than feathers that have been shot awhile and softened up. High profile feathers are more likely to be noisy than low profile. Feathers are most often noisy on arrows that are shot from poorly tuned bows, poorly spined arrows, or if they've been fletched with too much helical or offset.

I've heard some awfully noisey vanes in my day, too. Some of them sound like buzzbaits with all the fluttering and flapping they do.