I had a rather heated discussion with another board member about an incident that happened to me last Winter, while hunting a scrape that I’d managed to get my stand set @ 9 yds from. I had a buck go on full alert after he heard my arrow dragging across my rest in my attempt to come to full draw. In reading this month’s ‘Peterson’s Bowhunting’ articles….I came across a rather interesting article by professional hunter and author Steve Bartylla. I’ll quote from the portion of his article that deals with equipment noise.
“Obviously, equipment noise is always an issue, but never more than during late season. Not being a sound engineer, I can’t explain the dynamics of why sounds seem to be exponentially amplified the colder it gets. However, having more than one whitetail snap their head in my direction , based solely on the whisper of an arrow drawing over the rest, it became obvious to me early on that taking noise reduction to the extreme is critical.”
“Clothing, arrow rests and stands are the three biggest culprits”
Based on the magazine photos and the fact that he’s a contributing author….I take it he knows what he’s talking about.
I know what happened in the woods that day, last year. The type of rest I WAS using isn’t even important, any more.
Jeff