Pro-Line

At 280 fps a deer has .16 seconds to react at 15yds. That's not much time...but it can make a mediocre shot poor. In my experience a deer at 15 yards has little chance to "duck" a GOOD shot. That's with a compound...

With my recurve it's a different story. With my 55# recurve the same deer has over a quarter of a second to jump.

At 30 yds...that turns into more like three quarters of a second with my recurve - due to speed loss. That's why I limit my shots to 18-20yds...on non-alert deer only.

A deer at 30yds still has almost a half-second to react with a compound. That's plenty of time to screw up even the best of shots...

kshunter

I think it's alright to shoot at any deer in the 40 yard range, if you're comfortable with it. I mean you just have to allow the deer to jump and place the arrow differently, if he's going to. And it's not that hard to tell if the deer will jump. Just read it's body language.

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TFOX

I agree totally that a deer over 30 yard will not respond the same as a deer 15 yards away and have stated this many times before and I agree with Straightarrow about a fast bow at the longer distances.Another thing to consider is the deers body language,if the deer is alert and nervous ,the 30 yards might be moved on out to 40 yards,even the close shots can be dangerous on nervous deer but one that is calm will almost never be able to jump the (noise) string.

Straightarrow

I decided to give some of the figures used in the article for those who don't have it.

Speed of sound - 1085 fps
Time for arrow to go 20 yards at 230 fps - .275 seconds
At this speed it takes .056 seconds for sound to reach the deer at 20 yards - leaving .219 seconds for the deer to react and start dropping.
Reaction time for deer after they hear the sound - .05 seconds - this leaves .169 seconds to drop before arrows arrives.
Deer will fall at a rate based on the accelerarion of gravity, which is just over 5 1/2 inches in this senerio.
Increasing the speed to 280 fps and leaving everything else the same will produce a drop of 2.75 inches.

Using these figures, at 5 yards the arrow has hit the deer before he can even react, without even taking into account how far gravity could make him fall.

Once again, I'm just relaying information given in a very well written article. The only debatable figure is the deers reaction time and the figure they used was so fast, that even eliminating reaction time wouldn't have made a huge difference. The real difference comes at longer distances. In this article is pointed out that the same deer at 30 yards would have dropped 16 3/4 inches with a 230 fps arrow.

davidmil

North Jeff: I think you're somewhat right on your theory. It's been my observation and I read it somewhere once, a deer is less likely to panic at the sound of a bow going off at 30-35 than he is at 20. Most deer I've shot at at the longer distances rarely look or move at the shot.

Nic Barca

First off, let me say that I have never shot at any deer. Nor do I hunt whitetails.

I haven't read all the posts so I wouldn't know if anyone has brought this up or not but there is alot more to all this than the sound of the bow going off.

I would like everyone to try a little experiment. Hide behind something and have a friend shoot an arrow in your direction.
You will hear the bow going off but you will also hear the arrow whistling towards you. It will get louder as it gets closer. No matter what distance, I believe you will be hearing a rather loud whistling noise.

As for the bow noise, I agree to these quotes:
Call it the "Boo" theory or whatever, but if you round the corner and someone yells "boo!" from a foot away-most people jump. If you round that same corner and someone from across a 20' room yells "boo!", well then you'd probably look at them like they were an idiot or something.
I can see how that is true probably most of the time. North Jeff, I agree that the deer will not jump the string any longer after 30 or 35 yards. Or what I mean is it won't jump because of the bow noise but I think that it still might jump because of the arrow noise.

Of course there are many exceptions.

And with arrow noise, other deer will learn to run away at the sound of whistling arrows because they can all hear it too.

So if arrow noise it what causes deer to jump the string, then a deer will jump the string at any distance. The farther away, the better the chance. I have no experience to back this theory..... Just though it up.

As for arrow speed. It makes some difference but not a whole lot. May save you a few inches.

Nic

TFOX

Nic,there is some truth to your theory.That is the main reason that I do not use feathers,they are extremely loud.My little 3" straight fletching makes almost no noise and paired with a Rocket mechanical it will fly great.If someone plans on taking longer shots they should consider the arrow noise along with arrow speed.A faster arrow will give a deer less of a chance to take a step and will help in yardage estimation but not as much as some might think.

Edited by - tfox on 01/15/2002 20:15:06

Lilhunter

Hey straightn..there is a vid you should check out. Tracking before and after. It has a few of these 2.75" 'misses/bad shots on there', not trying to beat a dead horse and it sure does look great on paper! ALso you can at times see the arrow, I have watched to many vids to notice it more often then not IF the camera is in the right place, and they have enuf frames. Usually they hit a slowmo of the pause already in the movie, seeing arrow is tough at best but slo mo your VCR when the vid you are watching does its slo mo and you will see more often then not the arrow about 3-5 yards out of the bow and the deer has already dropped a bit, sometimes more sometimes less! Wish it was more scientific, sorry its not but it is an observation and I have pointed it out to more then a few folks when watching, not to mention other crap that goes on in some of those videos.

Big Country

IMHO a quite bow is much more important than arrow speed! Also, I personally will not shoot at a "wired" deer, unless he is inside of 10yds. I have also watched many videos where deer jump/duck the shot. In my own experiences shooting at relaxed deer(61 whitetails w/bow) I have never noticed a deer react to the shot. This could be because I am concentrating on the shot, and not the deer moving, but I have never had a deer move enough to preclude a double lung hit. Anyway, I agree with Dick, this is a noise issue.

Straightarrow

Lilhunter,

I've seen the videos and I know that sometimes it seems that they drop quite far, and very quickly. However, I can't argue against the laws of physics and mathematics. A deer cannot fall at a rate greater than the acceleration of gravity and we can figure out exactly how long it will take an arrow to get to it's target. It's simple math and I am unable to argue against it.

I would suggest in those videos, that the distance is slightly greater than we think, the bow is shooting slower than we guess, and the angles and magnification of a camera lens can be very misleading. Combine that with an arrow that was probably going to miss high, even if the deer didn't move an inch, and you've got an optical illusion.