Ouch, that sucks!! I went out tonight and saw one spike. It was very exciting. Headed back to Iowa tomorrow to see what's cooking out there. It's about 3.5 hour drive so I'm planning on leaving around 6 am and hope to be in a tree by 11 and sit the rest of the day. Depending on what I see for pressure from other hunters and deer activity I'll either stay and hunt Sunday, or drive an hour to my lease in IL and hunt that on Sunday. Hoping for some bigger bucks one of these days.
That sounds like a bad time with that unexpected creek bath and getting that wet! Made it to Ohio last pm. Finishing drive in this am and heading out for an afternoon sit. Sent from my iPhone using Bowhunting.com Forums
Had 2 spikes come in and work a scrape. It cold and calm here in N. GA. Practice drew on one to see if I could get away with it. It worked so let's hope something good shows up.
Haven't been on much as of late, phone issues stink. Shot a doe this morning and had a slammer at 50 yards. Bucks are moving all day at this point and all over. In a tree all week. Good luck team Sent from my XT1710-02 using Bowhunting.com Forums mobile app
In the mountains this evening hunting over a fresh scrape on the edge of a thicket. Wind is right for the deer and myself. Come on big mountain buck!
Well, guys - had the darndest thing happen to me yesterday. I spent the weekend in Iowa and decided to sit all day yesterday. Packed all my gear into a tree I hunted a few weeks ago, about 1/2 mile back in some timber on a nice bench that I watched a bunch of deer use. I figured it would be as good a place as any to catch a buck cruising through, looking for does. I got set up before light and sat in that stand all day long - sick, cold and generally wondering why the heck I do this to myself. Around 4 pm I look down the hill and here comes a shooter. I knew immediately he's coming up to this bench as I've seen multiple deer do this same thing. Instead of coming in front of my stand and giving me a 15 yard chip shot, he veers off and comes hard on my left-hand side, about 6 steps from the base of the tree. As he pulls level with me I draw back, stop him with a grunt, and let it fly. He runs off down the hill with his tail up and no sign he was hit. I'm dumbfounded. I had him dead to rights. What just happened? So I start looking at the ground for my arrow and notice a fletching laying on the ground along with what looks like a piece of my arrow wrap. So I climb down to see what's going on only to find the front 2/3 of my arrow stuck in the ground, and the back 1/3 of the arrow blown into a million pieces and scattered all over the woods. I was finding arrow pieces 20 feet away in all different directions. Luckily it was a clean miss (still not sure how) and my bow seems to be fine. I have no idea if the arrow failed or maybe the nock failed, but in any case, it was a bit of a letdown. But hey, what are you gonna do? Things happen that at out of your control at times. Just have to roll with the punches and keep after it. For the record, it was a brand new arrow that had never been shot, so if it was compromised it either came from the factory that way, or I damaged it during transport somehow. If the nock failed, perhaps it had been damaged earlier as I do move my lighted nocks from arrow to arrow. I leave for Wyoming on Friday for a 5 day hunt and we should be hitting things perfectly for their rut. Weather looks decent, so I'm looking for some redemption!
I took off work last Thursday and Friday to hunt and only saw a couple small bucks. The deer are using the corn heavily and only seem to be walking out of the corn nocturnally. There’s fresh scrapes and rubs everywhere and we have great bucks on camera. I guess a weekend and a couple days this week will lessen the pressure. Our farm butts up against 200 acres of public land that doesn’t see much pressure until gun season. I know I have to be patient but it’s tough this time of year. Sent from my iPhone using Bowhunting.com Forums
Ouch! Luckily you didn't get hit with shrapnel in your grip hand. I've never heard of this happening before!
Here's what the arrow looks like as best as I can reconstruct it from the pieces I found. Still missing a bunch but it looks like the main break was right near the tail end of where the logo graphic is at. Here's what is left of the nock end. It's cracked but the shaft is still mostly in-tact, which leads me to believe it wasn't a nock failure. Usually when that happens I see the back of the shaft blown out. Oddly enough, there's some dirt in the end of the arrow where the nock usually goes. Not sure how that even happened. Although I'm not sure how any of this happened so who knows! lol
Looks like there was a hairline crack in the back portion of the shaft with the way it came apart. I've had some lighted nocks split some shafts before that I wouldn't have noticed had I not had the right light and angle to see it.
Cold morning today! 7 degrees when I woke up but nice and warm in my office. I'll pulling out the rifle on Saturday when rifle season starts. Hopefully those of you in the woods this week are seeing a lot of activity! It's been exactly a month since I've been in the woods so the itch needs scratched!
Cold as heck here too! It was 3 degrees when I left my house this morning. I'm still fighting a cold and have work to do, so I'll probably skip the rest of this week and hit it hard in Wyoming starting on Friday afternoon. I was going to try and hunt tomorrow afternoon, but the temps and wind look brutal. I'll wait until late season and hunt food sources if I'm going to do that nonsense.
Well I should have not been a sissy and hunted last night! I had two shooters moving in daylight on my lease - one in my clover plot and the other on my standing beans that had a bunch of does feeding in it. Go figure!
man you hate to see it!! atleast they are up and moving! my cameras have been extremely slow for daylight activity. I was able to sneak out this morning for a two hour sit before work. I had just climbed in the tree and got my camera arm set up and bow on the hanger, then i hear footsteps and grunting, this buck comes in to 10 yards (down wind) and just hangs out until about 5 minutes before shooting light then went back the way he came!!!! close but no cigar, Saturday is the last day of PA archery so I will be set up on some public land trying to get a shot at a buck, or doe doesnt matter to me!
PA sounds like a horrible place to bow hunt. Can't hunt on Sunday and archery season ends during the middle of the rut. Illinois sucks for a lot of reasons, but at least our hunting is pretty good!
PA SUCKS 6 week season, were lucky we get to hunt this weekend due to it starting later this year, were way over crowded in my area as well with hunters. We are starting to make some progress, they approved a whole 3 sundays that we can hunt next year, on private land and only with written permission from the land owner to hunt on that Sunday....
are those the rampages? a guy at work is sponsered by black eagle and was shooting them this year, seem to break pretty easy, he convinced me to pick up the X impacts for next year, .166 and built like a tank!
Yeah - Rampage 350's. I've been shooting them for 3 or 4 years now and never had an issue. Trouble is I will never know if it was a bad/damaged arrow, a bad/damaged nock, or something else entirely. So it's hard to point blame at any given product or component. If I was forced to guess I would say the arrow had a crack in it and splintered when I shot but didn't break until it impacted the ground.
