As thirdhandman and bgutsy have previously stated, I would also buy a 1-3 year old, used bow. However, I don't think anyone has said this yet, be sure to do a careful inspection of the bow; limbs, cam, etc... before purchasing. If possible, you and the seller meet a proshop and have a professional look over it to ensure there aren't any cracks or anything out of the ordinary. As far as sights, rests, arrows etc... I would check Amazon. Ultimately, welcome to Bowhunting.com and back into the sport
Where are you from? If you know of Minnesota archery you must be from central MN. I'm in the willmar/Spicer area and know a guy who works at Archery Country in St Cloud so more than likely I'll be doing my business up there, however I'll definitely check out the shop in Litchfield. I've had numerous people I've spoken with tell me to go there as well. Thanks for the thoughts about getting into used equipment rather than buying new.
Do you deer hunt only (with bow) or do you try your luck with the turkeys as well? I've got some land that a friend of my family's had and I know there are gobblers on there so I'm going to try that this spring.
Yep. Bow only. I hunt with a recurve actually. 19 years with the recurve and 9 years before that with a compound. There are turkeys all over around here but I don't do much turkey hunting.
Well I finally made it up to Archery Country, shot a Bear Agenda 7 (they didn't have any of the Motives on hand) a Matthews Creed XS and a Bowtech of some sort. There was one small variable, the draw weights were all slightly different, the Bear and the Bowtech had draw weight of a little over 60 and the Creed was set s little lower at about 55. I was blown away by how much smoother drawing the Creed was than the other two. I'm hoping that it doesn't have that much to do with the difference in draw weights, and that it is simply the Matthews is just a better bow, but I'm going to go back up on Friday to more than likely make the purchase. I'm hoping they will be able to make the adjustments to the draw weights to help with the decision. Again any thoughts would be helpful.
Curious to know what Browning you had, I had an FPS and loved that bow and the wooded grip. I'm in the same boat but I have not yet deceided on what bow I will be choosing. Good luck and let us know what you deceide.
I bought Nockturnals about 3 days ago after losing an arrow just as "insurance." A few friends and myself got together yesterday evening and had a bow competition. They all had standard mocks and absolutely loved my Nockturnals. They had me see how far I could shoot my arrow with the Nockturnal on it just to see if we would be able to still see it (I made them agree first to buying me a new arrow and pack of Nockturnals if we lost it.) Long story short, arrow traveled every bit of 500 yards in pitch black night, could see the Nockturnal clearly and we now have a video of us all laughing like school girls. Just a suggestion, not sure if the other brands are like this but to turn them off, you must use a knife so I only changed over half of mine and I'm glad I did because you get tired of pulling your knife out at 30 yards to turn the nock off. And like the other guy said, they fly just the same. Great product and I absolutely love them!
@RyPage07 After spending some time looking at them yesterday, the lighted ones all had a weight clearly marked on the box, are they heavier than standard nocks or the same weight? If they are heavier, how do you compensate for the added weight when shooting your arrows with the standard nocks? Thanks for the info though. I have a feeling that I'm going to use them with my hunting arrows. The way I see it, I may as well start using a lot of the technological advances that have come to pass in the last decade plus.
I can't for the life of me remember what model it was. I like you loved the thing, but comparably speaking to the Matthews that I shot yesterday, bows have come a long way since I stopped hunting last. If you're in the position that I'm in, you Judd need to spend the time shooting a few and narrowing down your options. However, based on my experience yesterday, I'd make sure that you try a few Matthews bows.
Going today to try the new Bowtech and Matthews bows at the local archery shop. The Browning I have has one solid limb and a split limb, I'm ready to jump into the new world of technology and kill some animals.
In the end, the Matthews Creed XS spoke to me the most. So it is currently in my trunk and I'm on my way home. I can't say enough about Brandon at Archery Country in St Cloud. He knows what he is talking about and had me set up and sighted in within about 30 minutes. It felt great to be shooting MY OWN bow again. Now the horrid wait for the spring turkey hunt. April can't come soon enough.
They are a tad bit heavier. Some people are really obsessed with the FOC and won't shoot them or put a weight on the front but the difference between them is so small it doesn't make a difference in my groups. But definitely buy local and look at last years model bows because they are going to be a little bit cheaper and in a lot of cases they are very similar to bows a year newer than them
So if I want to replace the nocks on my arrows that I got from archery country with lighted ones, how do I go about it? Luckily (or not) I was down at our local indoor range the other night practicing and ended up shooting a little too close on a couple arrows and stripped a fletch off of one... so I have one arrow that I can practice working on. How do I remove the original nock without doing damage to the arrow?
So I've been shooting a bit at my local club recently and I think I'm ready for the spring turkey seasons!
Actually no, but I haven't given it much thought as of recently. I'm headed back to the place where I bought the bow tomorrow to pick up a Stabilizer and will ask them when I get there. They set me up with everything I have and said come back to ask questions whenever I had any. The guys at AC in St Cloud are great to work with.
