BowCast Blog

 

DIY Montana Antelope

 

2009 PSE Bows

I hope everyone is having a great whitetail season and possibly some late season elk.  I will be chasing both the next two weeks and keep you posted on my efforts.  During the next few weeks I am going to try and shoot as many of the new 2009 bows as possible and give you my thoughts on how they compare.   

 

Part 1-Making a Paper Tuner

I am still working on building my home bow shop like I'm sure many of you are.  There is a great PodCast, episode #53, on what tools and supplies you will need to start your own home bow shop.  One of the items missing from my shop was a paper tuner.  I have tried many times to quickly tune my bow shooting a piece of paper taped to my ladder rungs.  NOT a good idea and one I would NOT recommend as I put a few holes in the wall of my basement and was out a few arrows.  This blog entry will show you how you can make your own paper tuner by simply going to your local hardware and grocery store and spending around $30.

 

Gear Review- MSR Hyperflow

 

One of the reason Bowcast was started was to give honest and comprehensive products reviews.  If you pickup any magazine or watch any tv show you will see so called reviews.  The only problem is that many of the people reviewing the products are sponsored by the company.  When I see this I always question the review. 

I have been down the sponsorship or pro-staff road a few times and luckily I have been able to to stay independent.  This affords me the freedom to call it like I see it.  I don't have to help sell a product.

As many of you know I have been reviewing a BLACKHAWK! Blacktimber pack for a few months.  My goal was to really give it a workout.  I didn't want to do one of those reviews that you see in the magazine that just list the specs.  I wanted to be able to say that I really tested a pack and want to feel comfortable with the review that the pack EARNED.

 

Talk about RAIN!!! It has been a long time since I have seen this much rain this late in the year. In fact, we had TORNADO warnings for the first two days of our Antelope season. I was praying that the area that I was hunting was relatively dry and that I might be able to sit a tank until I was forced to do a little spot and stalk.

Because of birthdays and family visiting I wasn't able to make the first two days of the hunt, usually two days isn't that big of a deal but our Antelope season is only 7 days long so you have to take advantage of everyday. So I rolled out of Silver City Monday morning around 5:00 am trying to make it to my hunting spot before noon. I was able to get to my camping spot around 10:00 am. So I quickly setup camp and headed to the mountain. I say mountain but in reality the area I was hunting was pretty flat. The good thing about this area is that I could see and glass a long way but the problem was that the antelope would see me coming.

I thought I would call out one of the comments I received about the bear mauling directly on the blog.  Thanks for the question, my response is below. 

 

Recently, in the fourms we had some discussion about Bare Shaft Tuning and I was asked to explain it a little more.... So here it goes.

The idea behind Bare Shaft Tuning is that you are trying to see if you arrows are correctly spined for your setup.

Besides providing a more comfortable nights' sleep, sleeping pads provide another important function; insulation. I vividly recall one bivouac trip I made. In an effort to shave a couple of pounds or so off of my packs weight I decided to leave my pad at home. Several hours into the night, with chattering teeth I realized what that second function was. Since that time, technology and innovation has reduced the weight and bulk, now providing several options at around and just under a pound.

 

One of the most abused or overlooked components of working out is taking the time to incorporate a proper warm-up.  Instead of jumping right into a gut busting workout or half heartedly performing a few static stretches, try integrating a proper dynamic warm-up.  This is the only way to prepare your body for the demands that a workout may have on you and decrease your chance of injury.  The first part of a warm-up is heating your body which simultaneously increases your respiratory rate, blood flow, oxygen, which will enhance delivery of nutrients to your body's cells.  This ultimately notifies your body's systems that some demanding work is approaching. 

 

One of the bulkiest items on your gear list for a bivy hunt is probably your sleeping bag. If it has not been replaced in the last couple of years, chances are you can not only shave off some weight, but also significantly reduce the bulk. Almost all of the major sleeping bag manufacturers are offering sub 2 pound 3 season down bags now. Some have reduced the weight down to as little as a single pound and can be stuffed into a sack half the size of a nerf football. For my early season hunts in August and the first week of September I like a bag rated at about 30-35 degrees. Any later in the high country and you are increasingly flirting with the chances of sub-freezing temperatures. For those hunts I drop down to a 20 degree rating. Some of my favorite bags are from Western Mountaineering, Marmot, Mountain Hardware and Feathered Friends.

 

Down is graded by measuring how many cubic inches it takes to weigh one ounce. A 600 fill is 600 cubic inches per ounce. Several things to keep in mind as you shop for a featherweight bag is the higher quality the down, the lighter the weight and the better the insulation it provides. You should be looking for a minimum of 700-fill-power, with 800-900 being preferred. The difference between a 600 and a 800-fill-power bag of the same temperature rating can be over half a pound. The higher the number, the greater the loft and compatibility for the same fill weight.

As an addendum to my last post, check out the video below. I go through S.M.A.R.T and how it applies to bow hunter fitness.

 

My goal in this blog is to help you learn the ropes of backcountry hunting. Whether you are a seasoned veteran or have never spent the night out in the wilderness, I think there will be something for everyone. I invite your questions, comments and critiques. The first several entries I plan on covering gear choices in greater detail than I was able to cover on the podcast. After that I’ll go into some specifics about mule deer hunting in the alpine. As I get input and feedback, the blogs will likely take off on other tangents of the readers’ interests.

Through the years I’ve spent in the mountains, I’ve had more than one fellow bowhunter comment that I put in way more effort trying to fill my tags than I need to. I the west can be hunted without the burden of a backpack, but that is one of the things that appeals to me. My first bivouac trip was a solo venture when I was 17 years old. Since that time I’ve spent the majority of my hunting seasons well off the beaten path. I love getting to hang around a campfire in the evenings with a couple of buddies, swapping old stories, but even more anticipated is throwing a pack load of gear on my back and leaving base camp for a few days. Maybe I was born a couple of centuries too late, but I love the feeling of being the first person to glass a big canyon or distant ridge (even if it is just for that season). Often times I leave base camp with a specific destination in mind, only to get lured further and further. Having a bivy camp on my back gives me the freedom of wandering further and longer without having to worry about what I’m going to eat or where I am going to sleep. It gets me further into the backcountry, farther away from other hunter pressure, provides me the flexibility to be able to move if I encounter hunter pressure and allows me to hunt undisturbed animals. The “work” part of carrying my pack all day has become just another part of the hunt; I don’t think of it as an anchor, rather a liberating piece of equipment. It gives me great satisfaction knowing I’m carrying all I need to survive for up to a week at a time.