The weekend kicked off with a batchelor party for my good friend. We met at Coors Field for a Rockies game, and that ended with about 30 police officers escorting the entire batchelor party out of the stadium....more on that in another blog entry.

I did get some shooting/testing in this weekend. I was thrown for a couple of loops on the range today. Here goes ....

• Quest 33
• Arrows had good elevation at 20 yards, but I noticed I was clicking about an inch to the right. Not sure what was going on there. The last time I shot was through paper, so I am assuming I just had my sight off a bit when we were playing around. Anyway, couple of clicks of the Sure-Loc, and everything was back in order.
• I headed out with the last sight tape I printed off of Archer's Advantage. Things were fine until I started focusing on 50 yards. Wind picked up a bit, and I couldn't get a round off arrows to fly consistent. I was clicking in a 3 inch circle, but just not the same place....kept going round after round until I started to notice I was getting WAY off the left (like 8 inches off). I was stumped for a couple of rounds until I looked down at my sight and the 3rd Axis bolt was loose...the entire housing was moveable back and forth. I eye-balled it back and tightened it down....all was good again.

• Katera
  
• This was really the first time I shot any distance with the Katera this year. 20 yards was spot on. To my disbelief, 30 and 40 yards were clicking as well. I have some minor windage issues, but I thought my main focus with this bow today was going to be to adjust elevation....no need - didn't touch a pin on the G5 Optima XR sight.
  

Once the wind got unbearable (and my arms were starting to lose it with those 80 lb limbs), I headed down to the Sportsman's Warehouse in Aurora, CO to run both these bows through a chronograph. I was very interested in seeing what going with 80lb limbs was going to buy me. Keep in mind, I have not done any real "speed tuning". Basically this is out of the box, cranked down a bit (Quest is at 76 lbs and Katera is at 73 lbs currently). The results of the Chronograph:

Quest 33 - 271 fps

Katera - 286 fps

Now Chronographs can be finicky, so I don't take either of these measurements as the gospel....but I am very happy with those results. I'll do a little more tinkering to figure out if those speeds are actually accurate.

Came back home and entered those speeds into Archery's Advantage software to see what kind of Kinetic Energy I was getting. The results:

G5 Quest 33 - 61 ft-lb @ 80 yards

Hoyt Katera - 55.6 ft-lb @ 80 yards

Hmmm.....Katera is faster but has less Kinetic Energy. Interesting, don't you think?

More soon.

Aneal

Jennifer awesome job on your first deer. I hope this is the first of many. Take Care - Jason

I'm Jennifer, 36 years old and never really hunted on my own before. I've been hunting and sat with other people before but I found out last year its just not the same. I got my first bow and started practicing because I wanted to hunt without a gun.
This is a picture of my first deer. It was the second week of season in North Carolina and this buck came out from my right and stood 20 yards in front of me. I drew my bow back, nervous as I could be of course, got him in my sight and released the trigger. Shot him right through his heart and out his lung. I've never had a rush like that before.
I hope you enjoy my pictures.
Happy Hunting everyone.

P.S. Not only was I proud of my first deer, made it even better that he was still in velvet, needless to say he's at the taxidermist

...Back to the Quest 33.

I took some accurate measurements of my "peep to sight apeture" and "peep to arrow shaft" which is needed to estimate speed in Archery's Advantage (as well as setup sight tapes).  I also updated my Archer's Advantage software so all the specs of the 2008 bows came in (i.e. Hoyt Katera).  This is done by simply clicking the "update" button in Archer's Advantage which goes out to the internet and gets an executable file you can download to update the program's database.

In addition, I went out and shot again to get some accurate marks.  I shot at 20 yards and 50 yards, and entered those new marks into the AA software.  When all was calculated (Bow setup, sight setup, arrow shaft selection and weight), Archer's Advantage is telling me I am shooting 266 feet per second (fps) out of the Quest 33 with 80lb limbs.  Sound a little low?  Yeah, I thought so too.

But, no worries on this point.  Right now my goal is to get comfortable shooting the bow and ensuring my form is golden with a new setup.  Pin point accuracy is not my priority at this point....getting to know my new equipment (as well as how my arms are holding up with 80lb limbs) is what I have chosen as my priority.  Over the next couple of weeks I will really start getting dialed in for some upcoming 3D shoots.

I'd love to hear what you all are doing with your bows this time of year.  Any new accessories?  New practice techniques?  Add a comment to this blog entry and let me know what you are working on.

Shoot Straight!

Aneal

Here we go gents...try this one, it's time to step it up:

SUPERSET BACK & FORTH: 21, 15, and 9 repetitions of...

• Sumo Deadlift to High Pull (minimum 45lbs / max  95 lbs)...review blog entry on March 25th

• Pull-ups

 Then Row 5,000 meters...let me know your total time!  If you're wondering why, then is a bowhunter 's workout due to the amount of taxing to the upper and lower back, not mention it challenges your endurance.  Good luck!

 Oh, and thunder chickens are going down!

As I mentioned in my last entry, I was very happy with my initial setup of my Quest 33 bow and Sure-Loc Max ST sight. Now I was moving on to setting up my other bow - a Hoyt Katera.

I went down to visit my good buddy (and Archery Guru) Matt Hogue at my local Sportsman's Warehouse in Littleton, CO. We got to work completing the following tasks:

All went pretty much according to plan with setup. We did notice that it looked like there was some internal wear on my NAP Quicktune 4000. I have hunted with that rest for 3 seasons, so that is to be expected. What was going on was while the rest was dropping away with good timing, it didn't seem to drop ALL the way down, and was stopping about 1/8 inch from the shelf. I kept it on to get comfortable with shooting the bow.

In addition, I have switched over from Gold Tip Arrows to Easton Full Metal Jackets which have a smaller diameter. So we played with the "forks" on the Quicktune to get them to hug the arrow a little better.

I shot 4 arrows through paper and all but 1 (which was probably my form) were perfect bullet holes (Good job eye-balling Matt!). So great news there. The other news is I will probably go through this all again when I decide to purchase a new rest. I have the G5 Expert II rest on my Quest bow, so I am looking for some ideas on what to use on the Katera (limited by those rests that actually work with a Hoyt). Does anyone shooting a Hoyt have a favorite rest to recommend? Add a comment to this post and let me know.

Next, I'll jump back to my Quest bow and see if I can dial in the speed and sight on that bow. More soon.....

Shoot Straight!

Aneal