Ever since I got a bow for Christmas last year, I pretty much stopped gun hunting altogether. The main place where I hunt is a few thousand acres of public ground little more than a hour and a half east of Kansas City. It holds some bruisers but they are wily and smart. It’s a bit discouraging at times.

I’ve only seen one buck out there this year, and I’ve only seen him twice. I still can’t tell you for sure how many points he’s got but he’s tall and wide non typical with a big white palmation on the left side. I have hunted only for this buck all year and I have my heart set on getting a bow kill but I think I made a mistake.

The second sighting was during gun season. About 60 yards, strutting briskly in the edge of the tree line. I wish I used a gun that day. I heard three different blasts that day, I’ve been surfing the web for pictures of the deer I’ve been hunting. I want to call him my deer but I know better. I haven’t seen any yet.

I’ve had a couple of opportunities to kill does but blew it both times.

I’m gonna keep at it with the bow but I will probably use a muzzle loader for alternative season. Probably gonna book a bow hunt for pigs at a large high fence place before long. Yeah, it’s like that.

Yeah it's not easy at all. But the sense of accomplishment when you get it done is great.

I would never gotten to appreciate my bow kills Like I do if I hadn’t killed so many with a rifle.

For most people bow hunting is a progression, or a means to an end for access and extended seasons.

Good luck on getting your buck

Been up north to 3 different states with a gun. Killed my biggest deer yet with my bow bout 55 miles east of Kansas City in Missouri.

I bow hunted only for years, if that’s what you like stick with it. I really enjoyed it , I didn’t care if a buck had a 2 foot spread or better, I would not shoot him with a rifle.

Stick with it. I love bow hunting. Hunting with a rifle doesn’t move my needle anymore. There’s nothing that compares to close encounters with an animal that you’ve actually hunted. It is very tough, especially if you aren’t hunting a feeder. I’ve had somewhat limited success, but the challenge is very motivating to me. Keep it up!

Also, don’t book a hunt at a high fence place. Well, I guess do whatever you want. But there’s plenty of public land covered up with pigs. If you need the meat, Kroger is cheaper than a high fence ranch. Public land pigs are out there though, if you really want to hunt…

I am in Missouri, pig hunts are illegal except on a high fence place.

I will never give up on bow hunting deer. I actually took my bow for gun deer and antlerless season. Will continue with the bow straight through muzzle loader season if I can get one ready to roll by then.

Right now I’m having equipment issues. I have two bows and both need fixing if you can believe that.

Maybe I should switch to a trad bow. Once I get that figured I won’t have these complications with equipment any more. We will see.

Bryan, no offense, but I hunted with compounds for 25 years before switching to traditional gear. I can count on one hand hand the number of equipment issues I've had that were hunt stoppers. And most of them were dumb [censored] stuff I did like chipping a cam on a steel gate trying to go through without setting my bow down. Hooking my bow on a limb that broke off letting my bow drop 20 feet and bent my sight. (That was in Missouri by the way) So few I might have a finger or two left uncounted.
Traditional may have less gadgets but there is more work and details than I ever worried about with compound bows. Believe me I've bow hunted almost exclusively the last twenty plus years and killed more animals than most ever will get a chance to. If you buy quality equipment, set up correctly and used properly, you shouldn't have issues.

Ah gotcha. Figured you were down here. Agree with Passthru’s advice above.

Agree 100%

Well I stripped the socket head out on one limb of my Amazon.com bow turning the poundage down for my kids, so it’s got one limb turned all the way out and one limb about a turn out. I might have put a drop of lot tire on there, blue 242 non permanent. Well it didn’t work out lol. Supposed to be adjustable all the way down to 25 pounds. That, and the strings and cables have stretched tremendously and should probably be replaced before continued use.

I ordered strings and cables and they came an inch longer than the stretched out ones it came with, they won’t work with the bow shop. Go figure. The bow shop is gonna eat that one for me but I feel bad for them. They are actually a custom ammo and gun store nearby just getting started in bows. They have no inventory yet though.

I tried to order a factory string for it but email response is slow and you can tell they are not English speakers trying to type English lol. I have the replacement limb bolts coming but had already ordered a quality string, now I’m going through the manufacturer trying to order strings and cables from Taiwan lol.


My other bow, a splinter has shown up in the bottom limb. I kept using it but now I hear it crackle a little bit almsot every time I draw it. So I put it away.

I am getting new limbs through warranty repairs with my bow shop. But they are shipping from PSE to my bow shop and then from the bow shop to me because I never registered the bow. They are doing this because it’s a 6 hour round trip for me to go to them. It’s the nearest decent bow shop I know of. I have gotten half a season out of it. Got new string for it too because it’s already good and frayed. Yes I wax it before I put it up every time I use it. This bow is my baby, I keep it in the case and I take it on the road. I shoot it A LOT though and I have the limb bolts maxed out.

I’d still shoot it except for the limbs. Now I will miss three weekends in a row.

So call it a run of bad luck or whatever you want. It’s not for lack of trying. I am for sure NOT gonna throw more money away on a “for now” bow just to finish the season. I don’t have it to throw away to be honest.

My assumption with traditional equipment is that tuning will take several weekends and practice a good solid year but then I will have it figured and I won’t rely on technology to fail.

The funny thing about pigs is that even the high fence places are trying to get rid of them. There is one about 5 square miles in size up here and they do specials all the time, free hog with most trophy hunt or etc.

I love traditional archery but if your going to venture into that thinking its gonna be less of a headache you have another thing coming.

Trad archery is very rewarding but until you get really, really good at it, your gonna constantly be tinkering with your arrows, knock height, brace height, grip form, shooting form, broadheads, etc. Take your effective range down from 30 yards to maybe 20. Then you will have to deal the possibility of twisted limbs, cracked limbs ( oh yeah recurve limbs crack too ) and a whole other myriad of issues. I've lost more sleep, time and money jacking with my trad bows than i did with last 3 compounds I've owned combined


Go buy a quaility middle of the road compound from one of the big names ( Mathews, Elite, Prime ) get a good sight, a better rest ( QAD dropaway can be had for $70 ) and get it set up and tuned with a medium weight hunting arrow by a reputable pro shop.


And then go out and go hunt

Delete.

Delete

Well then that’s what I’ll do. I’m gonna buy all the quality I can afford.

No offense taken, I appreciate it as always.

Next year apply for special hunts. I know Missouri has some good special hunt opportunity. I have been bow hunting for 50 years and and only bow hunting since the year 2000. I do all my hunting in Kansas on public land and some small sections of private land. There's nothing better then killing a deer with a bow. Next year try and and spend most of your time in the woods around the rut.

All those special hunts are great opportunities, I just don’t have time for it. I got too much going on, I have a single day off per week, rather about 34 hours and that includes the night before my big day off. I usually spend it in the woods except for the month of December, because that’s all about being home with the family and making preparations. My bows have been out of service anyway so there is that.

I am either going to get an ILF recurve, an Oneida, or a single cam bow. Something easy to tune and make adjustments to on my own from home. Also something that does not have a lot of preload on the limbs. Also going light, very light. 50 or 60 pound limbs on a compound or 40-50 pound limbs on a recurve or Oneida. Or might go for a 70 pound limb with lots of adjustment and turn it way down.

I swapped the limbs and string on my PSE Brute NXT myself and the draw on that bow maxed out is now more than I can pull. I tried untwisting the new string and cables to almost zero twist, to where some strands are not even under tension, and am afraid to even try to shoot it. When it was at 69 pounds I could draw and shoot it using only the tip of my index finger. For some perspective, I’m a 300 pound guy and I used to do one arm rows with up to 115 pounds for sets of ten to twelve. I’m just saying, something ain’t right with this bow and I need a pro to dial it in. For the time being I stored it with the limb bolts turned out 4-5 turns. I could start a whole new thread and discussion on that but I’m not gonna go there.

Good thing I put it away though, when I took it down to work on it I found another splintered limb. Even my Amazon bow was way more durable. As far as I’m concerned the Brute was a ticking time bomb.

Before anyone points it out, I didn’t even use a bow press. The limb bolts are so long I can turn that bow down far enough to let the strings hang loose, without even running out of adjustment. That’s how I took it down.

There are some bows that are designed with long limb bolts giving them the ability to do that. I did not realize that one is one of them. I sold quite a few Diamond Core bows to hunters in Africa and South America for that very reason. They even took them home in suite cases instead of bow cases.

The PSE Brute Force bows have been around for years in different versions some of which have very harsh draw cycles. I had a coworker that wanted an 80lb draw bow. I handed him one of those to try and he could not draw it back and ask what the heck is that one 90lbs, nope it drew 72 maxed out on the scale but loaded to that in he first 3 inches or less of draw. I could not shoot it either, but 2 80lb customer bows I had changed the limbs on to make them that draw weight were no problem for either one of us to shoot.

I believe you. But I am comparing this bow to itself, drawing at 69 pounds vs whatever the weight is now. And when I crank those bolts all the way down the cams lean visibly, I’m not even gonna crank ot all the way down anymore. I might just re-twist the strings and cables to the point that none of the fibers are loose, back the bolts out where it’s easy to shoot, and try to adjust the string stop if possible. It gives me more than a half inch of extra brace at 4 turns out and is useable for me at that weight.

But my next bow I am not taking speed into any consideration at all. Many have tried to tell me, but I’m hard headed as you may know by now. So I get the hard lessons sometimes. No worries about speed or draw weight. Simple, light draw weight, easy to shoot. And I’m probably gonna sell all my mechanicals and put that into some Magnus heads.

Santa got me a bitzenberger for Christmas

Since you are talking about cable twisting keeping them even on a dual cam bow is very important, that is a big part of tuning a bow jsut making sure the cams rotate exactly the same.

I’m aware. It’s got markers on the cams to time them. It has binary cams, too.