Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 910: Foundations - Crossbow Considerations for All Deer Hunters

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Ep. 910: Foundations - Crossbow Considerations for All Deer Hunters · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
0:05
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, presented by first Light,
0:09
Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.
0:14
Speaker 1: First Light, Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host
0:19
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson.
0:20
Speaker 2: Hey everyone, welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
0:22
Speaker 2: which has brought to you by first Light. I'm your host,
0:24
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today's episode is just kind of all
0:27
Speaker 2: about crossbows. Love them or hate them, They're here to
0:36
Speaker 2: stay for a while. In the archery industry, even saying
0:39
Speaker 2: the word crossbow was like uttering Voldemort's name in Hogwarts,
0:43
Speaker 2: which is an example you can use if you have kids,
0:46
Speaker 2: but probably shouldn't if you don't. Anyway, cross bowl legalization
0:50
Speaker 2: has gone really well for cross bow enthusiasts, and it
0:53
Speaker 2: seems like it's a matter of time in most states.
0:56
Speaker 2: It's also a very widely adopted weapon that I've learned
0:59
Speaker 2: quite a bit about because of my daughters, which is
1:01
Speaker 2: what I'm going to talk about right now. A year ago,
1:10
Speaker 2: a buddy and I boarded a flight headed toward Orlando.
1:14
Speaker 2: We were headed out on a saltwater fishing trip and
1:16
Speaker 2: we were pretty excited. In addition to the canal fishing
1:19
Speaker 2: in the backyard of our rental house, we were planning
1:22
Speaker 2: to borrow a canoe from a friend of mine who
1:23
Speaker 2: lives down there so we could paddle out to the
1:25
Speaker 2: mangroves and fish. Now, when I say that messing around
1:29
Speaker 2: with saltwater fish in the flats is something I enjoy,
1:32
Speaker 2: I mean it. I rank it right up there with
1:34
Speaker 2: following a good lab around where the pheasants live on
1:37
Speaker 2: the pure fund meter. So we were pretty excited to
1:40
Speaker 2: get down there. Better yet, through that canoe owning friend,
1:44
Speaker 2: we had a trip out to the big water planned.
1:47
Speaker 2: In all of my time in the salt I've never
1:49
Speaker 2: once gone out on the ocean and tried for big fish,
1:51
Speaker 2: so that was extremely exciting. It only got more exciting
1:55
Speaker 2: as we loaded up the boat idled past the jetty
1:58
Speaker 2: and left the land behind. Well, it was exciting for me.
2:02
Speaker 2: My friend immediately started puking, and at one point he
2:05
Speaker 2: leaned over to me while looking almost grinch like because
2:09
Speaker 2: he was so green and I could tell he was
2:11
Speaker 2: in trouble. So I said, you look like you have
2:13
Speaker 2: a two inch grip on a six inch turd. Buddy,
2:16
Speaker 2: to which he responded, it's more like a two ounce
2:18
Speaker 2: grip on a six ounce turd. Then he went back
2:21
Speaker 2: to chumming the water with his breakfast. We caught him
2:24
Speaker 2: mahi mahi right off the bat, which is about as
2:27
Speaker 2: beautiful of a fish as you can see on the
2:29
Speaker 2: end of your line in two hundred feet of clear
2:31
Speaker 2: blue water. After that, we trolled for five hours without
2:35
Speaker 2: a bite, and I realized that deep sea fishing isn't
2:39
Speaker 2: really my jam. I need to cast or jig or
2:42
Speaker 2: somehow just actively fish. It kind of surprised me, but
2:46
Speaker 2: I wouldn't do it again unless I had a hell
2:48
Speaker 2: of a lot more time to waste. When I was
2:49
Speaker 2: around the salt, outdoor opportunities are like that. I remember
2:54
Speaker 2: growing up and talking mad shit about Texas hunters because
2:59
Speaker 2: everything we on the Bloodsport channels was all about some
3:02
Speaker 2: dudes sitting over a feeder or a corn road and
3:05
Speaker 2: seeing more deer in an afternoon than we'd seen in
3:08
Speaker 2: an entire season. I thought you couldn't choose a less
3:11
Speaker 2: ethical way to hunt at the time. Then I went
3:14
Speaker 2: to Texas and I shot some deer on film over
3:16
Speaker 2: feeders and corn roads, and I realized something. It maybe
3:20
Speaker 2: wasn't for me, but I could sure as hell understand
3:23
Speaker 2: why some people would love it. When that feeder goes off,
3:26
Speaker 2: the critters roll in and you see all kinds of
3:28
Speaker 2: cool stuff. It wasn't as easy as I thought it
3:31
Speaker 2: would be, but as sure as hell wasn't as challenging
3:33
Speaker 2: as a lot of folks want you to think it is.
3:35
Speaker 2: But for me, it just made me understand the appeal,
3:38
Speaker 2: even if it just doesn't quite fill my cup up.
3:41
Speaker 2: As you get older, you bump into a lot more
3:43
Speaker 2: stuff like this in life. This also perfectly sums up
3:47
Speaker 2: my relationship with crossbows. I used to work at bow
3:50
Speaker 2: Hunter Magazine, and if you know anything about the history
3:53
Speaker 2: of that publication, you know that it was a bow
3:56
Speaker 2: hunting magazine and not a crossbow or gun hunting magazine.
4:00
Speaker 2: We fought the good fight against covering crossbows, but the
4:04
Speaker 2: money always wins no matter how principled you are. What
4:07
Speaker 2: I mean by that is that at first, the people
4:10
Speaker 2: who work on commission and sell ads, they come to
4:12
Speaker 2: you and they say, you know, this manufacturer who has
4:15
Speaker 2: supported us for a long time is coming out with
4:18
Speaker 2: a crossbow. And while we don't need to give them
4:20
Speaker 2: editorial love. They are going to buy ads. The slow
4:25
Speaker 2: creep starts then, because once the ads are placed, the
4:29
Speaker 2: first wave of readers loses their minds, but they mostly
4:32
Speaker 2: stick around. So another manufacturer makes a crossbow and more
4:36
Speaker 2: ads show up, and soon your revenue is tied to
4:39
Speaker 2: a category you didn't want anything to do with, and
4:42
Speaker 2: the advertisers know it, so they threaten to pull the budgets.
4:45
Speaker 2: Unless someone goes hunting with a crossbow and writes a
4:47
Speaker 2: story on it, or maybe does a gear review about
4:50
Speaker 2: their latest offering, it never ends, my friends, and that's
4:53
Speaker 2: just how it goes. During that process, quite a few
4:57
Speaker 2: of us were against covering crossbows in any way, we
5:00
Speaker 2: lost because we don't make the big money decisions. There
5:04
Speaker 2: was a long time there where I knew I'd never
5:06
Speaker 2: own a cross bow, and I certainly wouldn't hunt with one.
5:10
Speaker 2: But along came my daughters, one planned and one unplanned,
5:14
Speaker 2: which is the case with most twins. Anyway, when the
5:17
Speaker 2: great State of Wisconsin decided it was best for parents
5:20
Speaker 2: to decide when their kids are ready to start hunting
5:22
Speaker 2: big game instead of the state, I realized that the
5:25
Speaker 2: girls would be able to crossbow hunt over there, and
5:27
Speaker 2: I bought one almost instantly. I mean, whatever resolve I
5:31
Speaker 2: had due to my personal ethics and feelings on the
5:34
Speaker 2: topic evaporated so fast you'd have missed it if you blinked.
5:38
Speaker 2: In fact, I now think that my resolve on the
5:41
Speaker 2: issue might have been thinner than Mark Kenyon's beard to
5:43
Speaker 2: begin with. When we set up that crossbow, which took
5:47
Speaker 2: almost no time, and I sat down first to sit
5:50
Speaker 2: it in at twenty yards, it took three shots before
5:54
Speaker 2: I was worried we'd be shooting off Knox, and I
5:56
Speaker 2: had one of my daughters sit down and shoot it.
5:58
Speaker 2: She and her sister hit bullseyes instantly, and I realized
6:02
Speaker 2: that we had been fed a load of total horseshit
6:05
Speaker 2: from the crossbow industry. You see, that gig I had
6:08
Speaker 2: that bowhunter had me setting up tuning and hunting with
6:11
Speaker 2: like half a dozen bows a year for a decade.
6:14
Speaker 2: It got to the point where I hated setting up
6:16
Speaker 2: bows because I did it so much. Now. A common
6:19
Speaker 2: refrain during the crossbow debates from the pro side is
6:23
Speaker 2: that they are really no different from a vertical bow,
6:25
Speaker 2: but that usually means performance wise, which is also total bs,
6:29
Speaker 2: but setting them up is amazing, and nowhere near the
6:32
Speaker 2: exercise it is with a vertical bow. Now, while I
6:35
Speaker 2: haven't used a ton of them, everyone that I have
6:37
Speaker 2: has not only been super easy to side in, but
6:40
Speaker 2: has also perfectly shot every kind of broadhead I've ever
6:43
Speaker 2: tried to shoot with them. There's so much more consistency
6:46
Speaker 2: in the shot sequence with them that it's almost unbelievable.
6:49
Speaker 2: When you draw a vertical bow, you know you might
6:51
Speaker 2: punch the trigger, you might drop your bow arm, you
6:54
Speaker 2: might flinch just a little, you might can't the bow
6:57
Speaker 2: a tiny bit squeeze, the grip three to is tighter
7:00
Speaker 2: than usual, or maybe you're shooting in a fifteen mile
7:03
Speaker 2: per hour crosswind that takes you from lungs to liver
7:06
Speaker 2: with your aiming point. With a cross blow, your influence
7:10
Speaker 2: on the shot cycle is so much more minimal. They're
7:13
Speaker 2: just worlds apart, and once the bolt is on its way.
7:17
Speaker 2: The argument is that it's lighter weight when compared to
7:20
Speaker 2: a full sized arrow, meaning it's going to shed more
7:22
Speaker 2: kinetic energy and not be as effective at longer ranges.
7:26
Speaker 2: And sure that's true in some scenarios, but the sub
7:29
Speaker 2: forty yard crowd will never know the difference and their
7:32
Speaker 2: reach out and touch them. Crowd has plenty of options,
7:34
Speaker 2: with some crossbows advertising their performance as more like a
7:37
Speaker 2: rifle than a bow. One is just far superior to
7:41
Speaker 2: the other if your goal is to kill a deer easily,
7:43
Speaker 2: and it's not really up for debate, which is also
7:46
Speaker 2: the reason why once crossbows become legal, people tend to
7:49
Speaker 2: use them more than vertical bows. It's not good or
7:52
Speaker 2: bad in my opinion, it's just like objectively the truth,
7:54
Speaker 2: that's where we go as hunters. Now, there are some
7:57
Speaker 2: considerations to make if you're planning to go this route
8:00
Speaker 2: or maybe start out a youngster with a crossbow, and
8:03
Speaker 2: the first is safety. Crossbows have a short power stroke,
8:07
Speaker 2: so they are designed to harness and hold a hell
8:09
Speaker 2: of a lot of energy in a small package. That
8:11
Speaker 2: energy has to go somewhere, and ideally it's going to
8:14
Speaker 2: be transferred to your bolt, but it can also cause
8:17
Speaker 2: wear and tear on your strings and cables and cams
8:19
Speaker 2: and limbs too. Paying attention to those parts matters because
8:23
Speaker 2: when they really start to wear out, they can break
8:25
Speaker 2: on any given shot, and that's no bueno. But there
8:28
Speaker 2: is also the reality that to fire a crossbow, you
8:31
Speaker 2: either have to have it on a good rest, locked
8:33
Speaker 2: into a tripod, or held with both of your hands,
8:37
Speaker 2: and the hand that you put on the forearm is
8:38
Speaker 2: the one you have to worry about. When crossbows first
8:41
Speaker 2: started hitting the scene, a lot of the early adopters
8:44
Speaker 2: found themselves in the er with thumb related injuries. That's
8:48
Speaker 2: why every modern crossbow has a thumb guard built into it,
8:52
Speaker 2: which works really well unless you're like my buddy Scott,
8:55
Speaker 2: who still managed to break his thumb last year on
8:58
Speaker 2: the second crossbow shot of his life. Now, beyond safety,
9:14
Speaker 2: crossbows require a little bit different line of thinking when
9:16
Speaker 2: you're actually hunting for starters. All of that energy they
9:20
Speaker 2: store and then release on the shot also turns into vibration,
9:24
Speaker 2: which is just sound. Crossbows are loud, much louder than
9:28
Speaker 2: vertical bows, and this is something you're probably not gonna
9:31
Speaker 2: notice when you're shooting in your backyard, but you'll notice
9:34
Speaker 2: it in the field on a calm, cold morning, or
9:37
Speaker 2: at least the deer will notice it. At short distances.
9:41
Speaker 2: This is usually a non issue because crossbows are pretty fast,
9:45
Speaker 2: but if you start stretching things out a little, you
9:47
Speaker 2: will notice that the deer are guaranteed to drop at
9:50
Speaker 2: the shot, or at least they will do that even
9:53
Speaker 2: if your eye doesn't register it. My daughter shot a
9:56
Speaker 2: small buck on film two years ago at twenty yards
9:58
Speaker 2: with a crossbow, and when you watch it frame by frame,
10:02
Speaker 2: that little spike probably dropped five inches in the time
10:05
Speaker 2: it took for the trigger to break and the bolt
10:07
Speaker 2: to get there, which is almost no time at all.
10:12
Speaker 2: If you double that distance, you're looking at a potential
10:14
Speaker 2: high lung spine or backstrap shot, maybe a miss who knows,
10:18
Speaker 2: all of which aren't great. Some are far worse than others.
10:22
Speaker 2: A good rule of thumb is to either aim for
10:25
Speaker 2: the center of the heart or at least the top
10:27
Speaker 2: of the heart. This way, if the deer drops, because
10:30
Speaker 2: it will, you'll still be in the good stuff in
10:32
Speaker 2: your margin of error will be well within the range.
10:34
Speaker 2: It'll still give you a short blood trail. It's also
10:38
Speaker 2: a really good idea to use a rest, which might
10:41
Speaker 2: seem super obvious but isn't as simple as it sounds.
10:44
Speaker 2: For anyone who goes from a vertical bow to a
10:47
Speaker 2: crossbow that hang on stand or saddle that you love
10:51
Speaker 2: for your vertical bow hunts will work just fine for
10:54
Speaker 2: your crossbow hunts, but those hang and bang setups generally
10:58
Speaker 2: don't come standard with a good rest. Again, a close
11:02
Speaker 2: shot with you leaned up against the tree as your
11:05
Speaker 2: rest is going to be plenty of steadiness overall. But
11:09
Speaker 2: while crossbows are easy to shoot accurately, they're also kind
11:13
Speaker 2: of heavy and awkward to hold an aim, which means
11:15
Speaker 2: it's not out of the realm of possibility that you
11:17
Speaker 2: might can't the crossbow some or not be as icy
11:20
Speaker 2: in you're aiming an execution as you plan to be.
11:24
Speaker 2: This is one of the things I'm dealing with with
11:26
Speaker 2: my daughters who want to get out of the pop
11:28
Speaker 2: up blinds and sit more natural blinds and tree stands.
11:32
Speaker 2: The natural blinds generally allow for a lightweight tripod, which
11:36
Speaker 2: solves this issue, but tree stands are a different story.
11:39
Speaker 2: The ladder stands with the shooting rail they work just fine,
11:42
Speaker 2: but hang on stands are just tough. That's extra tough
11:46
Speaker 2: for us because I use them a lot and have
11:49
Speaker 2: yet to figure out a great way to get a
11:50
Speaker 2: thirteen year old girl in one in a way in
11:52
Speaker 2: which she can aim really well when a deer shows up,
11:54
Speaker 2: all while not spooking that deer, which is another issue
11:58
Speaker 2: that you might run into if you decide to use
12:00
Speaker 2: a crossbow. When I mentioned they are kind of awkward
12:03
Speaker 2: to carry an aim, I wasn't lying. It's a very
12:07
Speaker 2: common complaint amongst the recently converted, and while it's probably
12:10
Speaker 2: just a matter of reps on the target range and
12:13
Speaker 2: in the field to the point where the comfort level
12:15
Speaker 2: is high, they are also the kind of weapon that
12:18
Speaker 2: doesn't demand a ton of reps. When I'm carrying my
12:21
Speaker 2: daughter's crossbows, it's like I'm almost intentionally trying to make
12:24
Speaker 2: noise with them, whether that's getting into a ladder stand
12:27
Speaker 2: and banging it on the ladder, cocking them in the blind.
12:32
Speaker 2: I'm pretty good at hitting limbs and stocks on random gear,
12:35
Speaker 2: which is rarely a quiet affair. Now here's where I'm
12:38
Speaker 2: going to piss some people off with this, but I
12:40
Speaker 2: don't care. You might have seen recently that Oklahoma has
12:44
Speaker 2: decided that non resident hunters are lower than pond scum
12:47
Speaker 2: and they deserve to be punished as much as possible.
12:50
Speaker 2: That's a separate issue, but one of the driving forces
12:53
Speaker 2: behind the non resident hate is residents who are having
12:56
Speaker 2: a hard time killing deer. I've haunted that state three times,
13:00
Speaker 2: and every time I've had a blast, and I've run
13:02
Speaker 2: into the nicest people I run into hunting anywhere. I
13:05
Speaker 2: actually love Oklahoma, which is why it bums me out
13:08
Speaker 2: so much that I'm probably not going to get to
13:09
Speaker 2: hunt there very much anymore. It's also the state where
13:13
Speaker 2: I happen to run into more crossbow hunters than anywhere else,
13:16
Speaker 2: although Wisconsin and Minnesota are certainly catching up in my experience,
13:20
Speaker 2: and I want to make this clear just to stave
13:22
Speaker 2: off some of the potential hate mail. I'm not saying
13:25
Speaker 2: this is an Oklahoma hunter specific thing. It's a crossbow
13:29
Speaker 2: hunter thing, but it has just been obvious during my
13:32
Speaker 2: hunts down there. Crossbows seem to make hunters think they
13:36
Speaker 2: don't have to work at hunting or try too hard.
13:39
Speaker 2: The setups I saw down there in Oklahoma on my
13:43
Speaker 2: last hunt, and I've seen on previous ones, some of
13:45
Speaker 2: them are so bad, not all of them, but a
13:48
Speaker 2: lot of them. Like think about a camp chair set
13:51
Speaker 2: up with a little bit of camo netting on the
13:53
Speaker 2: ground in woods that are just wide open, or you know,
13:57
Speaker 2: a six foot tall ladder stand facing right where the
14:00
Speaker 2: deer should probably a poach fum. Setups like that just
14:03
Speaker 2: aren't going to work very well on public land deer.
14:06
Speaker 2: The feeling you get with a crossbow is one of
14:09
Speaker 2: holding a gun, especially if you're very used to a
14:12
Speaker 2: vertical bow. But it's not a gun. It's a better
14:15
Speaker 2: version of a bow, so you still need the deer clothes.
14:18
Speaker 2: And if you're going to put your back to a
14:20
Speaker 2: tree Turkey style and expect to shoot a public land
14:22
Speaker 2: bucket twenty yards with your crossbow, you're probably out of luck. Worse,
14:27
Speaker 2: if you think you're going to walk around half an
14:29
Speaker 2: hour before dark and sneak up on one and shoot it,
14:31
Speaker 2: you probably just won't. This is a weapon that still
14:35
Speaker 2: mostly requires bow hunting effort, and I guess I don't
14:39
Speaker 2: know how to put that any other way. You definitely
14:41
Speaker 2: have the advantage of not having to draw when deer
14:43
Speaker 2: or close, which is huge, but you still have to
14:46
Speaker 2: have the deer close and hopefully unaware of your presence.
14:50
Speaker 2: It's not a three to zero eight where you can
14:51
Speaker 2: pull a spencer new Heart and put your back to
14:53
Speaker 2: a fence post out west somewhere and still shoot a
14:55
Speaker 2: good buck because you're just outside of his red zone.
14:58
Speaker 2: You need to be tight, and that requires the right setup,
15:02
Speaker 2: or at least a setup that has enough thought behind
15:05
Speaker 2: it to keep the deer in the dark until it's
15:07
Speaker 2: too late and their lungs are starting to rapidly deflate.
15:11
Speaker 2: There's a lot to consider here. I'm actually pretty agnostic
15:14
Speaker 2: these days on the issue of crossbows. I absolutely get
15:17
Speaker 2: why people want to use them, and I get white
15:20
Speaker 2: people lobby for that. I also get the other side.
15:23
Speaker 2: It's not the same as bowhunting, because if it was,
15:26
Speaker 2: people wouldn't push to include them. It's just a better weapon,
15:29
Speaker 2: at least in the realm of ease of use, and
15:32
Speaker 2: they aren't for everyone. I don't have any interest in
15:35
Speaker 2: hunting with them myself, but I love, love, love taking
15:40
Speaker 2: my daughters out when they're hunting with them. Maybe someday
15:43
Speaker 2: I'll change my tune, probably after my shoulders fall apart
15:45
Speaker 2: and shoot out of my ass while I'm doing something stupid,
15:48
Speaker 2: or maybe there will be a less painful reason. Who
15:50
Speaker 2: can say. I just know that what I thought about
15:53
Speaker 2: them isn't quite what's true, and a lot of what
15:55
Speaker 2: I didn't consider about them is definitely true. They're here
15:59
Speaker 2: to stay, whether you love them or you hate them,
16:01
Speaker 2: whether you're dying to hunt with one or working hard
16:04
Speaker 2: to get your state to stave off the inevitable inclusion
16:07
Speaker 2: that's coming for the last holdouts. It's just something to
16:10
Speaker 2: ponder anyway. It's just a part of deer hunting now
16:13
Speaker 2: and this is a good time of year to think
16:14
Speaker 2: about this stuff as we start to consider some early
16:16
Speaker 2: summer practice sessions and maybe some other gear considerations for
16:19
Speaker 2: the year. So do that and come back next week
16:22
Speaker 2: because I'm gonna drop some more deer knowledge, or at
16:24
Speaker 2: least I'm going to try to. That's it for this episode.
16:27
Speaker 2: I'm Tony Peterson. This has been the Wired to Hunt
16:29
Speaker 2: Foundation's podcast, which is brought to you by First Light.
16:33
Speaker 2: As always, thank you so much for listening, and we
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