New to Bow Hunting.

[BuckRub]

I've shot at deer 20 yards and my arrow usually is the the dirt completely pass thru by the time they react. But at 40-50 yards ? Even 30 yards I've had some deer completely jump the string. It does make a difference. Either stick to 20 yard shots or take 30-50 yard shots, shoot low and hope for the best.

[Kimber84]

I've got video of my buddy shooting a buck at 18 yards, when you put it on slow motion that deer drops almost 4 inches by the time that arrow hits him... How they move that fast is beyond me, luckily we were high enough that the arrow angled down and clipped both lungs.

I've shot a number of deer at 35-40 yards though and I've never seen them react the same way that one did... Maybe he has his guard up, who knows.

[myfriendis410]

Had a guy at our local pro shop a couple of years ago who had just come back from Arizona with a nice 10 point Coues deer. It was the 6th one he shot at. Every shot had been at 20 yards or less, totally oblivious to his presence and five times he shot six feet behind the deer. The sixth time he aimed six feet in front of the animal and 12-ringed him. They ARE that fast. I can't speak to whitetails 'cause I've never bowhunted them but I CAN talk about California Blacktails. They are very nearly as spooky as an adult buck weighs in around 125 lbs. and everything wants to eat 'em. They are on high alert most of the time.

I related watching an episode of Bowhunter TV that tried an experiment with a volunteer hiding behind a wall holding a deer sillhouette and listening for the shot of a compound bow at 20 yards. At the sound he was able to pull the sillhouette out of the arrow's path (forward) 80% of the time. It was quite illuminating.

My first bow was a lower end name brand less than ten years old (new when I bought it) and I had deer jump my string when I let go. Pigs, no. I upgraded to a high end bow (PSE X-Force) and haven't had to deal with string-jumping due to the low noise put out by that bow. You don't have to get a top-end bow to achieve noise reduction but most of the archers out here will tell you they would rather have quiet than fast. Just my 2 cents.

[Brian Pfleuger]

6 feet behind the deer? From 20 yards? So he missed his point of aim by 8-10 feet?

That'd be roughly an AVERAGE of 32fps or an average of 21.8mph from a dead stop with no warning.

That's WITHOUT ANY delay for even the time the sound takes to get there or ANY reaction time whatsoever.

They're not that fast. No way, no how. Completely nonsensical.

That's an AVERAGE acceleration rate of over 6g.

A cheetah can accelerate from 0-60mph in about 3 seconds. That's an average of about 5.5g.

Deer can accelerate faster than a cheetah? With no warning? Really?

Factoring in the time delay for the speed of sound and ANY reasonable reaction time, the deer would probably be accelerating at 15 or 20 Gs.

They'd break their freaking legs.

[g.willikers]

Would they have to be able to accelerate that fast, or just jump out of the way fast before taking off?
Deer can jump pretty good.

[Brian Pfleuger]

Jumping is accelerating. It doesn't matter what method they use to produce the speed. Acceleration is acceleration.

Anyone who thinks an animal can move that fast needs to do some math with some common sense assumptions.

I related watching an episode of Bowhunter TV that tried an experiment with a volunteer hiding behind a wall holding a deer sillhouette and listening for the shot of a compound bow at 20 yards. At the sound he was able to pull the sillhouette out of the arrow's path (forward) 80% of the time. It was quite illuminating.

This is a different matter all together. Reacting to an EXPECTED, planned stimulus is completely different than reacting to an unexpected noise from no where. That's why don't shoot at alerted deer with a bow. Those people also only have to move a silhouette. What's it weigh? 2 pounds? Let's try giving them same time to dodge a paintball. Think they can do it? Nope. Not a chance.

[BuckRub]

I aint no big mathmetician but I have shot at some deer, apeared to be calm and eating at 10 yards and immediately they hunkered down and arrow went buzzing over them. It just makes me smile and say "thats hunting". I know theoredically they shouldnt be able to move that fast but some things will catch you off guard. Ive only been hunting for 40 years and havent experienced it all or seen it all yet.

[BJEoutdoors]

Martin makes a good bow for the money.

[Brian Pfleuger]

Originally Posted by BuckRub

I aint no big mathmetician but I have shot at some deer, apeared to be calm and eating at 10 yards and immediately they hunkered down and arrow went buzzing over them. It just makes me smile and say "thats hunting". I know theoredically they shouldnt be able to move that fast but some things will catch you off guard. Ive only been hunting for 40 years and havent experienced it all or seen it all yet.

Simply put, there's something else happening. The math can't tell you what IS happening but it can reasonably eliminate what ISN'T happening.

There is no possible way that a deer can dodge an arrow at 10 yards. Take a look at the numbers above at 20 yards.

Let's do some math for 10. Even a relatively slow bow will get an arrow to 10 yards in under 0.20 seconds. The sound takes about 0.025 seconds to get there. If the deer takes 0.07 seconds to react, which would be almost miraculous from a relaxed state, it only has about 0.10 seconds to move. If you're aiming for the middle of the deer, it has to move at least 9 inches or so for the arrow to go over it's back. 9" in 0.10 seconds is 450 feet per minute, 27,000 feet per hour, 5.11mph.

That doesn't sound so fast, right? Well, how does a deer move down? Gravity, right? It can't JUMP downward it can only fall. How far and how fast will gravity move an object in 0.10 seconds? 1.93" After falling for 0.10 seconds, an object is only traveling 2.19mph, less than 1/2 the FINAL speed that would have to be AVERAGE speed for the arrow to miss.

That's very nearly the BEST CASE scenario for the deer, including the notion of complete and total free-fall which is more than a stretch just by itself.

Now, I have no doubt that you (and in fact I) have somehow managed to miss and/or shoot over the back of deer at impossibly close distances. It happens. Maybe the deer moves for some other reason before we recognize and can stop the firing, it happens so fast we don't process it. Maybe that's why. Maybe we just screw up. Maybe the shot goes over the deer because we screwed it up and we see the dodging deer and figure it "dodged" the arrow?

I don't know. I only know that they can not possibly dodge arrows the way the internet myth says they do.

[Grizz12]

I've seen slow-motion video and the deer do drop and drop fast when they hear or sense something is not right. It looks like they are pulling themselves down.

[BuckRub]

I've shot more deer to count with bows but some are superman deer I guess. Like Brian said, some things can't add up and I've seen some things that shouldn't but have.

[shortwave]

I've seen slow-motion video and the deer do drop and drop fast when they hear or sense something is not right. It looks like they are pulling themselves down.

And they will often do exactly that. Have seen it many times.

That is why shooting a deer with a bow should only be done at bow range.
IMO, start throwing arrows/bolts out 40-60yds and jumping string really comes into play.

The chance of a deer 'jumping string' at 10-30' with the speeds of todays bows with a well aimed, broadside, centered heart lung shot and the arrow landing clear out of the kill zone or even missing the deer completely would seem to be rare.

I can only think of a few times that I let an arrow fly just as the deer suddenly moved. It does happen. A deer turning, taking that sudden unexpected step at the very time my mind says shoot. But these were not cases of the deer moving due to hearing me. Just bad timing.

But all other bad hits have been due to error of some sort on my part. Error in pin usage, error in shooting judgment when shooting uphill/downhill or just simply pulling off. And lets not even talk about that small twig I didn't even see cause I had such tunnel vision on that sweat spot.

But hey, it would make me feel better if I could blame these errors on the deer.

[pitbill123]

I've been bow hunting (28 yrs) longer than I've been gun hunting and I have a very simple rule when it comes to shot distance. I NEVER take a shot longer than 25 yrds due to the string jumping tendency of whitetails- I have never lost a deer to a wound, and at less than 25 yrds, the time it takes for the arrow to get to the deer and the possible reaction to the string noise makes the chance of a gut/bad shot rare. I honestly can say when I was younger I did take longer shots and have gut shot 2 deer, and both were recovered, but I felt awful about the bad shot and decided that 25 was the limit for me. I live in a bow only zone with unreal limits (3 bucks and unlimited does) and some years we literally can stack them like firewood if we wanted to ( my best year was 3 bucks and 6 does) and maybe this is why I can stick to the 25 yrd rule as I usually see 5-25 deer a day while hunting and rarely see nothing. As far as the bow goes, buy what works for you. Some archery shops let you test the bows they sell- if ya can find a shop like this give em all a test drive. I've only owned 4 bows in my life- 1st Bear, second Mathews, third Bowtech and last a Diamond and all were set to 50lbs and they all worked fine. Anyway have fun bow hunting- the rush is way bigger than gun hunting but it can be frustrating looking at a nice 8 sitting broadside at 75 yrds and there is basically nothing you can do about it. Good luck!!!!!!!

[pitbill123]

Ohhh yeah, I forgot to say- when you do get your bow there is only one thing you need to do...Practice, practice, practice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!