Petersen's Bowhunting is the source for the tactics, tools, and techniques necessary for successful bowhunting. Get practical shooting tips and useful information on archery, equipment tests, clothing, and product evaluations.
Spring turkey season is so close I can almost taste the drumsticks! And as I look ahead to chasing longbeards and all the other adventures 2017 has in store, my optimism is at an all-time high. Part of my hopefulness is a response to a difficult 2016. Due to circumstances beyond my control, my workload was heavier than ever, resulting in far more time behind a desk and far less time in the field than I would have liked. And when I did manage to get out, my success rate was far less than stellar. From bad choices (passing a nice 10-point whitetail buck on the first morning in South Dakota) to bad weather (record November heat in Illinois) to bad luck (a cancelled flight that cost me a late-season…
Let Us Hear Your Voice The InBox is one of my favorite pages in the magazine, because it gives the editorial team an opportunity to hear directly from you, our readers. Your support is the reason Petersen’s BOWHUNTING exists. So, hearing your compliments and criticisms — along with the bowhunting topics that stir your passions — is invaluable as we continally strive to make the best bowhunting magazine out there even better. Recently, however, much of the commentary on this page has revolved around a single issue — crossbows. While I’m all for some lively debate on the merits of crossbows, or lack thereof, I would also love to hear your thoughts on other topics, such as bowhunting ethics, favorite equipment, wildlife management, habitat conservation, favorite hunting grounds and the…
THE BACK SCRATCHER I have been hunting this buck for a few years. Last year, my neighbor shot him high in the front shoulder, and I helped him track for a couple hundred yards. After that, I had the buck on camera a couple of times in mid-December. This year, he started showing up on camera in mid-October, so I knew he was in the area. Last week, I finally got time to put a stand up about 40 yards from that camera, and sure enough he came by the first time I sat in that stand. I hit him a little back when I shot, so I had to track him for about a half mile before I decided to pull out for the day. The next morning, I…
We all realize that to shoot a bow, some form of pushing and pulling has to take place — but probably not as much as you’ve been told. My entire life, I was preached to on how I needed to push my bow arm at the target and pull on my release arm firing the shot using my back muscles. I quickly realized that doing that the same way each time was next to impossible. Archery, like I’ve always said, is a game of repetition, and trying to rip the bow in half just wasn’t something I could repeat. One day I’d do great, the next I’d be pulling harder and hit to the right or push shots out to the left. The inconsistency was really frustrating. Now, a lot…
I collected my first speeding ticket because of my whitetail addiction. I was a senior in high school, and with the rut in full swing, I managed to convince the study hall teacher my time was better spent in a stand along a scrape line I couldn’t get out of my mind. My sit just two days earlier found me within 15 yards of a mature 8-pointer that was rubbing every tree in sight. That encounter resulted in my first live experience of a “lip curl,” or flehmen, as the buck scent-checked a scrape and shredded an overhanging licking branch. I was hooked! Unfortunately, ground cover in the sapling-infested woodlot prevented a clean shot. Just reliving that bowhunt from two decades ago makes me long for the smells, sounds and…
Most bowhunters want to start their post-season scouting by walking everything and looking for the best sign: the heaviest trails, biggest rubs and widest scrapes. It’s very tempting to take this route — and even a lot of fun. If you scout before spring green-up, all sign from the prior rut is right there for you to find. It would seem the perfect time to scout up a new stand overlooking the most heavily used funnel or the line of rubs on fat saplings. The stands you hang over such spots might work, but you may also spend your whole season chasing your tail as you jump from one to the next, never experiencing more than a few good hunts all season before your top choices are dead. I wrote…
