Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2023 i Petersen's Bowhunting

BETTER BOWHUNTING Important Considerations for Precision Operation and Accuracy I will now give you some practical advice on the selection and use of your rangefinder in order to be the most accurate bowhunter you can be. Collimation Is Important The general assumption is that a rangefinder is a rangefinder and they are all created equal; however, that is far from the reality. Each rangefinder has its own unique personality, flaws and limitations, and spending a lot of money on a rangefinder does not guarantee you will end up with a quality instrument. The most expensive rangefinder I ever purchased was not accurate. To test it, I put out a tennis ball held up by an extremely thin, stiff wire mounted on a tripod, and I mounted said rangefinder on a…

As the sun rose slowly over the hills and the August air began to warm, a lone pronghorn cautiously approached the area I was watching — a 35x60-yard waterhole situated on a beautiful, 1,300-acre ranch about 20 minutes outside of town. Even though it was my first trip out West for pronghorns, the young buck was not at all what I was looking for, so it was an easy decision to let him walk after he’d finished his drink. After all, I’d only been sitting 60-90 minutes, and with the fairly dry weather in northeastern Wyoming over the past couple of months, there would undoubtedly be more antelope — including hopefully a decent buck or two — that would come to the water to slake their thirst. Imagine my surprise…

WHITETAILS Changing Food Plot Practices Benefit Deer and Hunters When developing food-plot blends for clients, I remind them deer can’t go to the pharmacy for medications and vaccines. Rather, they have the instinctual ability to seek plants that offer medicinally beneficial compounds. If those plants are not present, whitetails suffer — and so does your bowhunting. Modern food-plotting practices, moving in lockstep with modern agriculture, rely heavily on toxic, man-made chemicals, resulting in extensive damage to ecosystems and whitetail health. If things continue on this trajectory, I fear our whitetail population is on a crash course with an overwhelming number of chronic diseases. Chasing Our Tails The commercial agriculture industry is hyper-focused on maximizing “yield,” the amount of a crop that can be harvested on a per-acre basis. And most…

CROSSBOWS Keep These Tips in Mind for a Successful Stalk We parked on the highest hill and started breaking down the landscape with good optics. We could see for miles, and it didn’t take long to find several groups of elk. A spotting scope was used to look over the bulls and devise a plan for getting closer. The goal was to find a target bull, stalk closer and wait until the elk bedded to move in tight. Western game species know how to use the lay of the land, and thinking like an elk or deer helps to put you in their bedroom when they least expect it. The bulls fed across a grassy face and started working their way into a coulee. The sun often dictates what the…

THERE IS REALLY A LOT OF HYPE these days when it comes to DIY, public-land bowhunting out West. If you cruise around on social media, it’s not hard to find a big group of “influencers” and “outdoor personalities” who seemingly punch tags left and right as they crisscross the region in tricked-out camper vans and fancy overland trucks with massive cargo racks and rooftop tents. Looking at these carefully curated collections of photos and video clips, it is easy to assume success must come easily on these public-land forays. Wrong! The success you see does not show the many failed stalks, plans that went awry, flat tires, locked gates, bad weather and days of not seeing any game at all! Social media feeds are nothing more than highlight reels and…

HUNTING PLACES where you can see a lot of country is the most visual of all forms of bow-hunting. You can sit back with your binos in hand and watch the show. This awesome sight warms the heart of any serious deer hunter, but it also presents a serious catch-22 for bowhunters. The bucks are visible, but that sure doesn’t make them vulnerable. With a .270 rifle in your hand they are venison, but with an arrow they may as well be on the moon. Unfortunately, as tempting as it is to hunt places where you can see lots of deer, this kind of hunting can be some of the most frustrating of all. Don’t bowhunt from gun stands! The first challenge in bowhunting an open area such as an…

BOWHUNTING WISDOM Invest Now for Huge Dividends Later! August is a great time for this, and my goal with this column is to find a few things you can buy right now that will make a difference in your accuracy this fall. With $400 in my billfold, I am going to set out to buy better shooting. Back-Tension Release Aid Learning to make a surprise release is the very best way to beat target panic, making aiming a pleasure and accuracy a foregone conclusion. After a summer spent practicing with a back-tension release (they have no trigger and fire through a turning motion of your hand), you will reprogram your central nervous system, making you much better able to make a surprise shot when you go back to squeezing the…

FEW THINGS are more thrilling than covering the country with your bow, headed toward an animal that doesn’t know you’re coming for it. Well, if you follow the advice laid out in this article, I promise you’ll put more meat in the freezer and more horns on the wall, regardless of the species. As odd as it sounds to me now, stalking and arrowing a pronghorn on Colorado’s sunlit plains didn’t seem daunting when I was in my 20s. I figured that since I could see them, I could kill them. As it turned out, I was right. Sure, it took 46 failed attempts, a rattlesnake bite (thank God for snake boots) and a trip to the ER to remove a cactus spine that buried under my kneecap and got…

Not something to carry everything but the kitchen sink, but a comfortable, heavy-duty hauler capable of handling everything required for a full day afield. Plus, hopefully, we’ll be hauling out an elk from the Canadian bush at some point before hunt’s end. Fortunately, the Hellbender fit the bill. Engineered by master backcountry pack builders Kifaru International, this 2,250-cubic-inch pack is designed for hunters who need to carry a variety of gear in and around the field, plus pack out an animal once the hunt is done. Based off the company’s popular Stryker XL pack, the Hellbender is made from durable, heavy-duty 500D Codura, with ample room (350 more cubic inches than the Stryker XL) for toting everything from extra layers of clothes, snacks and water to field-dressing essentials and spotting…