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Who has snorted the Fairy Dust?

In the sense of recovering deer. Isn't it better to be able and examine the arrow if the shot is questionable? Knowing you have full penatration, and being able to see what's on the arrow may help in the recovery process. Do you back out and wait till morning? If your arrow runs off with the deer, you do not have that ability to verify a questionable hit.
 
Plebe said:
I think the experiment around 9min in is somewhat telling.


The counter argument is that heavy slow arrows quiet your system making deer alarm less likely....potentially.
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In my limited experience shooting about 35 of my 50 or so bow killed deer using a heavier arrow, most deer shot at with the heavier setup reacted less than those shot at with the bow when it was louder shooting a lighter arrow. They also tend to react much less to being hit and most of the time really don't seem to realize they've been shot. They act like a stick broke or a squirrel startled them. They jump a little, go a few yards and stop and look back to see what happened. Then their blood pressure drops out the bottom and they fall over. With the light arrows (375 grains), they tended to hear the bow and react and also the arrow seemed to smack them hard, and they generally knew something had hit them and they reacted as you might imagine. They usually ran as hard as possible until they bled out, or didn't and kept going. If the arrow remained in them they just knew something bit them hard and was still attached and they wanted out of there fast.
 
slonstdy said:
Fletched arrows are square to target because the fletchings are providing steerage to correct poor arrow flight. A bare shaft shows true arrow flight off the bow string. The bow needs a tuning adjustment somewhere.
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What is your current arrow setup? It sounds like it is spined correctly and you just might need to work on the D loop or rest issue.
 
Plebe said:
I don't think it proves that. That's a conclusion you are inferring.
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I am not inferring anything.
It's a fact that an arrow can not fly faster than the speed of sound. A deer will hear bow noise and react before the arrow reaches it.
It's also a fact that louder sounds travel FURTHER (not faster) than softer sounds. Think of a whisper compared to normal conversation in the same room. You would need to be closer to the person whispering in order to hear the whisper sound than you would if two people were having a normal conversation.
The bow shooting a heavier arrow would have less energy converted to sound energy (low dbs) which in turn will travel a shorter distance than the same bow shooting a light arrow because more of the bows energy would be converted to sound energy (higher dbs) and therefore travel further. The difference in distance that the sound travels is what I am talking about. For example, a deer will hear the sound from a bow shooting a light arrow at 20 yards whereas a deer may not hear a bow shooting a heavy arrow unless it is within 17 yards. So shooting the heavy arrow from 20 yards would not be heard by the deer. The deer may eventually react to arrow noise but it would be at a closer distance than the actual shooting distance.
Does that make sense and help you understand my position on this?
 
slonstdy said:
I am not inferring anything.
It's a fact that an arrow can not fly faster than the speed of sound. A deer will hear bow noise and react before the arrow reaches it.
It's also a fact that louder sounds travel FURTHER (not faster) than softer sounds. Think of a whisper compared to normal conversation in the same room. You would need to be closer to the person whispering in order to hear the whisper sound than you would if two people were having a normal conversation.
The bow shooting a heavier arrow would have less energy converted to sound energy (low dbs) which in turn will travel a shorter distance than the same bow shooting a light arrow because more of the bows energy would be converted to sound energy (higher dbs) and therefore travel further. The difference in distance that the sound travels is what I am talking about. For example, a deer will hear the sound from a bow shooting a light arrow at 20 yards whereas a deer may not hear a bow shooting a heavy arrow unless it is within 17 yards. So shooting the heavy arrow from 20 yards would not be heard by the deer. The deer may eventually react to arrow noise but it would be at a closer distance than the actual shooting distance.
Does that make sense and help you understand my position on this?
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I understand how you are drawing your conclusions, position if you want to call it that.

You say the video "proves" "that reducing bow noise by increasing arrow weight is a better way to shorten the distance/time deer have to react to sound." I don't believe that to be true.

To elaborate on your assertion: Given a deer reacts, time of reaction (measured as time of shot until time the arrow arrives at a perpendicular plane of the target) is shortened by increased velocity. Increasing arrow mass decreases velocity if the bow is a constant. The distance remains the same in either scenario.

To prove what you are saying, you would need a study on a pitch/db threshold for deer reaction. Maybe one exists and can contextualize and affirm what you are saying.
 
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CooterBrown said:
I just switch to left hand and bought a Bear Legit its maxed out and come in around 65 lbs with a 27 draw. Not sure on arrow weight if you follow his advice it says 650 but i dont think I would want to go that high because of speed loss. I have bare shaft tuned my bow with the little bit of experience I have with it. One thing that I'm seeing when i shoot the bare shaft is my arrow is always nock up high at 20yards. I moved the d loop up and down and nothing helps. my bare shafts are always in the target with the knock very high but yet they are hitting the same place on the target as my vanned arrow. Its a new bow and im shooting a whisker biscuit. I have shot several hundred shots thru the bow already.
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Try turning the nock a quarter turn at a time then reseat the nock and see if the nock high decreases or increases. Nock tuning works wonders on bare-shafts. Also how far are you shooting the and how heavy is the point weight. At 10-20 yards a high FOC can appear to cause nock high impacts.
 
CooterBrown said:
My fletched arrows are square with he target but its only my bare shaft that is nock high
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That’s how mine where last year. Arrows flew fine with a fixed blade slapped on so I didn’t worry about it too much. I figured it was cause my target was lower than where my bow is when shooting.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I'll agree my use of the word "proves" may not have been the correct terminolgy to illustrate my point.

"You say the video "proves" "that reducing bow noise by increasing arrow weight is a better way to shorten the distance/time deer have to react to sound." I don't believe that to be true."

If we both are in agreement that deer are reacting to sound, then why don't you believe that a quieter bow, by whatever means used to quiet it down, wouldn't shorten the amount of time and distance that a deer has to react to the shot?

"To elaborate on your assertion: Given a deer reacts, time of reaction (measured as time of shot until time the arrow arrives at a perpendicular plane of the target) is shortened by increased velocity. Increasing arrow mass decreases velocity if the bow is a constant. The distance remains the same in either scenario."

Maybe the video stated that but I didn't mean to imply that. Until I can get my bows to shoot at the speed of sound I will never be interested or concerned with speed. I agree increasing mass will decrease velocity and can agree that a faster arrow will give the deer less time to react BUT I feel that the difference in milliseconds of time is negligible compared to reducing bow noise which is what they're initially reacting to.

Loud unexpected sound, specifically unnatural sound, in the woods is startling to all animals. The sudden twang of a bow string in a quiet forest to a deer is probably similar to a balloon being popped behind your head while you are focused on something else. Your reaction to that balloon would be different if it was popped 10 yards away and you might not notice if it was done at 20 yards So now let's assume that a half a second after you heard the balloon pop behind your head you got pricked by a needle. Your body would still be tensed up from being startled by the pop of the balloon at the time of the needle prick. In this example a deer would be startled from the unexpected noise and begin to bolt to then feel the impact of the arrow. That's two different stimuli happening at the same time which would cause the deer to take off hard and not look back. Hearing the balloon pop at 10 yards may not cause you to tense up but you will be aware of the noise. In this case the deer would hear something to cause it to look where the sound came from but because the sound wasn't too loud the deer doesn't tense up/react until the arrow lands. At 20 yards the deer is going about it's business nice and relaxed until the arrow passes thru it. The deer felt something touch it but is unsure what just happened.

Don't get me wrong, I would love my bow to shoot my 585gr arrows at 300fps but that's not happening in this lifetime. The heavy arrows quiet my bows down considerably and I've seen the difference the lowered sound signature makes in regards to deer reacting when the bow goes off. They don't. Eight shots from 12 to 40 yards in two seasons has proven to me that silence is golden and an unexpected but most welcome by product of shooting heavy arrows. The heavy arrow has given me the penetration I was always struggling to get and the reduced bow noise has made my shots virtually undetectable to deer.

I would love for there to be a study on deer reactions at various sound levels and frequencies to prove or disprove our theories but until such a time I can only base what I say on my own experiences.
 
Plebe said:
I understand how you are drawing your conclusions, position if you want to call it that.

You say the video "proves" "that reducing bow noise by increasing arrow weight is a better way to shorten the distance/time deer have to react to sound." I don't believe that to be true.

To elaborate on your assertion: Given a deer reacts, time of reaction (measured as time of shot until time the arrow arrives at a perpendicular plane of the target) is shortened by increased velocity. Increasing arrow mass decreases velocity if the bow is a constant. The distance remains the same in either scenario.

To prove what you are saying, you would need a study on a pitch/db threshold for deer reaction. Maybe one exists and can contextualize and affirm what you are saying.
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It would be an easy/neat master's thesis.

Have a recorder that plays a bow firing at different decibels and video the action with enough slo mo/good enough timer that you can see how the deer reacted and how long after the shot. Throw in a range of deer to speaker, etc.

You could do it all you'd like (with a permit or something) since you aren't actually shooting at them.
 
slonstdy said:
Fletched arrows are square to target because the fletchings are providing steerage to correct poor arrow flight. A bare shaft shows true arrow flight off the bow string. The bow needs a tuning adjustment somewhere.
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I agree but not sure what it is it a new bow. Is there a person on youtube that goes over that on a Bear bow. we lost our local bow guru and i dont trust the replacement at all.
 
raisins said:
It would be an easy/neat master's thesis.

Have a recorder that plays a bow firing at different decibels and video the action with enough slo mo/good enough timer that you can see how the deer reacted and how long after the shot. Throw in a range of deer to speaker, etc.

You could do it all you'd like (with a permit or something) since you aren't actually shooting at them.
Click to expand...

Recording leaves out the variable that gets ignored a lot in these conversations. I’m not convinced that deer aren’t reacting to ARROW flight and noise, not just bow noise.


Deer hear an unnatural or sudden sound close by. They are called to attention. As they are, they perceive movement and sound coming towards them. Remember, we can’t know just yet how they’re wired. Comparing their hearing and our hearing is no different than comparing our sense of smells. We’re wired different.

When they see/hear this sound coming towards them, they react.

I’ve seen multiple slow motion instances where a deer is shot at, they turn casually toward the sound, and then when turned that direction, suddenly you see the change in demeanor and they duck.


I’m not telling you I know this to be true.

But it also would explain a lot of the “heavy arrows make a quieter bow and deer don’t react” babble. Shoot an arrow above 280fps or so, and you start to hear a significant whiz. Shoot the same weight arrow 200fps. You don’t have the fletches buzzing at high speed.


I like your experiment with one caveat - live rounds sometimes, and sometimes not. I would put a nickel that you’d discover a correlation between arrow noise or movement during travel, and deer reaction.
 
justwcc said:
Try turning the nock a quarter turn at a time then reseat the nock and see if the nock high decreases or increases. Nock tuning works wonders on bare-shafts. Also how far are you shooting the and how heavy is the point weight. At 10-20 yards a high FOC can appear to cause nock high impacts.
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100 grain field tip 20 yards. have no idea how to find foc but i dont think with just a 100 grain tip and no inserts that it has a very high foc
 
jtw0057 said:
That’s how mine where last year. Arrows flew fine with a fixed blade slapped on so I didn’t worry about it too much. I figured it was cause my target was lower than where my bow is when shooting.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Yes fixed broad heads shoot some place as field tips. The thing about the target is it in the same place with the fletched and bare shaft arrow and the bow is also.
 
slonstdy said:
I'll agree my use of the word "proves" may not have been the correct terminolgy to illustrate my point.

"You say the video "proves" "that reducing bow noise by increasing arrow weight is a better way to shorten the distance/time deer have to react to sound." I don't believe that to be true."

If we both are in agreement that deer are reacting to sound, then why don't you believe that a quieter bow, by whatever means used to quiet it down, wouldn't shorten the amount of time and distance that a deer has to react to the shot?

"To elaborate on your assertion: Given a deer reacts, time of reaction (measured as time of shot until time the arrow arrives at a perpendicular plane of the target) is shortened by increased velocity. Increasing arrow mass decreases velocity if the bow is a constant. The distance remains the same in either scenario."

Maybe the video stated that but I didn't mean to imply that. Until I can get my bows to shoot at the speed of sound I will never be interested or concerned with speed. I agree increasing mass will decrease velocity and can agree that a faster arrow will give the deer less time to react BUT I feel that the difference in milliseconds of time is negligible compared to reducing bow noise which is what they're initially reacting to.

Loud unexpected sound, specifically unnatural sound, in the woods is startling to all animals. The sudden twang of a bow string in a quiet forest to a deer is probably similar to a balloon being popped behind your head while you are focused on something else. Your reaction to that balloon would be different if it was popped 10 yards away and you might not notice if it was done at 20 yards So now let's assume that a half a second after you heard the balloon pop behind your head you got pricked by a needle. Your body would still be tensed up from being startled by the pop of the balloon at the time of the needle prick. In this example a deer would be startled from the unexpected noise and begin to bolt to then feel the impact of the arrow. That's two different stimuli happening at the same time which would cause the deer to take off hard and not look back. Hearing the balloon pop at 10 yards may not cause you to tense up but you will be aware of the noise. In this case the deer would hear something to cause it to look where the sound came from but because the sound wasn't too loud the deer doesn't tense up/react until the arrow lands. At 20 yards the deer is going about it's business nice and relaxed until the arrow passes thru it. The deer felt something touch it but is unsure what just happened.

Don't get me wrong, I would love my bow to shoot my 585gr arrows at 300fps but that's not happening in this lifetime. The heavy arrows quiet my bows down considerably and I've seen the difference the lowered sound signature makes in regards to deer reacting when the bow goes off. They don't. Eight shots from 12 to 40 yards in two seasons has proven to me that silence is golden and an unexpected but most welcome by product of shooting heavy arrows. The heavy arrow has given me the penetration I was always struggling to get and the reduced bow noise has made my shots virtually undetectable to deer.

I would love for there to be a study on deer reactions at various sound levels and frequencies to prove or disprove our theories but until such a time I can only base what I say on my own experiences.
Click to expand...

If we both are in agreement that deer are reacting to sound, then why don't you believe that a quieter bow, by whatever means used to quiet it down, wouldn't shorten the amount of time and distance that a deer has to react to the shot?

I think deer react to various stimulus. For example, it may be possible that a deer who is alerted to a hunter via sight, sound, or smell and locked onto the shooter's position reacts to a visual cue. Idk.

But, focusing solely on bow/arrow sound, I suppose the first thing that should be examined is the incidence of reaction. I think most of us figure a quieter system would result in fewer reactions. Interestingly, Ranch Fairy has not observed this to be true. If you haven't watched the video posted by @Weldabeast, it's pretty interesting to see what RF is seeing on slow motion video. I'd love to have a more broad reaching study.

However, given a reaction does occur, what next is questionable is when does the reaction occur? Is it to bow noise? Arrow noise? I can't say (but have my suspicions based on these videos).

What we do know is that the speed of sound is constant. So shot noise of higher and lower db reach the deer at the same time all the time.

The intensity of that sound does change. Bow noise would decrease in intensity after a shot, as energy is dispersed.

But arrow noise is more complicated; it decreases in magnitude as the arrow slows, but also increases as the distance between the source of sound (arrow through air) approaches closer to the receptor (deer's ear). Doppler effect. At least this is my layman's understanding.

Again, check out that aforementioned RF video. According to him, from 500-1000gr, he's not observing a difference. The hogs are reacting.

So his take is if you're going to "miss" your point of aim anyway, go heavy for it's penetration potential. I can dig it.

But I also dig rolling with some speed to minimize the error as much as possible (the balloon experiment).
 
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CooterBrown said:
100 grain field tip 20 yards. have no idea how to find foc but i dont think with just a 100 grain tip and no inserts that it has a very high foc
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Ok per bloodsport depending on the model of arrow you have a 350 or 400 spine is there recommend spine if your carbon only length is cut to 27 inches. If you have a stiffer (typically heavier gpi) spine you can typically make the spine act weaker by adding weight to the point end of the arrow. Try doing this bare-shaft through paper using progressively heavier points until the tear size gets as small as possible.
 
kyler1945 said:
I’m not convinced that deer aren’t reacting to ARROW flight and noise, not just bow noise.
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I agree wholeheartedly with his^^^^.

Put a camera behind your target and record the shot. You'll definitely hear the "tang" of the shot but the whistle of the arrow coming at you is definitely the most noticeable sound.

Below is a screen shot of video I made trying to see lighted nocks and to try estimate my arrow speed. The target is 20yds away, the camera is at 10 yards (halfway) and I'm shooting directly over it. The audio trace is presented in the green bar below. You'll notice that at ten yards the amplitude (i.e. volume) of the sound of the arrow is way greater than either the release or the arrow impact. 1654722653998.png

FWIW the bow is a 70lb compound shooting a 525grn arrow (field point) at approx. 270 fps. Three inch vanes on the arrows so these aren't feathers whistling by.
 
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