Shoot arrows with bright fletchings. Once you zip one through a buck, the vanes are easy to see on the ground under leaves or grass.

Hot Bowhunting Tips Never to Forget

Check your trail: When bowhunting the plains, look for deer trails gouged through the weeds.

Shooter’s tip

To reduce hand pressure and torque that can throw arrows off line, hold your bow with a relaxed, open grip. When you relax your shooting hand your entire body tends to follow suit and loosen up, which makes you shoot better.

Arrow test

Screw broadheads into the 6 hunting arrows you’ll carry in your quiver. Shoot every arrow into a broadhead target a few times. You’ll undoubtedly find that 2 or 3 of those arrows fly truer than the rest, especially with fixed heads. Mark those shafts 1,2 and 3. Those should be the first ones you hunt with. If arrow 4, 5 or 6 planes or wobbles don’t carry it in your quiver.

Perfect Peep

Is your peep sight set right? To find out, clip your release to the string, close your eyes, draw your bow and anchor as you would when hunting. Open your eyes. You should be able to see sight pins clearly through the peephole without moving your face, anchor point or bow. If not, let down and adjust the peep slightly up or down.

Scouting the Plains

If you bowhunt the plains, say in Kansas, eastern Colorado or the Dakotas, climb a ridge and glass down onto grassy draws and sprawling flats. Deer trails gouged through the grass will be easy to see and decipher. Try to glass from one end of a trail to the other to see what it connects—maybe a timbered draw (bedding area) and a nearby field of corn or alfalfa (food source). Now you have a good idea of deer patterns in the area. Play the wind and hang your tree stands, or if no good trees are available, set up a ground blind.

Short & Long Of It

Short compounds are lightweight and easy to wield in a tree stand. They burn arrows at better than 300 fps. On top of all that, they’re dipped in hot camouflage patterns and look cool. But is a 30- to 32-inch bow really right for you?

If you practice year-round and have great shooting form, the answer is probably yes. But if like many hunters you shoot a few weeks or months before deer season, you’re probably better off with a longer bow. The heavier and longer a bow’s axle-to-axle length, the easier it is to hold level and steady. For most shooters this leads to better accuracy. A longer compound is more forgiving, and that helps to cover for small flaws in shooting form.

Visit your local archery shop and shoot a short display bow. If it feels good, and if you can shoot it accurately, go for it. If not, scale up to at least a 34- or 36-inch bow (a good, middle-of-the-road choice). If in the end you still shoot a 38- or 40-inch bow the best, buck the craze and hunt with it!

Draw, shoot, LISTEN

If you hear an arrow “ka-thwack” into a deer, chances are it struck bone and muscle in the front shoulder. That’s good. But if you hear a hollow “ka-thump,” like an arrow striking a drum, that’s probably bad, the sound of hit too far back in the paunch.

Need More Speed?

Three ways to increase arrow velocity

When the crops are cut in your area have a large impact on your bow stand locations.

Increase your bow’s draw length by an inch, which will increase arrow speed by 5 fps or so. But don’t go overboard and try to pull too long of a bow, because that will mess up you anchoring technique, your shooting form and ultimately your accuracy.
Increase draw weight 5 or 10 pounds, which will speed up arrows by 10 to 20 fps. Be sure to turn each limb bolt precisely the same.
Try carbon arrows, which are lighter and thinner (less drag in the air) and thus a little faster than aluminum shafts.

Early Transition

Say a farmer cuts his corn in September or October. The days immediately after the harvest are awesome for bowhunting. The sudden change in habitat will force deer to move a lot. The animals will seek out new food sources in nearby woods and thickets, and any bucks that bedded in the stalks will transition to bedding thickets. Play the wind and hang a tree stand 100 to 200 yards off a freshly cut field and you’ll see lots of activity as deer sort things out. Even if you don’t get a shot, you should be able to observe bucks settling into new bed-to-feed patterns, which can only help on future bow or gun hunts.

Tree Stand Tips

For safety, read the instructions and practice hooking a new stand on a tree at ground level. Get used to a climber or fixed perch before you attempt to hang it 16 feet or higher.
Most stands will fit a tree 8 to 20 inches in diameter. But whenever possible, I hang a perch in a 10- to 16-inch tree. In this size tree, a stand locks down safely and quietly.
If an oak and a pine (with few or no low-growing limbs) sit side by side, choose the pine for a climber. The stand will bite the soft bark deeply as you climb and hunt.
After selecting a potential tree for a stand, back up 40 or 50 yards, kneel and check it from a deer’s perspective. If the tree offers adequate background cover (you never want to be silhouetted against the sky) go ahead and hang your perch.
For afternoon hunting in September or early October, lock a stand on a tree so that it faces a nearby crop field or acorns. Most deer will come from the woods and thickets to the rear; the tree between you and them will provide yet more cover.
If you shoot right-handed, set up where deer will pass within 30 yards to your left (vice versa for southpaws). You can draw and shoot with ease and little movement as a buck quarters past.
With the leaves still thick on the trees in early fall, you might be able to see and shoot best by hunting only 16 feet or so high. Be doubly sure the wind is right and steady when you hunt low. After the leaves fall, hunt a little higher and above the sight plane of bucks.
If you’re not a “sky walker,” preferring instead to hunt from a tree stand only 15 or so feet high, try this. Hang your perch on the edge of a ridge, point, steep creek bank—you get the picture—where a trail or scrape line runs below. A buck traveling down in the funnel will be at least 20 to 25 feet below you. No way he’ll see or smell you.
Trim 3 or 4 shooting lanes to the sides and front of your stand. Drag trimmed limbs and saplings away from your stand so deer won’t see or smell them.

No-so-minor adjustments

When changing a bow’s draw weight never apply extreme torque to a limb bolt or you might weaken and damage it! Turn and fine-tune each limb bolt exactly the same… When adjusting sight pins, “follow the group.” For example, if your arrows group right, move sight pins right. If arrows hit low, move sight pins down.

No-hassle travel

Flying with a lot of oversize gear can be a hassle these days. You might think about sending your bow and arrows (in a hard-plastic or aluminum case) via UPS or FEDEX ground to your destination. Your gear will be waiting for you when you arrive, and you won’t worry about an airline losing your case for a day or 2, which could ruin a 4- or 5-day hunt. I sent my bow ahead to several places last fall and was happy I did. I was able to sail through airport security, and I didn’t worry about an airline misplacing the case when I changed planes in busy places like Atlanta and Chicago.

4 Hot Bow Sets

Field Corner

You'll shoot better with a relaxed, open grip

Anytime you plan to hunt around a field of corn, alfalfa or clover, look for a corner bordered by a fencerow or strip of timber. It’s a natural choke point where a lot of deer will funnel into and out of the grain. A corner generally offers good cover and at least one stout tree for a stand. Try to hang a perch 25 to 75 yards off a corner, and within shooting range of one or more trails gouged through the surrounding cover. Before you hunt the spot make sure the wind is right. Ideal is when the wind quarters out of the cover, across your stand and out the corner of the field (see sketch).

Perimeter thickets

Many hunters think does and bucks bed a mile or more from a crop field. Wrong! Many deer, including some good bucks, lie up in thickets within 200 to 300 yards of grain. Scout for bedding/staging thickets on the perimeter of a field, but don’t poke too far back in the cover or you’ll spook a lot of deer. Check 50 to 100 yards max back in the woods for trails wending through thickets. Hang a stand along one of those trails and hunt it evening or morning when the wind is right.

Swamps

A marshy hardwood or willow bottom that connects 2 woodlots or, say, a woodlot with a crop field is a prime travel corridor for bucks. Try to hang a stand along a strip of dry ground inside a small swamp. In September white, swamp or pin oak acorns might fall inside a marsh, and there’s green browse all around. You should catch some bucks feeding there at dusk and again at dawn.

Oak Bench

Hang a tree stand on a flat, narrow bench on the side of a ridge. Rather than walking the top of the ridge, many does and bucks will drop down and travel along the bench. Acorns might fall on or near the bench, doubling your odds of success. A good buck might use the bench as a bedding area, so you might get a crack at him one morning.

Easy-To-See Arrows

Try arrows fletched with white or yellow vanes. When you shoot a deer, your eyes will instinctively follow the bright white or yellow blur; watch the vanes disappear into a buck and you’ll have a good idea of how good the shot was. After the shot, check an arrow that passed through a deer. Red blood with pink bubbles (lung hit); dark, thick blood (liver); or green, watery matter (stomach) will be easy to see and decipher on white or yellow vanes.

Bow Maintenance

The pros at Hoyt Archery answer 3 FAQs

How often should you replace a bow’s string and cables?
When wear is evident or every 2 years under normal-use conditions.
How often should you lubricate wheels or cams?
Lightly lube the axles where they pass though the wheels or cams every 1,500 to 2,000 shots. When bowhunting in dusty or rainy weather, lube wheels or cams daily. Always use a silicone- or Teflon-based lubricant.
How often should you wax a bowstring?
Once every 2 weeks during peak-shooting times.