The excitement of opening day should rival the exhilaration
felt by any child on the morning of Christmas, their birthday, or the last day
of school. Opening day for fall turkey bowhunting had the same foreboding as
property tax day or visit to the dentist.
If there is a good reason for not getting excited about
opening day it eludes me. It couldn’t have been more then a day or two after
the spring season ended before starting the countdown to October 3rd when
Vermont’s fall archery season begins. With a sense of obligation, the hunting
day began an hour before sunrise with a cup of hot tea.
Hunting turkeys with a bow has its rewards and is a lot of
fun despite the frustrations of having many birds within gun range which is
usually just out of bow range. Anything beyond 30 yards is little more then
sending the arrow and hoping for a good shot. Because of my last experience
with a slow death with a decent body shot, my broadhead of choice is some form
of guillotine head. Many arrows with mechanical heads gave a few birds close
shaves and the kill or miss philosophy is great if my ego would allow me to go
an entire season and come up empty handed; hence the move to large cutting
diameters on the fronts of arrows.
Squeezing the tea bag against a spoon to remove the water is
a mind-numbing step in the preparation of good tea. The big squeeze adds a
touch of bitterness unable to escape into the brew by steeping. Grabbing onto
an absorbent sack of just boiled tea leaves is also a bit of a rush which helps
me shake off the morning doldrums and get the day started. It is during the
squeeze and subsequent burning of my fingers the root for my lack of enthusiasm
becomes clear: I have no faith in the ability of the arrows to fly true. With
no confidence in my equipment there is no joy in the hunt.
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| Been keeping an eye on this bird and a few of his running mates. |
My Elite Energy 35 is a fantastic bow. What is not so
fantastic is my ability to tune it to have the large broadheads fly to where
they were aimed. During tuning, both the Muzzy M.O.R.E. heads and the Magnus
Bullheads had erratic flight. Bareshaft tuning had the arrows flying
consistently but my efforts were slow to bring the fieldpoint and bareshaft
arrows to impact near each other. The bareshafts eventually hit within an inch
of the fieldpoints with one caveat; the bareshaft arrows were always tail left
and no amount of rest moving fixed this.
Just for kicks and with a bit of desperation and tossing
caution to the wind I loosened the pinch-bolt for the cable slide-rod. On the
Elite bows the rod is slightly S-shaped allowing the user to move the cables
towards or away from the string by rotating the rod. The cable-rod was set to
give the fletchings minimum clearance with the cables. With the pinch-bolt
losse, the rod was rotated 45 degrees placing the slide at the 8 o’clock position
when viewed from behind. The bareshaft arrow hit the target slightly tail right
and this condition was confirmed with the next three arrows. Turing the rod to
the 7 o’clock spot gave a bareshaft arrow which impacted straight into the
target. A little more rest movement brought the bareshafts and fletched arrows
to the same spot.
The test flight of the Bullheads hit dead on the vertical
line painted on an old fiberfilled pillow hung at 20 yards. What about 30? Will
the arrow still be on the pillow? Yes it is and remained there to 40 yards. The
Muzzys were also spot on but my trust in the setup was clouded by skepticism.
Pillows are one thing but will they still fly straight with the added rush of a
live shot.
Opening day morning was uneventful. The hunt really amounted
to a nice walk in the woods. No turkeys were discovered but I did see a nice 8
point whitetail and managed to stalk it to within 60 yards. I have no interest
in hunting deer so getting close is just a warmup for getting close to the birds.
The turkey hunting season ends in early November and the plan is to only take a
shot at a tom and leave the hens until fall shotgun season when anything within
range is fair game.
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