Victory!!!

[bald9eagle]

I have finally convinced my hunting partner that we need to go bow hunting for our first ever elk hunt. I had the opportunity to talk to my father in law for a couple hours on the way back from deer camp and started picking his brain on how to hunt elk. The one thing he said that perked my ears up was that if he could do it all over again he would have learned to bow hunt and chased them. After telling my buddy all this he committed to doing a bow hunt.

Our biggest concern/issue now is that neither of us are that great with a bow. The good thing is that we have from now to September to get better.

Any tips from you guys that hunt with stick and string?

[ishy]

First thing is check and see if you have local archery club. Most have great guys that love to help newbies. You will learn a ton more with hands on help than anything you read.

[Swede]

I think the hardest obstacle to overcome is to not think like a gun hunter. You do not have a short range gun, when you pick up a bow. Bow hunting is totally different. You need to get your query when it is stopped or very near stopped. You want it to be broadside, close, and relaxed. I know there are some that say they killed their critter running 50 MPH, at 100 yards, with a shot up the anus, but these shot are veeeery risky. The truth is you will never find lasting success with a bow until you make the mental change first.

[WapitiTalk1]

Sweet! Let the planning begin (which is almost as good as the hunt itself). Like Ishy mentioned, get to an archery range/shop and ask for one of those smart cats to check your bow out to make sure the string is good, it's pretty well tuned, you're shooting proper spined arrows, and any of the other mechanical parts on your bow are working properly. If you can swing having a Rhino Block target set up at your place where you can shoot out to 40 or so yards, it would serve you well so you can shoot often. You'll be surprised at how quickly you become proficient with your stick and string once you start shooting all the time. I do a lot of practicing below my house in the woods out to 60 yards and do a lot of shooting from various positions (kneeling, leaning around trees, drawing while moving from a kneeling position to standing, shooting between and over obstacles in the sight path, etc., etc. A lot of proficient bow shooting is just muscle memory and honestly, I seldom remember even drawing my bow many times when I shoot a critter. With your first archery elk hunt looming in the pretty near future, I'd recommend you get ahold of some of Elknuts products and start working on your calling and the understanding of elk behavior... those products alone will cut years off your learning curve. Good luck brother! Oh, do you have any initial plans on where your may be heading with your buddy to hunt elk?

[Swede]

Another thing I would recommend is for you to learn to tune your own bow and arrows. Most bow shops want you to depend on them. Duh. Some will act like tuning a bow is right up there with brain surgery or rocket science. It's not. Get your arrows spined and cut for your bow. Get the arrow to come out of the bow directly in line with the path of the string. Get that roughed in yourself and fine tune from there. Ultimately you want your broad heads to hit where your field points do. If you join an archery club, you can get pointers there or you can look online. If that is not enough, ask here.

[six]

Wow. Good for you. I think you guys have made a good choice.

Couple things to add to your list.

Buy a good rangefinder. I've missed many of elk from misjudging the distance. At first I thought it was because they were so much bigger than a whitetail. Now I've realized it was just bull fever. Once you're set up range a tree, rock or clump of grass and when the elk walks next to it you'll know the exact distance.

Walk back bow tuning seems to work for me. I also practice in the local gravel pit out to 70 yards. You have to have perfect form to hit a target consistently at 70 yards. after shooting at 70 yards 40 seems like 20.

I'm sure others can chime in with some other important things. These are some of my biggies.

Mark