Should I consider this complete failure...success of sorts?

[bowhunter15]

I've been scouting a piece of MFL land the last couple weeks. Tonight, I brought in the stand and set up in a small clump of trees that still had some brown leaves on their branches. The temp was pretty steady at about 10 degrees, but when the wind would blow it sure was cold on the face.

Right about at dark, a big doe and two fawns came out of the thick brush. They were on a line right underneath my stand. I was still sitting down, but had my bow in my hand. They started browsing underneath me, the doe at about 3 yards and the fawns about 5-6. As soon as the doe passed to my right side, I double checked all six eyes and slowly stood up. The doe was about 8 yards slightly quartering away in a wide open lane. A dog barked way off in the distance. The deer all looked that direction. I started to draw back, but as I got to about 2/3 draw the bow creaked terribly. It sounded like I was opening a can of soda up in the stand, and the deer all took off. They stopped about 40 yards away with no shot. After standing there about 5 minutes, they trotted off.

Despite the fact that my bow creaked and I never got a shot (going to have to treat it with some graphite powder it sounds like), I had three deer within spitting distance on public land in the middle of January. I don't think they ever located me in the stand, but just heard the odd noise and never really figured out what it was. Hopefully this hasn't made them nocturnal again and I'll get a chance for redemption.

[Scot]

No not a failure. A learning experience.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[Darin]

Did you film this hunt?

[Stanley]

I always go through all the scenarios that could take place drawing my bow in all the directions a deer could come from. Never is a learning experience a failure.

[bowhunter15]

Learning experience for sure. I was filming with my headband mounted contour action cam, and the footage actually looks pretty decent because they were so close. I have to wait till my good computer gets back from the shop to upload though. My backup laptop doesn't handle hd too well.

[ Post made via Android ]

[dan]

I remember way back in the late 1980's I was after a nice 11 pointer and I was getting close. The last day of the season it was way below 0 without the wind chill and there were advisorys not to go outside... Right at closing time the 11 pointer finally stepped out. My bow was froze up and creaked so loud it scared the heck out of the buck that was 5 yards from the tree. His eyes got huge and he spun his head around to look at me and I quickly released. The bow had no power because of the frigid temps, and back in those days limbs were made of wood which made it worse... The arrow hit the deer in the stomach and only penetrated about 6 inches. Took me over a day to track the buck down, and about 5 miles of tracking...
In my case I got the buck... But in both cases, there were some serious lessons to learn about equipment, cold weather, and testing our equipment before and during the hunt.

If that bow had been test drawn before the hunt, you would have known about the creak. If you did it before every hunt, the creak would of likely been taken care of before that hunt...
Also, the creak may be happening cause your taking your bow in and out of warm / cold environments... that causes condensation build up, and moisture freezes when it gets cold... That was a big part of my issue.

Check me down for this was a learning experience.

[rudy78]

So what was learned & how can you prevent that in the future, guess I'm not understanding what was learned or was it just the set up & having the deer by you?

Is the lesson when it's cold draw your bow back frequently?

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[bowhunter15]

The lesson for me is to make sure and test the equipment in the conditions I plan on hunting in before going out. In this case it was actually really hard to find a solution to the problem. I heard some guys saying I would have to take the limbs off and put wax or lubrication in the problem areas, which sounds like quite an endeavor. But I had someone tell me to use graphite powder dry lubrication on the cable grooves. Then Google brought up some search result from a backcountry book talking about the same problem occurring from wet conditions, so he always had the graphite powder in his bag. The other lesson to be learned is that just because equipment is new doesn't mean its foolproof. All materials are subject to extreme conditions and should be checked.

[ Post made via Android ]

[bowhunter15]

That's quite the story Dan! And as for the condensation aspect of it, do you think wiping the bow down with a towel when taking it out into cold conditions would help? Or do you think a lot of that moisture is embedded too deep in the limb pockets, cable grooves, etc for a towel to do much good?

[ Post made via Android ]

[dan]

I don't think a towel would solve the issue... For me, leaving it out side and taking a couple shots helped a lot, but did not stop the issue completely. So I bought a new bow. One of those fancy "fiberglass" limb bows..
I do think dry graphite lube would help...

As far as "learning" I agree with B-15... Test your equipment in different situations, and reduce noise... Lessons seem obvious to me, but sometimes you have to have a bad experience to open your eyes... I try to be more proactive and see bad things before they happen, but sometimes even the obvious slips past us.

[Buxnbaas]

If you can do it, and I realize many people can't or won't, leave your bow outside all the time. I don't mean leave it hanging in the apple tree you got in the frontyard but rather, out in the garage or in a nonheated room in your house if you have one. I can picture alot of people slapping their laptops thinkin im an idiot but my bow hangs in an enclosed porch at my house. I don't bring it inside for anything. I once did bring it in from the cold and immediatley felt the condensation form on the bow. I have a bowtech 82nd airborn with the silent coating on it, which is some sort of kinda soft substance, that I fear would hold moisture next to the limbs and riser, plus it may also hold scent from my house which has 2 dogs and 2 cats, (thats 4 predator animals if your keeping track). So It stays out in the cold out on the porch. I don't worry too much about theft because of of where I live. Maybe its not the best plan, but my bow has been reliable for 3 years now, and this year I treated it to a Vapor Trail string to make sure it keeps on being reliable.

Thats my 2 cents. please mail my change back to me, Cuz the economy sucks, and you gotta pinch every penny.

[bowhunter15]

If you can do it, and I realize many people can't or won't, leave your bow outside all the time. I don't mean leave it hanging in the apple tree you got in the frontyard but rather, out in the garage or in a nonheated room in your house if you have one. I can picture alot of people slapping their laptops thinkin im an idiot but my bow hangs in an enclosed porch at my house. I don't bring it inside for anything. I once did bring it in from the cold and immediatley felt the condensation form on the bow. I have a bowtech 82nd airborn with the silent coating on it, which is some sort of kinda soft substance, that I fear would hold moisture next to the limbs and riser, plus it may also hold scent from my house which has 2 dogs and 2 cats, (thats 4 predator animals if your keeping track). So It stays out in the cold out on the porch. I don't worry too much about theft because of of where I live. Maybe its not the best plan, but my bow has been reliable for 3 years now, and this year I treated it to a Vapor Trail string to make sure it keeps on being reliable.

Thats my 2 cents. please mail my change back to me, Cuz the economy sucks, and you gotta pinch every penny.

This is what I'm starting to do now. Keep it in the garage. I've heard guys say before, "Treat your bow like you would like to be treated, don't leave it in the trunk, etc..." But the fact of the matter is, I think the rapidly changing conditions of inside vs outside is indeed the bigger issue in this case. I also put that powdered graphite in all the cable and string grooves and it seems to have helped quite a bit.

[bowhunter15]

Here is the video clip:

[bbvideo=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVxcxb0WGgY&feature=youtu.be[/bbvideo]

[Darin]

Wow what a noise....I look at it this way, that hunt was a fail, but in the long run, complete success. Reason being, in the future you will always be prepared on that aspect during late season. Good leason not just for you, but all of us. Thanks for sharing the video clip!

[Uncle Lou]

Cold and noise can be brutal. Great topic as a reminder for us all.

What we can get away with in Sept/Oct when the leaves are on (an acoustical buffer) we cant catch a break in on a crisp 0-10 degree day. I once had a friend hunt across the field from me. He shot, 2 times, and missed a deer. Back at the truck I said what happened, he said, I missed. I said both times. He said no way did you hear me across that field (which was a couple hundred yards away). I replied then how do I know you shot twice.