A quick reminder for everyone dragging their heels out there. You have until June 2 to get your applications in for California hunting tags this year. In case you don't have a calendar... that's about a week away. Get on it!
You can go to a local store and buy them, or do what I did and purchase them online. I had my OTC tags in my hands in a few days. I have to wait until June 3 to see if I drew any tag, but I already have one Archery Only (AO) tag in my hands.
Close range archery practice is something that isn’t mentioned much these days. Most times bowhunters will say they sighted in their bows between 20-80 yards and are very happy with that. What about when that animal surprises you and comes in at 10 yards or maybe even 5 yards? Have you practiced shooting at those ranges? Here are a few tips to be sure you can hit your target at all ranges.
When I was first starting out bowhunting, I had the fortune to shoot at a nice six-point whitetail with a recurve. I was young and had not practiced at close range. At less than five yards I shot right over his back. I aimed to what I thought was a true shot and whiffed. I was heartbroken and deflated. After that, practicing at close range was a must. I stuck with it for many years and then when I moved to California I stopped for a while.
As I began to shoot at longer distances, I slowly forgot about shooting in close. One day at the range, I set up a 3D deer target and got to thinking. What if this deer surprised me closer than 10 yards? Would I be ready? I knew I wouldn’t be, so I tried a few things.
First, I set up a bag target and moved just a few feet away from it. This was to get my body in tune and to erase any target panic I might have. Here’s what you should do – as you are directly in front of the target, draw your bow, close your eyes and when ready squeeze the trigger on your release. This tells you how it should feel and to make sure you don’t punch the trigger. This might take a couple shots to get the cobwebs out and to relax.
Now that you have the target set, you use either the lowest setting for your single-pin sight (like 5 yards) or the setting for 10 yards on your multi-pin sight. Move back to 5 yards and aim for a spot on the bag target. Release an arrow and see how low (or high) you are. Here is where the adjustment comes in. For every archer this will be different, so you will have to take great care in your next steps. You can lower your bow and get the sight pin where you think you need to be and fire off another arrow. Complete this step until you hit the spot you are aiming for. Don't go adjusting any sight pins! All you are doing is moving the bow down and then shooting. Focus on either your top pin and how far down it needs to be to shoot, or focus on a part of the sight ring. You should choose whatever makes you feel comfortable and shoot well at close range.
Once you have the 5 yard sighting completed try some things. Crouch down, sit down, lean in front of a mock ‘tree’ or just make something up for how you think an animal will approach. Practice like this from 5 yards from time to time. This will ensure that when you are faced with a close yardage shot you can make it happen without blinking an eye. Best of luck and shoot straight!
Today I am infuriated as a hunter, not only as a bowhunter, but a hunter because the anti's and the government are one step closer to ending hunting altogether in California. Yesterday, AB 711 passed in the California State Assembly by a vote of 44-21. What is AB 711? The Bill is to end all use of lead ammunition in ALL (yes ALL) of California. No bird shot (which has been like this for a while), no slugs, no BULLETS in any way, shape or form.The bill was co-written by a Democrat from Lakewood, CA - Assemblyman Anthony Rendon. It now heads to the Senate floor.
They say it is easy for hunters to make the switch to non-lead ammo. Really? Is the CA state government going to start handing us vouchers for discounts on copper bullets? Not a chance. I think the gov't fails to have any foresight here. Think about this; if we can't afford to buy non-lead ammo, ammo sales will drop leading to hunting license sales dropping and pretty soon there will a huge loss of revenue for our CA gov't. Yeah, I am going to go out on a limb and say the Assembly is disillusioned and has blinders on as they are not thinking of the ramifications of this bill. Am
I sounding off in the extreme? I don't think so. I am also a
proponent of hunting. PERIOD. I continually encourage people to get out
and hunt and enjoy the outdoors. Our government is trying to take that
way from us.
You know what this reminds me of? This reminds me of PROHIBITION. We all remember how that played out. Bottoms up!
Watch this video from HuntForTruth.org and listen to the Game Commission heads who were against it. Listen to the scientists who dismiss the 'evidence' because it isn't substantiated because there is no evidence that says lead bullets are THE main cause to blame.
My brothers and sisters in California, this is an attack on hunting. They outlawed hunting with lead ammunition in the 'Condor Zone' because they said the condors were getting poisoned from lead bullets. While that may be true, the condors are STILL GETTING SICK and it isn't strictly from lead bullets or fragments. How about them eating lead paint or getting it naturally in the environment? There are plenty of other ways they can get sick. It's a smoke screen and a myth if you think the condors are getting sick STRICTLY from lead bullets. Where is the evidence of this in other states? Nowhere. Why? The HSUS and other anti-hunting organizations are targeting California because it's easier for them to get the easily-swayed government officials to change their minds and not get into any confrontation. They are using negative, fabricated media to sway them. We Californians need to band together and fight this with everything we have!!
Phillip Loughlin, who authors The Hog Blog and is an avid hunter, has been posting about the lead ammo issues for years. His latest post on the issue was on May 4th and he makes some great points:
Why wasn’t this risk assessed before the first condor was released
back into the wild? Why wasn’t this dialogue started, on a wide scale,
before there were a bunch of zoo-bred birds flying around CA and AZ,
dining on hunters’ deer, pig, and elk carcasses?
If I were planning to implement a program on federal land, I’d have
to develop and complete a study on the program’s impacts to the
environment. I’d have to know what flora and fauna my activities might
put at risk, and I might have to mitigate those risks. If my activity
impacted an endangered or threatened species, I’d have to jump through a
series of additional, exhaustive processes and procedures to mitgate
that impact or my project would have to be cancelled. With this in
mind, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suggest that, before releasing
an endangered or threatened species into the wild ecosystem, a similar
set of studies and reports should also be completed, and risks addressed
and mitigated before the project goes forward…especially
considering that the species is being released right back into the same
habitat conditions that nearly brought it to extinction in the first
place.
Here are some other great points made by Robert Faraga at The Truth About Guns - AB 711 Could Kill Hunting in California. They are spot on and must be read! A couple years ago, my friend Bill Howard wrote about the EPA going after lead ammo. It was written two (2) years ago.He makes some great points and even discusses the rising cost of ammo for everyday hunters and new hunters.
"Shotshells would not be the only ammunition regulated either.Most hunting cartridges consist of a lead projectile.A young hunter’s first rifle is often a .22 caliber.Ammunition is cheap, so the youth can become familiar with the operation of the rifle by shooting many times.A box of 100 .22 cartridges runs approximately $7.50.Changing the composition of the bullet could increase the cost by 4 times that amount.Again, the increase would likely eliminate many new hunter's first excursion, or at least repeated excursions into the outdoors."
The CA government thinks it will be easy for hunters to make the switch to non-lead ammo. Easy for whom? Copper bullets are expensive as hell!! You can't just go out and sight in your rifle without watching it squeeze blood out of your wallet. Have they tried buying shotgun ammo lately? Plus, have you tried to find any ammo these days? It's damn near impossible to locate it just to target practice... and that is expensive, too! We ALL need to write our state Assembly, Senators and fight! We MUST do this! You can search for your local representatives here. Scroll down to 'My Elected Officials'. We need to flood them with phone calls, emails and letters and stand strong. If there was ever a time to fight for your rights as hunters it is NOW! Please write, call and let them know that you oppose this ban with heart and soul. Oh, and today is Endangered Species Day. What an interesting thought as pretty soon hunters are going to be the endangered species in California.
It's not often that I have guest authors contribute to the SoCal Bowhunter, but every so often it calls for it.Chris Turgeon, one of the guys have have been hunting hogs with recently, was asking me about some new sights a couple months ago and mentioned the Trophy Ridge React Sight. I mentioned that I had not used one, but that it looked pretty cool. As usual, I was skeptical about the claims of quick, easy set up and such. Chris did some research on his own and has been shooting the React Sight for a couple weeks. Here is his in depth gear review. ______________________________________________________________________
Like most of you, I watch hunting shows on TV whenever I'm not at work, working on honey-dos, or out in the field. I see all kinds of new bells and whistles available to hunters these days. I am the kind of person that is willing to try just about anything to see if it will work better for me than what I am already using. I am a very aggressive hunter and usually it's my gear that pays the price, so I am constantly replacing items due to damage.
Recently, I talked to my friend Al about wanting to try the new React Sight by Trophy Ridge, but was having a hard time deciding if it were worth spending that much money on. After a few weeks I finally got my hands on one and my first impression while in the box was great it's just gonna be another plastic sight that I am going to break in a few trips.
Well I was wrong about that! It is a very well built and solid sight. So I pulled it out of the box and played with it in my hands for a few minutes before mounting it to my bow.
This is the new Trophy Ridge React sight with Smart Pin Technology, a revolutionary, tool-less sight system that once calibrated at 20 and 30 yards, makes your 40, 50, and 60 yard pins mathematically impossible to be inaccurate. Perfect precision. Season after season. In less than 10 minutes.
Features:
Ballistix CoPolymer System
Reversible Sight Mount
Designed for use with left or right hand bows and high or low anchor points.
Multiple mounting holes for more versatility
100% Tool-less micro-adjustment
Rheostat light
.019 Fiber optic pins
Sight level
3 EASY STEPS
Sight in your 20 yard pin using the tool-less micro windage and elevation adjustments.
For the next pin step back to 30 yards and fine tune at that distance before shooting the remaining pins.
Once you have 2 pins sighted in accurately the rest of your pins will be automatically set, it’s that easy.
I then headed to the range to see if the sight is as easy to get dialed in as they say. After 9 shots at 20 yards I was splitting arrows! I locked down the sight ring and moved back to the 30 yard marker, made a guess of where my pin should be and let an arrow fly. It hit about one inch low from where I was aiming so I gave the dial a third of a turn and let another arrow fly and it hit perfect. I shot another just to be sure and split the arrow. I then locked the dial down so no more adjustments could be made and dropped back to sixty yards. I let 3 arrows fly and walked up to see what it looked like. I was very impressed with what I saw! I am confident in saying that if I take a shot at anything inside of sixty yard it will be human error if I miss the shot.
I know how hard it is for some people in So Cal to get out to a range where you can practice shots out to sixty yards. Most places have indoor ranges that only have 20-30 yard shots available. I know with this sight that I can hit one of those indoor ranges and feel 100% confident in all my longer yardages.
As far as durability goes, I have high hopes for this sight. I am hard on my gear and only time will tell how this bad boy holds up in the field this season. I have more than a few hog hunts coming up soon and if it can make it through that then my hat will be off to Trophy Ridge.
Perfect practice leads to success in the field. We have all heard it many times, but it rings true. Not mentioned often is the art of practicing patience both on the range and in the woods, both with you and with other archers. Learning to harness it is something that does indeed take practice.
One of the reasons I like to get to the local archery range early in the morning is that there is less pressure than later in the day. When I lived in New York I had the luxury of having a target set up in my backyard and could practice at a moment’s notice. I could shoot anytime and I didn’t have to wait for others to finish up. Here in California it’s a different story. In the city where I live, I am not allowed to shoot in my backyard. It’s a safety issue that I understand. The other options are to go to a local pro shop to shoot up to 30 yards, or to go to the local outdoor archery range. The outdoor range I speak of is the site of the 1984 Olympic archery competition. It’s a large range where you can shoot out to 110 yards if you like. On Saturdays and Sundays the range fills up quickly, so it is in your best interest to get up early and claim a bale target.
Recently, my friend Brett and I have been hitting the range around 7:30 AM on Saturday mornings. The weather is cool, a bit overcast and we can almost always grab our favorite target area – the one on the very end. On two separate occasions, we have watched the range fill up quickly. This causes a bit of congestion. Here is where focusing on being patient comes into play. If you are late to the range, you must be patient and wait for a target to open up. If you are like Brett and I, we must be patient with ourselves. You have one of three decisions to make. You can give up your target to allow someone else to shoot. Not a likely choice as you made the effort to get there early. You can cave under the pressure and rush through your practice to accommodate the people waiting for you. This would be the absolute worst decision as it would cause poor form, poor technique, and quite honestly poor practice. The best thing you can do is shoot like you would during a perfect practice session. Take your time, focus on technique and worry about you and no one else.
If you have ever gone golfing in a foursome there is bound to be someone in your group that is slower than the rest. Usually it is me, but that is beside the point. Before long, the foursome behind you is on your heels. You have three choices. You may continue to play slow and irritate the other group. You may allow them to play through. Or you can stress out under the pressure to speed up and totally mess up your day of relaxing on the course. The same will happen on the archery range should you allow it.
We had a gentleman come sit right by us at 40 yards after we had only been there a half hour. We usually shoot for two hours or so and I was sighting in a new single-pin sight, so I was patient. As the minutes went by, arrows flew downrange and we had a blast. Before long two and a half hours had elapsed and our arms were spent. We offered up our target and the man graciously took it. He was patient and so were we. Everyone was happy.
My favorite part of the day was toward the end of our range session. A young boy walked up beside us and started shooting. You can see him in the left side of this photo. His first arrow in his aim was true and he exclaimed to his teacher, ‘I hit the target! Look, I hit the target!!’ His enthusiasm was pure and full of energy. It totally made my day to see someone so excited about archery. I hope all of us can get out there and let that inner child out as often as we can. We should all carry that enthusiasm and have fun when we hit where we are aiming. Even after nearly thirty years of shooting a bow and arrow, I still get a thrill out of my arrow hitting exactly where I am aiming.
