I posted this on one of the "speed" threads but it's buried.
How important really is quiet when it comes to a trad hunting bow?
In the old Fred Bear videos he's shooting a bare-string recurve with one of those spring-arm quivers and I know they are LOUD.
Also, in one of the Barry Wensel and Rick Blase videos it doesn't look like there is much on Barry's recurve string and there is a definate "thunk" everytime he shoots.
Most of the animals I've killed with a trad bow was done with a recurve that is noisy. I've had nervous animals jump the string but I've never had a relaxed animal do it.
I've hunted alot with selfbows and straight longbows that are much quieter and I have alerted animals jump with those too. I don't think you can get a bow any quieter than a selfbow with wood arrows.
I like a quiet bow just because a noisy one bothers ME but how much does it really matter when hunting?
I don't have near the experience as most of you guys but I have been around animals (deer and pigs) enough to know that no trad bow is fast enough or quiet enough to shoot at a nervous whitetail.
Personally I'd take quiet over quick, any day.
This Is the biggest difference I find out.
Once I started hitting pigs with a selfbow, they barely trotted away like if they got a bit scared from something that fell and hit them, a few didn' even change the walking pace after a pass thru ,(some hit less than 10 yards away) kinda stumble a bit , like if they where sayng, "I don' feel all that good all of a sudden" just to collaps less than 20 yards away.
All the pigs I hit with my glass bows ( a bit louder, and thing glass bows must have a different pitch in the sound, maybe a bit unnatural) took of at a dead run, somtimes making it for a very difficult recovery, espetially in the kind of jugle grounds I hunt.
....So yeah, I prefer quite, never hunted deer I'm sure it's different
I think it matters more than that other word that was posted about.
ChuckC
Manny, I've shot a few pigs with wood bows..they all ran like heck after they were shot. So did the ones with glass bows. The only pig I've evershot that didn't run hard was shot out of a treestand...she just walked off and fell over about 30 yards out.
I've never shot a deer with a selfbow but I've had two that acted like they weren't hit at all..one with my "noisy" recurve and one years ago with a compound.
I did notice though after going to a trad bow that the deer I shot didn't seem to go into "panic mode" as bad so I think you are right about how the bow affects the animal after the shot.
Question: Does Quiet Matter?
Answer: Yes
I think silent is deadly. Alot of times depending on your bow and arrow set up you don't need much of a silencer because you can tune out noise.
However the more hitech of a recurve or long bow you have and if it uses a fast flight string and if you shoot light weight carbons more then likely you will need to add siliencers.
I know deer hunting here in Michigan silience is golden, I don't care how fast your bow is if the deer hears your string twang there is a real high percentage your going to put a bad shot on your animal. Just speaking from what I have experienced.
To me quiet is the most important thing about my bow. I shoot a longbow, dacron sting, and heavy wooden arrows. I shot a 3-D shoot in Jan. and one of the guys I was shooting with said "man I never hear your shot". I told him I like it like that.
Jack
How important quiet is depends a lot on where and what you are hunting.I hunt very spooky deer and it is very important for me.The shots are close and most come at first light when the woods are the quietest.For someone hunting more normal deer and in terrain where you can stay farther from them and get a shot it would not matter as much as it does for me.I can live with a slower arrow if I have too but I can't live with a loud bow come hunting season. :)
After finding a hunting weight bow that I shoot well, the number one thing to me is how quiet it shoots. A point to consider on the videoed shots mentioned is that the shooter(s) are many times wearing a "whisper" mike, or in the older Bear videos the camera is equiped with a sensitive directional mike. This magnifies the sound of the bow/string quite a bit. A couple of young fellows I shoot/hunt with have done quite a bit of videoing and the sound of their bows is really loud on the video and that is with no special microphones. On the range, their selfbows are about as quiet as you can get a bow to be. Sound is magnified even more (at least to me) when shooting from a blind. Until a bow shoots faster than the speed of sound, a deer can "jump the string". Mike
Most of the poplar game hunted have a keen sense of hearing, and sound will travel faster that any arrow.
Yes, the lack of string/bow/arrow noise on release should be most important to a bowhunter - more important than the quest for arrow speed.
Timely topic Mike I was playing with my brace height last nite to see where it was best on my Bob Lee takedown it was 7 3/4" tried 7"-8" 1/4" showed up use to have it at 8".for me I like quite but knowing they will jump I really like to shoot slow walking deer for many reasons.The hogs I have killed with my bow didn't come close to jumping the string some alone but most in a noisey group which helps again.Kip
well it boils down to the animal connecting that noisy bow to the sting it just felt.. it has to be a btter trade off when your bow is as quiet as it can possibly be.
a noisy bow is simply going to scare the animal when you shoot, a quiet bow that still scares the animal well thats just a animal that had its ears open---> plus how many times have you guys got a second shot cause that animal stopped to see what the heck just made that noisy,,, I missed a deer at 10yds and shot that same deer at 30 cause he stopped to see what just happened..
I know quiet is important I just sometimes wonder how important or at what point they become too loud.
My primary hunting recurve is "quiet" relative to most recurves but still considerably louder than my selfbows or the straight longbow with heavy wood arrows I used to hunt with.
I've not experienced deer jumping the string worse when hunting with my recurves relative to my quieter bows.
Never really had problems with pigs jumping unless they are at a corn-feeder and are used to getting shot at.
I agree with you Kip...I've never had a walking deer duck the string but most of the ones I've shot, or shot at, that had their head in acorns or corn were skittish of any sound.
I think the more the animals you are after are hunted, the more important "quiet" becomes.
Mike I am going to try dacron seems like my first Lee was quieter with it and the fastflight doesn't seem to be any faster or very little on my new Lee and get me some Bow Hush made my own but not as good as the real wool.Kip
Kip, I use mountain-muffler D97 strings on both me Lees and they are quiet.
Never really had problems getting my Lee's quiet with dacron or high-perf strings but maybe "quiet" to my ears is different from yours :)
The reason alot of deer will jump the string is the movement of you releasing the shot. Rule 1 for me don't take shots at deer that are looking at you. But I also prefer a quite bow with heavy arrows.
That's a difficult question to answer with real objective evidence.
I'd concede the inclination is for all of us to argue quiet is better than loud, but what exactly is quiet, and what exactly equates to loud?
I've taken oodles of spooky deer with setups that I thought were loud (video playback confirmed) and with setups that I thought were relatively quiet, and i sometimes I think it boils down to just a preference on our part that we want "quiet".
Years back I remember people used to tell me my 65 to 70# Morrison dakota and recurve setups were loud. I'd just think to myself...gee...deer didn't seem to mind. But even today I still take reasonable efforts to quiet down my bow. I prefer TS1 over D97 for this reason.
Personnaly I prefer quite. I believe there are a lot of factors that determine how an animal will react to a shot. Nervousness, hunting pressure, environment, bow noise, movement,etc. One observation I have made is, I believe sometimes we get "too close". I've noticed that deer and hogs react more when they're in that 8-12 yd range than they do when they're out at 15-20 yds. At the longer ranges, with a quiet bow I've had a lot less, bolt or try to "jump the string" at the shot than I have at closer ranges.
No scientific fact, just an observation.
LD
I think perhaps the type of sound the bow makes matters just as much as how loud/quiet the bow is. I shot a BW TF for a couple of years, and no one would have said that the bow was real quiet, but I never had a deer jump the string..
I like a quiet bow, and I strive to make the bows I shoot the best as quiet as I can make them.
I have killed 2 deer on the second shot. If my bow was loud they would have bolted for sure. Quiet is waaaay important.
I prefer quiet over quick. I know the speed of sound is the speed of sound and the noise gets there just a s quick, but a dull thunk spooks game less than a loud twang in my experiences. Shawn
Quiet is what it is. All bows make noise. Some are louder then others but they all make noise when shot. Noise travels at 850 FPS, or something like that. My fastest curve shoots a GT at 211 FPS. Sound will always get there before the arrow.
With that being said, I'm sure deer know what certian sounds mean if the area has seen hunting pressure. If you get your bow real quiet, they may not put it together that someone just put an arrow thru them untill it's too late.
Thats what I strive for. Any forgien noise will spook jumpy deer. Deer reflex's are extreamly fast. Notice how a deer will stop in it's tracks when you let out a quick whissle? get your bow noise down to a dull thud and it will have the same effect, at least that is what I have found.
JL
That was point I was trying to make Ken...what is loud and what is quiet?
Like Terry I make the bow and arrow combination that I shoot the best as quiet as I can get it.
Thanks for the responses guys