Table of contents for June / Gear 2017 in Bowhunter

HIS NAME WAS HOLLESS WILBUR ALLEN. And he changed bowhunting forever. It was the mid-60s when Allen removed the limb tips of a recurve and fashioned a pulley system to it. The goal was to increase arrow speed — not to create letoff. He struggled with several designs until it dawned on him to position the axle hole in the limb-tip pulley off-center. That did it. The bow was fast, and the draw weight at full draw was reduced by 15%. Allen applied for a patent in 1966, and after bow manufacturers of the day turned him away he teamed up with Tom Jennings in 1967, 50 years ago this year, and started commercially manufacturing compound bows. The rest, as they say, is history. Only 13 years old at the…

LAST AUGUST, I sat in the middle of a cow pasture in southern Colorado while trying to ignore the uncomfortable feeling of dust in my teeth. At least a half-mile away stood four antelope — all bucks — all not very big, but still plenty big enough for a Minnesota native. After my hunting partner and I crawled around a tiny green island of wild sunflowers that buzzed with the sound of tarantula hawks, he lifted up a decoy and we watched. All four antelope locked onto the interloper, and then they all took off — right in our direction. At 100 yards they hit the skids and stared, so my partner reached up and angled the decoy’s head toward them. That did it, and when they reached bow range…

LIVING IN THE HIGH COUNTRY for up to a week or more is a challenging yet rewarding endeavor. Comfortably living on the mountain requires high-quality, lightweight gear that must fit in a backpack you’re capable of carrying on your back. Unfortunately, this type of gear isn’t cheap, and the lighter it is the more it costs. It’s impossible to cover everything here, but I’ve rounded up some of the best modern gear available for you to consider. My picks might not fit your style, but this is all good stuff. You’ll have to decide for yourself what you want to haul into the high country. BACKPACKS Your first consideration is which backpack will allow you to comfortably carry your entire camp on your back. New from Outdoorsmans.com is the redesigned…

I WAS HALFWAY through a brutal elk hunt when I realized that the draw stop on my bow’s top cam was sheared clean off. I took a few practice shots in camp, and everything seemed to be working fine. With 19 hours of solo drive time to ponder eating an elk tag and the hunt overall, I wondered how important that little piece of my bow really was. After I returned home, I spent a few days catching up and shooting. I shot that bow several times out to 50 yards and it functioned perfectly, so I brought it along on a public-land whitetail hunt in South Dakota. After striking out opening morning, I scrambled to hang a stand over a pond for my afternoon hunt. I was sweating, swatting…

BOWHUNTING IS A GAME of inches, plain and simple. Sure I love the whole process of the hunt, from the preseason plans involving preparation and scouting to finally filling the freezer with the richest natural protein available on the face of the Earth. That being said, at the end of the day it’s about inches. From the moment we step into the woods and settle into our treestand waiting for a whitetail to pass, or stalk a bedded mule deer buck high in an alpine basin, inching as close as we can to its position, it boils down to making an effective shot. After all, this is a blood sport, and as willing participants we must do everything we can to ensure a fast and fatal outcome. Having a finely…

[ 1 ] LEICA® Rangemaster™ CRF 2000-B › 7X magnification › Accurately ranges from 10 to 2,000 yards › Highly visible LED display Leica has long been a leader in producing great optics, and that includes their Rangemaster CRF 2000-B laser rangefinder ($799). A phase-corrected roof-prism system and 7X magnification provide clear viewing. You can take a single reading, or put it in scan mode to range multiple targets. It reads distances from 10 to 2,000 yards, and shows you the distance in a four-digit LED display. It’s waterproof and operates on a CR2 lithium battery. Contact: Leica Sport Optics, 1-800-222-0118, leica-sportoptics.com. [ 2 ] SIXSITE® GEAR Gunnison™ Jacket › Standalone for early season wilderness hunts or as a layer › DWR-treated for water resistance › Eclipse™ Xeolite Scent Control The Gunnison…

TAKE A LOOK at your social media feed over the last couple of seasons, and you’ll see a pattern emerge. The same few friends are the ones who consistently take big bucks. It’s not that these guys and gals are just lucky, or have access to the perfect property (although the latter certainly helps). Hunters who have a wall full of trophies don’t just slap up a stand and hope a deer appears. Instead, they are almost always the people who put in the work all year long, and a big part of that effort is scouting. These hunters also know every deer herd is different, and each animal is an individual. Understanding a buck’s behavior, and how those habits change over the course of the season, is a huge…

THERE ARE MYRIAD reasons we miss — mentally, physically, and mechanically. The former includes things like failure to accurately judge distance or compensate for steep downward angles, or buck fever. Then there are extraneous variables like deer jumping the string, and just plain old bad luck. Mechanical issues involve your shooting system, which includes both you and your equipment. The “you” part consists of using proper body mechanics, while the equipment part involves choosing the right accessories. As you read on, I’ll cover both. But first, a little more about you, which will help explain the significance of certain features of some accessories. CONSISTENCY: Beginning at the most fundamental level, you need consistency: Drawing, aiming, and shooting the same way every time, so when the moment of truth arrives you…

I HIGHLY DOUBT I’m the only whitetail hunter out there who feels like it’s getting more and more crowded in the woods, and that hunting spots are getting harder to come by. This is one of the reasons why I spend so much time on large tracts of public land, and why I have bought a few small properties in the last 10 years. Even though the best I could afford was mostly swampland, I wanted deer ground of my own so I would always have a place to hunt. What I found on those small parcels is that there will only be a couple of spots worth sitting, and they are easy to burn out. This made me realize that I want the best setup possible in those spots,…