[JethroNZ]

in reply to: Stories, Experience and your Dr. Ashby Inspired Set-Up #50263

G’day All,
I received an email from Dave Peterson asking me to detail my recent experience using a single bevel Grizzly broadhead to harvest a New Zealand wild boar.

I used to hunt with a compound but had been shooting a cheap 55lb Samick longbow at bowhunting tournaments for a couple of years and I felt like it was time to actually take the bent stick hunting. My first encounter using the longbow was with a mob of feral goats. I was using alloy arrows (don’t ask me what type because I can’t remember) with an Australian made double bevel 125gr broadhead. Not to go into too much detail, I was presented with a quartering on shot at about 12 yards on a reasonable sized billy. Not the best situation, I admit, but goats aren’t a particularly heavy boned animal, or so I thought. The shot was accurate and the goat gave a bit of a squark and disappeared down into a dark gully. I went to find the blood trail, but to my dismay, I found my arrow with a bent broadhead and a small scallop of flesh, the billy would live to see another day and have a cool scar to show off to all the nannies. I began to have serious doubts about my set-up, if I could not get an arrow to mortally wound a goat, how would I fare against my primary prey, wild boar with their large shield? I put the longbow away for a couple of years and only brought it out for tournaments.

In the years that followed, I changed to Port Orford Cedar shafts, primarily because wooden shafts were mandatory for tournaments, also because they were more forgiving and tended to survive the odd stray shot without bending like alloys. Again my desire to hunt with a longbow returned, but with a mortgage and the arrival of my son, I didn’t have sufficient funds to upgrade to a heavier poundage bow. So I began to do a little research and I found Dr Ed’s penetration test results, and “Why Single Bevel Broadheads?” article. I ground the double bevel off one of the Australian broadheads I had left over and re-sharpened it with a single bevel and carried out the ‘potato test’. I was convinced. With next trip to my archery shop, I purchased a set of 145gr Grizzlies and followed the sharpening instructions specified in the article “Grizzly Broadheads – and the tanto point” by C.Lacey.

The next day I was up in the New Zealand bush stalking in on a mob of goats, when I caught some movement in the corner of my eye. A wild boar emerged from the scrub. I was caught in the open with no cover at all. I froze. The boar wandered towards me. Its head dropped and it began rooting up a clump of fern, seizing my chance I quickly nocked an arrow. The boar finished its snack, and ambled to within 11 yards of where I was standing. It sudden became aware that something was wrong, and began to slowly turn, exposing its right flank as it did this I slowly drew back on the bow focusing on a small spot behind its front leg. As soon as I hit my anchor, I released and the arrow embedded itself tight in behind the front leg. I followed a strong blood trail (stronger than some I have followed from a three bladed Muzzy of my compound) and I found the boar thirty yards away. Unfortunately, I had not brought a decent camera with me (damn Murphy’s law!!). There was an ‘L’ shaped entry wound and while gutting the boar, when I cut into the chest cavity, the remnants of right lung literally fell out in little pieces and the left lung had a serious hole in it, I had just missed the heart. The broadhead had passed through the shield, both sets of ribs and was still embedded in the left shoulder. It took me 5 hours to carry it back to the car, and it went 115lbs.

A rifle hunting friend gave me a hand butchering the boar. He gave me a puzzled look when he examined the wound path and asked whether I had actually shot it with a rifle due to the damage which he compared to the damage a .223 rifle would do. As we removed and boned out the left shoulder, I removed the broadhead to prove that it was actually bow-shot and we found that the left leg was actually broken, I cannot speculate on whether this was caused by the broadhead or by the boar rolling down the hill in its death throes.

I’m certainly sold on single bevel broadheads. I believe shot placement played a part in the actual penetration of the arrow, but the severe damage and significant blood trail was all down to the broadhead.

Sean Moynihan
Editor – New Zealand Bowhunters Society Magazine.

[JethroNZ]

in reply to: 2 Blade Blood Trails? #49356

I recently gave up using 2 bladed double bevel Magnus 100gr broadheads (not the Magnus stinger type) off my compound. While I found them to be extremely accurate and extremely lethal on feral goats, on wild pigs they were far from ideal. I think the larger muscle mass and subcutaneous fat on pigs tended to contract around wounds restricting the blood flow and as a result I lost several pigs no matter how excellent the shot placement was. Even pigs that I recovered left very little blood trail. So I now stick to three blades off the compound. Off my longbow, I shoot Grizzly 145gr, and I will post my results in the “Stories, experiences and Ashby-inspired set-up” thread.

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