[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: High FOC Vs. Speed #56669

I would refer you to the Papau New Guinea Bows and Arrows article, in the Ashby Library:

https://www.tradbow.com/members/310.cfm

The Rusa deer live on the bald, open plains. They are hard-hunted by the natives and are very skittish. The one shown in the article was taken at about 25 yards with a 3953 grain arrow, traveling at, what I certain, was no more than 100 fps!

No arrow is fast enough to overcome the animal’s reaction time. I go for a quiet setup every time and, like Dave, I prefer to shoot the same setup for all hunting.

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: UEFOC Fish arrow build? #41614

First off, high FOC fish arrows work very well, but you’re not going to get very high FOC using a solid fiberglass shaft; just too much weight to the rear. Using other shafting means that you will occasionally lose a shaft to breakage, but not as often as one might suspect. Since you do need pretty high total arrow weight I use relatively thick-walled carbon or aluminum shafts, which does cost me a bit of FOC, but I also add an Internal Footing (either a dowel, a section of another shaft that will fit inside or, better yet, a section of a solid carbon or nylon rod) to regain a bit of that FOC back. Then I use high total point weight; heavy point, brass or steel inserts and tapers and, sometimes, additional weights back of the insert. Building such fish arrows is a good way to use up old, miss-matched or leftover shafts I no longer need.

Secondly, I’ve never found a commercial ‘fish point’ that I liked. Years ago I switched to modifying a high Mechanical Advantage, single-blade, single-bevel broadhead by grinding notches on the trailing edge, to create a barbed BH. The rotation caused by the single-bevel during penetration helps assure that the point won’t come out easily. Works great, and you can sharpen the head for easier penetration. I drill a small hole at the broadheads rear, through one blade. I attach heavy wire trace to the broadhead itself (using a standard crimp collet) and then back along the shaft, attaching it again at the shaft’s rear, just forward of the nock, with tape (since drilling a hole through the hollow shaft creates a weak spot). I cover the tape to help protect it from the water; fingernail polish works well. And, yes, the tape still has to be replaced fairly regularly. I just carry several arrows along, so there are some to use while others have the nail-polish coating drying. The wire trace ends with a loop (another collet) to which I attach the line going to my bow reel and/or float. Unless one uses a screw-in BH adaptor the points are not detachable, so to remove from the fish the arrow is freed at the back loop and the entire arrow pushed through.

I’ve used mostly the 190 Grizzly to make my fish points but the stainless steel, 300 grain TuffHead should make a fantastic fish point. This type of fish point works very well on everything from carp to crocs. It also makes a superior, better penetrating fish point for use on standard, solid fiberglass fish arrows; better than the commercial fish points

If you’ll be using the fish arrows in salt water I’d recommend brass inserts/tapers and, definitely, a stainless steel broadhead. It’s amazing what a day of shooting in saltwater can do to a carbon steel Grizzly BH.

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: Recommendations? #34517

I think Troy has you onto the right track. Sounds like the dynamic spine is too stiff with the shafts banking off the arrow plate during initial paradox..

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: The Trad Knife Thread #58503

Here’s a caping knife I made from a very old straight razor …

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: Hi #57451

G’day, mate, and welcome to the best trad website around.

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: best fletching jig? #46549

I started out using straight pins to fletch my wood shafts … and, if one is careful, even that will work well, on wood shafts. Through the years I’ve used many different fletching jigs. My favorite has to be the Bitzenburger. Is it necessary? No. Is it nice to use? Yes. It makes getting thing adjusted just right pretty easy.

That said, all the fletching jigs I have used served will, if I used it with care. Don’t rush the job, set the jig up carefully and pay attention and the results will usually be pretty good. Must add that I haven’t used many of the newer jigs on the market today. There may be some real dogs out there that I haven’t had experience with.

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: What to know about Stalking #39661

To me true “stalking” is what I’ve always termed “Pussyfoot’n” but today many different hunting methods are often called ‘stalking’. Here’s how I explained the different methods, in an excerpt from the introduction to one of the Old Derelcit articles; on ‘pussyfoot’n’.

” Now, slip’n up on a critter, without him know’n your there, is about as much fun as any of us older folks ought to be allowed to have. It’s exciting. Maybe not quiet as exciting as some well endowed young lass would be but, nowadays, stalking provides about all the nerve tightening, heart pounding excitement the Old Derelict can handle without risking fatal consequences.

Stalking has become such a catch-all term that it’s hard to define. Seems it’s come to mean any hunting where the hunter moves rather than taking a static stand.

In reality, stalking, as the term is now used, takes many forms. There is still-hunting, track-um-up, spot-and-stalk and rapid reconnaissance. Then there’s pussyfoot’n.

Few gun hunters are really good at pussyfoot’n. Their weapons of choice enable them to strike from a distance so great that it’s seldom necessary to do any pussyfoot’n at all. Not so for bowhunters.

Pussyfoot’n is a skill all its own. But it is a skill that comes into play no matter what other form of stalking the bowhunter employs. Come along, and the Old Derelict Bowhunter will show you what he means.

In still-hunting, the object is to move, very cautiously for a short distance, then remain still for several minutes. The goal is to be still a lot more of the time than you are moving. Think of still-hunting as sort of a moving ground stand.

The best locations and times for still-hunting are areas where the animals move, and at the times they are likely to be moving. Exactly the same places and times one would usually be hunting from a stand.

When still-hunting, the shot may present just like from any other stand, with the animal coming to you. But, just as likely, you will spot the animal and have to pussyfoot up to it after he’s been located.

Still-hunting is a sport of slow progress. Usually one only moves a few feet from his old location to a new one, then pauses for at least five minutes. Some still-hunters move a greater distance between ‘stands’ then remain at the new location for a much longer period of time.

When changing from one location to the next, the good still-hunter will employ his best pussyfoot’n techniques. Often the game is spotted during the change of locations.

If the still-hunter is covering much more than two hundred yards an hour, he’s moving too fast. Remember, the object is to be hunting from a stand, just one that moves periodically.

Still-hunting is most effective in areas of high game concentrations. Bedding areas, provided the hunter is in position before the animals begin returning there, lend themselves well to the still-hunter’s tactics. So do wooded feeding areas. Trails to and from feeding areas, during the times game are traveling, are productive for the still-hunter.

Tracking can be a highly efficient form of locating game, PROVIDED the terrain lends itself to tracking AND the hunter has the necessary skills to follow the tracks.

Even the Old Derelict’s ‘friends’, noted for their obnoxious onslaughts on his ambivalent abilities, concede that he is a fair tracker. But he’s certainly not in the league with any of the really good trackers he’s seen here in Africa.

Most of us have become too civilized, too far removed from the day to day life of the bush, to be competent trackers. Even among the African natives, few still possess the tracking skills necessary to stay with an individual track, or even the tracks of an entire herd of animals, long enough to locate the game.

Great trackers are made, not born. The best trackers are generally middle aged or old, and have tracked almost all their lives. There are few really great young trackers. Even pretty-good trackers are now scarce enough that they are sought after, and highly prized, by the Professional Hunters.

There is no easy way to learn tracking skills. One has to first learn to identify what animal left the spoor. Books can help. Experience is essential. Real spoor is seldom ‘textbook perfect’.

Once tracks and spoor can be identified, then it is experience and practice, more than anything else, which separates the good tracker for the pack. There are some tricks that can help.

Tracking is easier when the sun is low in the sky, morning and evening. Position yourself so that the tracks are between you and the sun. The shadow cast by the edges of the track makes it more visible under these conditions.

Knowing where to look for the next track helps. So does being able to recognize the ‘other spoor’, bent grass and branches, depressed turf, disturbed pebbles, etcetera.

Being able to age tracks is important. One must know which tracks are worth following and when you are getting close to the game. It is one of the most difficult thing to do. But tracking is a subject better suited to an article of its own, and the Old Derelict doesn’t have room here to go into detail.

Still, even those with the most rudimentary tracking skill can follow an animal under ideal conditions. A fresh snow is the perfect example.

Even for the expert tracker, tracking just helps locate the animal. Once it is located, a careful stalk becomes necessary. The bowhunter has to get close. Some have to get a lot closer than others. Again, it’s pussyfoot’n skills that become important.

In the next stalking technique, rapid reconnaissance, one moves rather rapidly, but as quietly and inconspicuously as possible, through the hunt area. The hunter tries to stay very alert and locate the game before it becomes aware of his presence. Then one can plan the stalk and pussyfoot in for the shot.

Rapid reconnaissance is very effective for animals who are somewhat less alert, like warthogs and other wild pigs of various kinds. It works very well for most game in areas where there is broken terrain or where the bush is only moderately thick and with few leaves.

For grazing animals (grass eaters), rapid reconnaissance lends itself to terrain where there are open areas interspersed with patches of thick bush. Especially in the early and late hours, when game is more likely to be found grazing.

To effectively employ rapid reconnaissance, one has to use the same cautions as in any other stalking. Hunt into, or quartering, the wind. Upper-body movement must be kept to a minimum, arms limp at your side, not swinging about.

Stay alert. Look through the brush. Watch for movement and colors that suggest the quarry. Check out any horizontal lines. Most vegetation is in a vertical line. A horizontal line just MIGHT be an animal’s back or belly.

Successfully applied, rapid reconnaissance results in the hunter locating the game before it sees him. Then a stalk is planned. You guessed it. Pussyfoot’n time.

Spot-and-stalk involves locating the animal at long range, planning and executing an approach and then pussyfoot’n close enough for a shot.

Somewhat open and hilly terrain, canyon country and mountainous areas are all ideal locations to apply spot-and-stalk tactics. If the terrain is right, this is the most effective method of locating animals. From a vantage point, with binoculars, one can ‘hunt’ more area in an hour than he could walk over in a day.

Regardless of which of the forgoing techniques is used, one employs it only to locate the game. When it comes down to the nitty-gritty, it’s his pussyfoot’n skills that gets the stalking bowhunter his close range shot.

Now, pussyfoot’n can be used as a ‘pure technique’, the primary method of hunting. Pure pussyfoot’n involves moving through the bush VERY slowly and VERY carefully.

For working bedding areas AFTER the animals have bedded-up, pussyfoot’n is the method of choice for the bowhunter. Gun hunters often ‘drive’ these areas. Some bowhunters do too.

Drives force the animals to get up and move. Few bowhunters are adept at hitting moving game. By using special techniques, drives can be successful for bowhunters sometimes, but much less frequently than for gun hunters.

The good pussyfooter is right at home hunting feeding areas and travel paths, too. If he’s pussyfoot’n right, he becomes just one more of Nature’s predators moving through the bush.

Like tracking, few modern hunters are good at pussyfoot’n. Yet it is the one skill which generally is needed in every form of stalking. Modern man spends too much time in the concrete jungle, and not enough in the real jungle, to develop even marginal pussyfoot’n skills without consciously working at it.

The essence of pussyfoot’n is to move so cautiously, so quietly and so slowly that the animals never hear you and never see you move. The eyes are used for looking as much as possible. Head turns are accomplished in movements so slow that they have to be measured in millimeters per minute.

When pussyfoot’n, use all your senses to help you hunt. The ears should be used as much as the eyes. Every sound must be carefully investigated.

Pussyfoot’n requires that all body movements be kept to an absolute minimum. The upper body is moved as little as possible. Foot movements are confined to VERY SLOW, minute, steps.”

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: Question For Troy & Dr. ED? #39488

kingwouldbe wrote: … what’s un ethical, is going afield with equipment on the vary edge of the capability to kill an animal quickly, one that is the minimum amount one could use, as the results set you up for a wounded and lost animal.

If you hunt more than once or twice, something will eventually happen, missed your spot, animal moved, hit a twig, etc, etc, etc.

If the goal is to “get it in the truck” are you better served with more penetration or less ? what if no matter what you hit, your arrow blows through it ?, leg bone, shoulder bone, hip socket, spine, etc, now your talking about lethality.

And guess what, you can still shot them through the chest broadside.

Well said, King. In bowhunting there’s no such thing as overkill.

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: NO MEATHEADS yet? #38605

Great to see you back, Steve :D!

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: Question For Troy & Dr. ED? #38603

David Petersen wrote: My tip for improving pass-through odds: shoot smaller hogs that aren’t so far from one side to another. That’s how gramps always did it! 😆

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: Stalking #36765

I’m glad to see that there are still a few folks who hunt by stalking. Even the elusive whitetail can be stalked. My closest stalk on a whitetail was to about 10 feet, on a doe in its bed. Stalking can add many productive extra hunting hours by working bedding areas at times when the game is not moving. Not only can one catch them bedded down but in thick bedding areas deer often arise and move about just a little, for a bite or two of browse.

Hunting “Old Africa” was mostly a stalkers game, and some of those animals are much more difficult to stalk than whitetails, but it can be done. A herd of impala are just as alert as whitetails, and there are a lot more eyes, ears and noses to contend with. Stalking is a challenging, but very rewarding hunting method.

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: Question For Troy & Dr. ED? #33665

Stop it. You’re going to make me blush.

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: Ghillie Suits #33048

Though I do, at times, hunt from a stand I prefer to stalk. For many years I got by without much in the way of camo. After I had a kudu fall on my last good knee I found that, without being able to squat, kneel and crawl it was becoming difficult to get as close to animals as I would like. I had become restricted to being a ‘stand up stalker’. This makes one a lot more visible. That’s when I started experimenting with Ghillie suits (and DETAILED bow camo).

I wasn’t very impressed or satisfied with the Ghillie suits I could buy so delved into making my own. It was a long learning curve but once I ‘got it right’ I discovered that I could ‘stand-up stalk’ with a Guillie suit on. Done right the Ghillie suit is, without question, the most effective camo I have ever used, or seen used.

In the “Old Derelict” series of articles I wrote a pretty lengthy article on the Ghillie suits; how I design, build and ‘tune’ them to the location they will be used in.

Done right, and used right, I think they are the best camo possible for the stalking hunter. That said, while hunting from a static location (blind or stand) they are still highly effective, but do not give as great an advantage as they for the stalking hunter. With a blind there are many more options, such as noted in above replies. One place where I did find an great advantage of using a Ghillie suit from a ‘stand’ was when predator calling. The responding predator is looking for something to be there, and the predators have color vision, which aids them in detection the otherwise well-concealed bowhunter. In this application I found the Gillie suit a great advantage.

The best way to think of a Ghillie suit is as a mobile blind that moves with you. If you are interested I can send you the Old Derelict Ghillie suit article, along with one on the bow camo techniques I use but, again, they are more useful to the stalking and predator calling bowhunter than to those hunting deer, etcetera, from a static location.

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: Question For Troy & Dr. ED? #33014

There are a lot of variables that affect the tuning of the EFOC/UEFOC arrows. The short answer is, “Yes” you can have what seems a very weak “static spine” shaft tune correctly with an EFOC or UEFOC arrow. I have one HH 85# longbow that tuned with a 45 to 60 spine CE shaft; with 190 grain BH, 125 gr. Steel adaptor, 100 gr. Brass insert and 75 grain Internal Footing.

Short draw is one factor; especially if the shaft tuned at a short length too. I also have a fairly short draw; 27″, and that particular arrow for that 85# bow tuned at just barely long enough for my draw length. Carbon shafts increase in relative stiffness at a pretty rapid weight as the length is decreased and that too is a factor. The length of the ‘flex section’ of the shaft is another. Use of either internal or external footing also shorten the shaft’s ‘flex length’, increasing dynamic spine.

The degree of center shot to which the bow is cut is a factor. The closer to true center shot the bow the stiffer the dynamic spine required. Conversely, the farter from center shot the bow is the weaker the dynamic spine of the shaft required to tune properly.

I also believe that there is a different ‘flex pattern’ during paradox with the EFOC/UEFOC arrow. This is something I wish someone with access to a high speed camera would investigate. From impact shot videos I do know that the EFOC/UEFOC arrows show a different ‘flex pattern’ on impact; compared to Normal/High FOC arrows. This is one factor contributing to the increased penetration.

Hope that helps.

Ed

[Ed Ashby]

in reply to: help w/ building tuffhead foc arrow #31920

As a sideline to Troy’s comment on the point of diminishing returns with total arrow weight to bow draw-weight, I tested this a lot, crosschecking with three chronographs, and with the modern high-performance trad bows it seems to be right at 15 to 16 grains of arrow eight per pound of the bow’s draw-force (depending on the bow). What, to me, was one of the most interesting finding from this testing was that with self-bows the point of diminishing returns was right at 10 grains per pound of the bow’s draw weight. I believe that this is where the old “rule-of thumb” of using 10 grains of arrow weight per pound of bow draw-weight originated from; it was the most efficient point with the ‘old bows’. Unfortunately many folk still consider this the ‘optimum’ arrow weight for peak bow performance. That was once the case, when most shot self-bows, but it no longer holds true.

However it’s important to note that the arrow still continues to gain KE and Momentum after passing this ‘optimum weight’, it’s just that the RATE OF GAIN diminishes drastically once this ‘optimum weight’ is passed.

Ed

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