[David Becker]

in reply to: Armored Stumper #15139

I’ve used some of those little collars that you can buy from 3rivers for both the nock end and point end. the point end collars have saved me some arrows but I still broke one or two.

My arrows are .305″ OD. I found some aluminum tubing with a .305″ ID on Amazon Prime for about $4. I cut some pieces about an inch long, used mill file on them until they weighed more or less the same, then glued them on.

I haven’t mamaged to break either arrow yet.

Im on vacation and it has taken me 15 minuted to type this out on this Mildly Intelligent phone of mine, so Im not going to attempt pictures. I can post some when I get back though.

[David Becker]

in reply to: Just what the doctor ordered: "One Hundred Days" by Don Thomas #59858

That was a good article for sure. I’ve gotten deconditioned over the last year since we had the baby and have recently started getting my act together. I’m lucky enough to have “hunts of a lifetime” every year about 8 miles from my house but there’s not a single flat stretch of country up there. If you aren’t laboring up a slope, it’s generally because you’re falling down it.

I read other people’s medical records all day, and as I work my way through my 40’s, I’m really starting to realize how much difference the choices we make affect our quality of life.

[David Becker]

in reply to: What ya got goin? #58112

So I’ve been shooting every day now for three months, at least one twenty minute session a day, sometimes as many as three.

I’m starting to figure this out a little. The arrows go where I want more than they don’t.

I was pleased to find today that my finger strength has improved to the point that I can start using a much shallower hook on the string. I’m getting a cleaner, quieter release.

The more shallow hook seems to have solved a vexing problem. My arrows kept landing with the nocks kicked left, suggesting they were underspined. I tried all sorts of different point weights and it never got better or worse. Now they are straight.

I’ve practiced to the point I starting to get it right. I have until September 1 to practice until I won’t get it wrong….

[David Becker]

in reply to: Stone Arrowheads #48749

Finding arrowheads seems to be one of those things where you either have the knack or you don’t. I grew up in Eastern Kentucky, and people I knew would always find them, but I never did, despite looking for them.

My wife must have above average visual processing ability. She has a real talent for picking out a particular wild edible out of a sea of green plants, or seeing the outline of an animal track on messy terrain, things like that.

A few years ago, we were backpacking in Oregon’s Badger Creek Wilderness. We took a break on top of a high ridge line. She bent over and picked an arrowhead out of all the scree and such underfoot.

It was a small game point. Seems like many arrowheads are found in watercourses, and thus could have been taken a long way by the water. This one must have been lost or discarded right close to where we found it, since it was still up on top of the ridgeline.

[David Becker]

in reply to: Complexity #46004

I hear ya.

When I got divorced, I moved into an 800 square foot apartment, with what at the time felt like very little. I slowly began to realize a bunch of the crap I’d acquired over the years didn’t really make me happy, and I had in fact acquired it as a sort of bandaid to keep from dealing with unhappiness. Our Mother Culture certainly encourages retail therapy…

Now I’m on six acres, and my wife and I are very much embracing a DIY/Homesteader type lifestyle. In some ways, that is pretty complex. We’ve accumulated a bunch of tools and equipment that we really do need to make this life possible.

I think now I’m acutely aware of whether something adds value to my life. Quite a bit of what is for sale out there, most sources of entertainment, the crappy stuff they sell at big box stores, either adds no value, or even takes a way value from life.

Even outdoors stuff is a slippery slope. You can spend more time worrying about the gear to do your thing, than you spend doing your thing.

One of the big attractions of a trad bow was simplicity. The gear is simple, the skills to use it, not so much. That’s exactly where I want to be in life.

[David Becker]

in reply to: Don't feed the deer in the winter! #27693

eidsvolling wrote:

Thanks for updating the link.

The deer in question were found to have commercial deer feed in them.

The Evergreen State has the same advice as NH, for the same reasons: Winter Wildlife Feeding

Yah, that commercial feed is like giving them crack. Thanks for that link, I remember reading it when we bought this place, and I bet the wdfw folks can tell me if I need to keep that winter pea patch fenced or not.

[David Becker]

in reply to: Emergency Gear #27675

colmike wrote:

David W

Ignoring the discussion above for a moment I was intrigued by your comment of your daily goal “don’t get killed” having spent most of my life saying ” when they are not shooting at you it’s a great day” we may have something to talk about. Don’t use this PM my e-mail is herdering@earthlink.net. if you desire.

Dave P and Bruce’s interchanges are really intended to make you think. One of the nice things about this site is we really don’t beat anybody up even if they are way out there.:D

Welcome aboard–and leave the handgun at home–you don’t need it in the woods.8)

Semper Fi

Mike

ColMike,

Message on the way…..

Thanks for the welcome, and the invite to chat.

Regards,

David

[David Becker]

in reply to: Too much, not enough, had enough #27667

That’s a good question. 😆

I am, perhaps, at times, guilty of being overly ready for catastophe. I spent 6 years doing maritime search and rescue in places like the Bering sea, then helped run a hiking group here in the Northwest. The six years in the Coast Guard conditioned me to do constant risk assessment. Leading trips where folks would show up in November wearing all cotton clothing carrying only a sandwich in a laptop case, was an eye opener.

I don’t think I’m so much afraid of getting hurt or killed, as I’m afraid of being hurt or killed because I did something STUPID. I’ve watched poor equipment and bad decision making kill people. We routinely loose a couple people a year around here who go out in cold, rainy weather in all cotton clothing for example.

So I try to hit that balance between being prepared and still having some fun. Part of that is assessing conditions. Last year during elk season, we had some atrocious weather move in, so me and my bud just didn’t go. That hurt, as the season is short.

Most of the time that people get stuck out in the woods, it’s because they 1) got lost or 2) suffered a mechanical injury. I’m reluctant to say this out loud, but I’ve never gotten lost.

I love the minimalist “the more I know the less I carry” approach, but it’s that mechanical injury part that gives me pause. I can make a bomber debris shelter, but it takes quite a while, and would take even longer with a tib/fib fracture.

So I stick to the ten essentials, but scale it up and down depending on weather, conditions, and activity. In the summer, my kit is pretty light. In November, when it’s often 40 degrees with heavy rain and winds, I carry more.

I am a little bummed with our current paradigm in popular culture that wilderness is the place where we go to engage in a grim struggle for survival. All the various teevee shows and such make it sound like if you are going on a nature hike you need to be ready for an ordeal.

I’ve mostly quit another, outdoor related forum because there are a thousand guys there writing a million threads on the minutia of gear, and treating every trip into the woods like it’s a life or death struggle. I’d try to engage people there with how COOL it is to be in the woods, and how much peace I find there, and got crickets chirping.

I think part of that is because folks have such boring lives. There’s something in us that wants a challenge, particularly un-initiated males who work in offices and such. There’s a difference between being comfortable and being happy, and I think sometimes people try to find a challenge just to shake off the ennui.

[David Becker]

in reply to: Help #27652

grumpy wrote: Thanks for the idea Wose. After I read it, I wondered why I didn’t think of that myself. But I didn’t.

Called both Bear, and 3Rivers. Bear never got back to me, but Dave at 3 Rivers found a supermag (55 @ 28″) that tested at 47# @ 22″. That is EXACTLY what I was hoping for. Never expected to find it tho. It is ordered, and Dave promised it will ship tomorrow.

By the way… The rule of thumb (2.5 lbs per inch) for calculating draw weights seems pretty sketchy to me right now.

Good! I’m glad to have been of service. I’ve been very pleased with 3Rivers myself.

I’m guessing you are correct, that the 2.5lb/in rule of thumb is pretty accurate if you are only deviating a bit, but not for 6 inches. The math just doesn’t work out right.

[David Becker]

in reply to: Don't feed the deer in the winter! #25881

It looks like they archived the link in the original post, but for right now, this one is working:

updated link here

I knew enough not to feed deer in the winter, but was unaware about how their digestive system “shifted gears” towards poorer winter browse.

I assume that the folks who fed these deer were leaving hay or apples or something like that, but I think I need to do a little research into this. We have a patch of ground we are sheet mulching to reclaim from some invasive knotweed. Around September or so I was going plant it in winter pea, as legumes seem to really help the soil here. They would come on about November or December, and I was planning on leaving it unfenced to let the deer eat it. Seemed like the least I could do, since I was planning on killing one of them and eating them.

Our winters are nowhere near as harsh as NH, and there is actually browse here year round, so I don’t know if this will be harmful. Also I would imagine there is a difference between winter pea and a big bag of appples, but it sounds like I need to do my homework.

Thanks for the link.

[David Becker]

in reply to: Emergency Gear #25609

That’s a fair point.

Sometimes conversations on internet fora take a left turn.

Maybe that’s the point where they are best spun off into a different thread?

[David Becker]

in reply to: Emergency Gear #25586

David Petersen wrote: Gents, I frankly chose the wrong thread to post my frustrations about contemporary outdoors folk seeming more interested in gear than the more substantive aspects of hunting and other traditional-values outdoor activities. To see “gear-headedness” grow in popularity on tradbow.com, of all places, disappoints and bores me. But that’s my problem … I can simply go read a good book or take a walk in the woods rather than stare at the computer. And more and more that’s what I’m doing. The topic of survival gear, like the topic of what we need to carry in order to be able to deal respectfully with the meat we produce (I am constantly amazed and angered at the number of hunters who are woefully unprepared, both with gear and skills, to deal with the produce of a “hunt of a lifetime” when they’re otherwise richly equipped) … these are the most appropriate areas for thoughtful gear selection. Still, overall, I believe that over-attention to things we buy rather than the things we do and think, is among the many ways modern culture and marketing distract us (very profitably for the distractors) from the more substantive aspects of hunting, outdoor adventure, and life, trivializing it all. But this is the wrong thread to have dumped that line of thought into. Sorry to have inappropriately detoured you. I stand beside what I said, but I said it in the wrong place.

Mr. Peterson,

I actually really appreciated your input, though I get where you are coming from with your apology.

This thread has frequently been in the back of my mind lately. Picking up the bow is a link in a chain I’ve been following for the last few years, that is leading me in a direction of changing my relationship with the real world (often referred to as “nature”), the land around me, and myself.

I spent most of my adult life in occupations where my number one goal everyday was “don’t get killed.” It’s very hard not to carry that energy into the woods with me, although I find when get away from that energy, I’m a happier person.

For example, I have habitually carried a handgun in the woods, mostly out of habit. I’ve just now started to reconsider that, and I’m surprised at how much that idea makes me uncomfortable. My weariness of violence is starting to outweigh my wariness of violence.

Also, despite my smugness in how I avoid advertising and consumerism, I can still be a gear head, and I have to watch that.

I also think it’s much easier to talk about gear on an internet forum that to talk about some of these deeper things, particularly for those of us who don’t have your gift for turning introspection into language. This thread has inspired some heavy thinking on my part, which up until now I’ve resisted even trying to put into words.

It’s much easier to say “hey that’s a cool knife.”

So thanks for your thoughts. Enjoy those books and walks in the woods, but I sure appreciate it when you, and some of the other folks on here, drop some wisdom on us. You’re several steps farther down the same trail I’m walking.

Regards,

David

[David Becker]

in reply to: Emergency Gear #24639

Smithhammer wrote: Collected some pine resin today while on a hike, to supplement to my fire-making kit. Toss some of this on some dry shavings and it will burn hot and long.

That’s a good looking knife. I like the handle to blade ratio.

I have in the back of my mind, that when I finally leave the crazy rat race of a job I’m in, I’m going to gift myself with a nice longbow and a nice handmade knife. The Sage and my ESEE are very practical, but the lack a certain something…

[David Becker]

in reply to: What ya got goin? #23911

Me and Neighbor Jim finally managed to get up in the mountains to our Elk hunting grounds, about 12 miles away. My friend left a camera up there during last Elk season and the weather moved in before we could retrieve it. We found it still snapping away. I know folks have different ideas about trail cameras, and I have some unease myself, but I did rather like this picture of the Elk on Christmas day.

In other news, I got my taller limbs for my bow. A 64″ bow is a much better fit for my draw length. I only got to shoot for about 20 minutes today, but I’m getting a much cleaner release.

Is it deer season yet?

[David Becker]

in reply to: Help #22638

Wose wrote: I wonder if Bear customer service could give you a decent answer for that?

Or maybe 3 Rivers. They sell the Supermag, and I’ve found their customer service folks pretty helpful. They might be willing to pull one to 22″ and measure for you.

[Author]

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