PSE’s Will Jenkins is Finding the Time
By Will Jenkins
http://www.thewilltohunt.com/
PSE’s Will Jenkins’ Finding Time- Evening Hunt
With the rut kicking in and holidays on the horizon, we are all scrambling to find time to hunt. This is a challenge for all hunters especially those of us that have kids and busy work schedules. Unless you are blessed with a ridiculous amount of paid vacation or you hunt for a living you must put effort into finding time to hunt.
While an all-day sit during the rut is great if you’re able to sneak out of work an hour or two early and stop by one of your hunting spots with just a couple hours before shooting light ends, do it. While activity is up during the day the bucks are still moving at dusk. They’ll start running around checking doe bedding areas. If you don’t have time to pack in a stand or climb a tree bring a stool or find a stump and just sit on the ground. While tree stands have their advantages when you’re in a hurry. They can be loud and slow you down.
Similarly, if you can get into work a little later you can get some good action right at day break. With day light savings time now, it’s a little harder to get in before it gets dark after woks so sneaking in, in the morning might be the ticket.
PSE’s Will Jenkins Hunting Sunset
For those of you with a spouse and kids, make it a family event. Give your spouse a break and take your kids with you hunting. Even if you don’t make a kill or even see anything you’re still out there introducing your kids to hunting and at the same time hopefully earning some brownie points for giving your spouse a little break.
I killed my first deer a small buck on a quick late morning hunt. It was a Saturday and Dad and I were slow getting up so we didn’t even get into the woods until after 9AM. Within an hour I spotted the buck and about 20 minutes later he was dead. So, I guess the lesson here is, find the time to get out even if it’s only a couple of hours and make it happen! Like so many always say, you can’t kill them from the couch!
Will Jenkins is creator of TheWilltoHunt.com and Harnesses For Hunters. He’s an avid outdoorsman who enjoys sharing his experiences through his blog. He also writes for Bow Adventures e-Magazine and is a member of the Professional Outdoor Media Association.
Keep your eye out for the #elktour DVD over on huntography.com! Watch PSE’s Emily Anderson and Dustin Jones hunt elk DIY style on our amazing public lands in the Western United States. Huntography also films a deer hunting DVD called #deertour which you will be able to watch PSE’s Will Jenkins hunt whitetails. Huntography…filming America’s hunters, one at a time!
To learn more about PSE’s top quality bows and bowhunting accessories, click here.
PSE’S Albert Quackenbush Teaching Our Children
By Albert Quackenbush
www.SoCalBowhunter.com
PSE’s Albert Quackenbush givng his daughter a lesson in proper hand placement
When my dad taught me how to shoot a bow I felt like I was on top of the world. I was able to take part in something I knew he loved and I got to learn from him. From shooting at straw bales in the backyard to hunting whitetails on the farm, you could almost always find us with a bow in our hands. He was an excellent teacher and to this day is very encouraging when it comes to bow hunting. Now I am in that role of being a father. As parents, my wife and I have the responsibility of guiding our daughter and molding her into the woman she’ll become. We can teach her things together as parents, and we can also share our own individual gifts with her. It goes without saying that what I share most with her, on an individual level, is bow hunting. Just as I won’t hide from anyone who asks me about hunting, I will not hide what I do and love from her. By sharing my side of life she will learn about her dad, but also learn more about herself as she grows.
PSE’s Albert Quackenbush Showing his daughter a good example of how to shoot
As my dad taught me the ways of the bow, I have begun teaching my daughter, Riley. It’s not only the archery that I share with her though. When I turn on an outdoor television show about bow hunting, I take note of what’s happening and also what my daughter is doing. Explaining what is happening during the shows is easy. She follows right along, but the hard part is making sure she understands it. When an animal is shot with an arrow, I don’t cover her eyes and I don’t tell her they ‘caught’ the animal as I have heard other parents do. This father is sure to tell his daughter that the animal was shot and killed. It died. Stopping there would make no sense and I explain that the person is going to eat the animal or share it with someone else who will eat it. She may not understand it all now, but as time progresses it will all begin to make sense.
On almost any Saturday (hunting season excluded) the early hours usually have a typical storyline. I wake up and make some coffee. Riley wakes up shortly thereafter and we get a few hours to do what we’d like. Her eyes light up when I ask her if she’d like to head down to our garage to play. The great thing about my relationship with my daughter is that even at 3 1/2 she knows that if we are heading out to the garage she can always shoot her bow. For the past couple months, when we get down there she nearly always ask if she can shoot her bow and arrows. As a bow hunter and father, this makes me a very proud papa! Every time she asks my answer is a resounding YES! The bow she is using is just a little shooter with suction cup tipped arrows and I am trying to instill safety in her, so we always shoot outside the house. She doesn’t seem to mind if we are shooting at a piece of cardboard, she just enjoys it! The first few times she wanted my help, but anyone with kids knows they want to do it themselves very quickly.
PSE’s Albert Quackenbush Daughter Riley wanting to do it herself, nocks another arrow
The thrill I get when Riley walks around the house and mimics shooting a bow is undeniable. She will pretend to draw her bow and tell me she is shooting an elk. (I guess I have been talking a lot about elk hunting lately.) She even asks me about my trips to the archery range, shooting with my friends and if I had fun doing it. Now THAT will make any bow hunting dad proud. It makes my day when I hear her ask me things like that. She listens intently and hopefully will keep a few tips from dear-old dad tucked away for future use.
I want to encourage all of you bow hunters who are also parents to share the details of hunting with your kids. Don’t shelter them and hide the truth of what happens when we hunt. If you are honest with them, they will appreciate what bow hunting is more than you’ll ever know. The phrase has been repeated over and over, but I feel it speaks the truth – bowhunting is my passion. I am not expecting Riley to have that same passion. The only thing I can expect is for her to choose her passion for herself. Whatever she chooses to be her passion, you can bet that her mother and I will support her in every way we can.
Albert Quackenbush has been bowhunting for more than 28 years. He shares his adventures on his blog, www.SoCalBowhunter.com, and also writes for Bow Adventures e-magazine. He is a Pro Staff member for DIYbowhunter.com, Piranha Custom Bowstrings and Field Logic. He is a member of the National Wild Turkey Federation, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, California Deer Association, and is a Life Member of the North American Hunting Club.
Albert was born and raised in New York State where he learned to hunt everything from squirrels to whitetail deer. He currently resides in Southern California with his wife and daughter and hunts year round.
To learn more about PSE’s top quality bows and bowhunting accessories, click here.
PSE’s Albert Quackenbush – Proud Bow Hunter
By Albert Quackenbush
SoCalBowhunter.com
PSE’s Albert Quackenbush Target Practice
Hunting has been in my family for as long as I remember. My dad and brother are the two best hunting partners a guy could ask for. We would spend all year discussing the previous year, the weather, where to place stands and when October would arrive so we could get in the woods. Sure, we hunted for small game and turkey, but the animal we most desired was the whitetail deer. I took it for granted, until I moved 3,000 miles away.
Where I grew up in New York State everyone hunted. When I moved to California that all changed. It was a new place with new friends who didn’t understand hunting. Then married a woman who doesn’t care for hunting, but she appreciates the passion I have for it. I am a proud bow hunter and I am not afraid to share it.
I have actually made some great new friends through bow hunting in California. Some of the guys are my new bow hunting partners. Every week we hit the archery range to practice and talk about the upcoming archery seasons and what we can hunt. I look forward to it each and every week.
Now that my daughter is three and a half, I have started sharing more and more of the outdoors with her. I have never hidden the fact that I hunt, nor will I be ashamed of it. Sometimes, when I am watching a hunting show on television, she’ll hop on my lap and point out the animals onscreen. It makes me proud to know she knows the animals and sees the hunters in pursuit of wild game.
When I get home wearing camouflage face paint, she often jokingly asks me if I am wearing makeup. Of course I reply that indeed I am!
PSE’s Al Quackenbush Teaching his Daughter to Shoot
Just recently, my daughter and I ventured to a sporting goods retailer and we picked out her very first bow. While I was introduced to archery when I was nine, I figured she could start earlier if she wanted to. Sure, she’s not going want to focus on it for more than five minutes, but she should have fun and shoot some arrows like her dad if she wants to. Enthusiastically, she said that she wanted the bow and also loved seeing all of the taxidermy around.
The next day, we got her bow out of the package and she shot for the first time. Like most kids, she was frustrated at first. With a little patience and coaxing, she was shooting arrows and smiling in no time. You can bet that I will be sharing more bow hunting tips and techniques as we both age gracefully.
Albert Quackenbush has been bowhunting for more than 28 years. He shares his adventures on his blog, SoCalBowhunter.com, and also writes for Bow Adventures e-magazine. He is a Pro Staff member for DIYbowhunter.com, Piranha Custom Bowstrings and Field Logic. He is a member of the National Wild Turkey Federation, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, California Deer Association, and is a Life Member of the North American Hunting Club.
Albert was born and raised in New York State where he learned to hunt everything from squirrels to whitetail deer. He currently resides in Southern California with his wife and daughter and hunts year round.
To learn more about PSE’s top quality bows and bowhunting accessories, click here.
PSE’s Dustin Jones – An Unforgettable Moment
By Dustin Jones
HighCountryBowhunter.com
PSE’s Dustin Jones & Son
Sharing my love for bowhunting is something that I truly enjoy. When my wife and I were dating, she didn’t know very much about hunting. In fact when she would come over and we would watch old hunting tapes or watch hunting shows, she couldn’t stand watching. I made sure not to force it on her but to share why I enjoy it so much. To show her how much fun it could be, I gave her a bow and we started shooting the 3-D range in the evenings whenever we could. Her comment to me was that she could shoot targets but not a real animal. This was perfectly fine with me. I get to take her out and practice and share my love for archery with my wife.
I get to share it even more now with my son. He just turned 3 and taking him to archery shoots to teach him just as my dad did is an experience that I will never forget. I got him his first bow not too long ago and seeing his face light up and how excited he got is an unforgettable moment. I knew the excitement he felt and I know now how my dad felt.
PSE’s Dustin Jones’ Son
I got to take my son to a 3-D archery shoot and start teaching him how to shoot his bow. This was truly a memorable experience. He loved to see all the animal targets and of course he had to carry his “noculars” (binoculars) just like his dad. We pretended we were hunting and had to look for the animal and then sneak up to make the shot. His first archery experience was a success! Spending that time passing on what I have learned from my dad onto my son was a moment I’ll never forget.
Dustin Jones is a passionate outdoorsman who loves to hunt, especially bowhunt. He created his blog, HighCountryBowhunter.com, to share his experiences with others. He is a Field Staff member for DIYbowhunter.com and Adventure Team member for MINOX Hunting Optics.
To learn more about PSE’s top quality bows and bowhunting accessories, click here.
PSE Introduces the PSE Staff Bloggers
PSE Staff Bloggers
September 10, 2012 – Tucson, AZ – Precision Shooting Equipment, Inc. (PSE), a pioneering company in the archery industry, announces the selection of the PSE Staff Bloggers for blog.pse-archery.com.
“We are very honored to have assembled such an outstanding team of bloggers to represent PSE,” said Blake Shelby, PSE Director of Marketing. “Their dedication to DIY hunting, family and bowhunting will be represented in their posts.”
The PSE Staff Blogger Team consists of the following:
- Pedro Ampuero – www.adventurousbowhunter.com
- Emily Anderson – www.fromthedraw.com
- Will Jenkins – www.thewilltohunt.com
- Dustin Jones – www.highcountrybowhunter.com
- Albert Quackenbush – www.SoCalBowhunter.com
- Ainsley Beeman
- Jared Bloomgren
“We are excited to welcome them to the PSE family and look forward to reading their posts,” said Jonathan Shepley, President of PSE. “We believe they will be an asset to our industry with their tips, strategies and insights into bowhunting and archery.”
About Precision Shooting Equipment, Inc.
Pete Shepley, a legend in the archery industry, founded PSE 41 years ago. Today, PSE is one of the largest privately-owned archery equipment manufacturing companies in the country and a leader in development and manufacturing of the most advanced compound bows and related equipment ever produced.
For more information about PSE, visit www.pse-archery.com or read their blog at http://blog.pse-archery.com.
Curtis Goettsch’s First Bow Buck with PSE
PSE’s Curtis Goettsch
Editor’s Note: Curtis Goettsch of Elkader, Iowa, has several reasons for loving PSE Bows.
I was hunting on public hunting land at a spot I’d found early in the season, when I’d been fall turkey hunting. I had seen a lot of deer in this area, and I thought it might be a good place to try and take a buck. A couple of trails came through this area, with a rub line and scraping activity going on in this spot. Also, this was an ideal funnel region, because on one side was a sheer cliff and on the other side was a creek. So, the deer had to come through this little narrow gap to move from one section of the woods to the other. I didn’t take a stand in the pinch point, but instead set up a little back from the funnel.
The buck came in about 4:50 pm in the afternoon. I saw the height of the antlers and how big they were, but I didn’t take the time to count the points, since earlier in the hunt I’d seen some nice 8-point bucks that were too far away to shoot. I just assumed that this buck was one of those 8-pointers. The buck was chasing a doe. As soon as I saw antlers, I knew that this buck was a shooter. I watched the doe to see which way she was going, knowing that the buck would be right behind her. I could tell that she was probably going to come right under my tree stand, and I was going to have a really close shot with my PSE Polaris Express.
White Tail Buck
Now, I had a new problem. I had to determine how to get my bow drawn without the doe’s seeing me, so that I could prepare for a shot at the buck. I wasn’t worried about the buck’s spotting me, since he was intensely focused on the doe. As soon as the doe was directly under me, I drew my bow. The doe stopped when she heard my arm rubbing against my side as I made the draw. When she stopped, the buck stopped. Even though I was at full draw, I hadn’t moved the bow into position to aim. The buck started looking around to see why the doe had stopped. He was broadside to me, but quartering to me just a little. I used my bottom pin to sight-in on the buck, since he was only 25 steps to the base of my tree.
When I shot the buck, he whirled around and went back the direction he’d come from, and then I heard him crash. Since this buck was my first one, I didn’t want to pressure him. I decided to go back to the truck and call my buddy to help me find the deer and drag it out. I told my buddy, “I think I shot a pretty good 8-pointer, and I need you to help me get him out.” My buddy showed up about an hour after I called him, and we followed the blood trail. The buck hadn’t gone very far. When we saw the buck, my buddy went running up to the deer, grabbed the antlers and looked at the deer. He said, “That’s better than an 8-pointer, it’s a 10.” We both got pretty pumped up that the buck was so big. That’s still the biggest buck I’ve ever taken. So, I had taken my first deer, the doe, and the biggest buck I ever had taken with my PSE Polaris Express, all in the same season. I decided that when I had a bow that performed that well, I didn’t need another bow. The Polaris Express had done everything that I had asked it to do and more.
To learn more about PSE’s top quality bows and bowhunting accessories, click here.
Why Curtis Goettsch Came Back To PSE
PSE’S Curtis Goettsch
Editor’s Note: Curtis Goettsch of Elkader, Iowa, has several reasons for loving PSE.
By 2006, I had evolved as a bowhunter and had started shooting tournament archery. I changed bows, because another manufacturer was producing a bow that I hoped would not only be a better bow to hunt with but also be better for tournaments. I was shooting in the Bowhunter Class and had become a Mossy Oak Pro. During that time, Mossy Oak and PSE had partnered on several different projects, and I was ready to change bows again. I didn’t really care which bow I shot, as long as the bow could help me be a better bowhunter and a better tournament archer. So, I tested a lot of different bows that were on the market in 2011.
The dealer at the archery shop where I worked had a PSE Dream Season EVO and asked me to try it. I really didn’t like duo-cam bows, since they all had a hard break-over when you hit the let-off point in the draw. However, the EVO had a smooth draw, almost like a single-cam bow. I really couldn’t believe how smooth the draw was. I was also excited about moving up to a faster power performance bow, so the speed and the smooth draw of the PSE Dream Season EVO really got my attention. I was shooting a lot of 3D archery at that time, and I felt that to be competitive, I needed a faster and a better performing bow.
Precision Shooting Archery – Compound Bows
I had talked to a lot of people in the bowhunting industry. I also talked to the guy who owned the bow shop, who had shot the PSE Dream Season EVO all winter long and had decided that it was the best bow PSE ever had made. So, with that kind of recommendation, and having shot the bow, I made the decision to go with the PSE Dream Season EVO. During the summer of 2011, I shot my PSE Dream Season EVO in the Bowhunter Class at 3D-archery tournaments before the hunting season arrived. I really feel that’s one of the best ways to break in a new bow – participating in 3-D archery tournaments – so when bow season comes in, you and your new bow are the best you possibly can be. I won my first 3D-archery tournament with the PSE Dream Season EVO. That was really exciting for me, because I never dreamed I could shoot well enough to win a tournament. At the tournament I won, there were 186 archers in the bowhunter class. When I won that tournament, I was feeling really good about my decision to shoot PSE, and I was really excited about the performance of my PSE Dream Season EVO.
To learn more about PSE’s top quality bows and bowhunting accessories, click here.
Traditional Archery – Following In My Father’s Footsteps
Alden Kizer
I have been shooting a compound since I was nine years old. My Dad has only shot Traditional bows his whole life and I want to follow in his footsteps. A good friend of my father’s got me a Ghost recurve which I am going to practice with as much as possible to harvest a deer! I want to make hunting as challenging and enjoyable as possible!
Alden Kizer
PSE’s Georgianna Braden Explains Why Ladies Should Consider Archery and Bowhunting
PSE’S Georgianna Braden
Editor’s Note: Georgianna Braden of Houston, Texas, is a petite, pixie like lady. If you saw her on the street or in the courtroom, you’d never consider her as one of the top female archers. She is not only a tournament archer, but also an avid bowhunter and an advocate for women’s archery. Georgianna, who’s been shooting a bow for 7 years, and her husband Michael are both members of the PSE Pro Staff.
Georgianna, why would you encourage other women to pick up bows, learn to shoot them, compete in tournaments and possibly become bowhunters?
Braden: There are a couple of reasons. Archery is a sport that helps build self-discipline. Archery also helps to relieve stress and to develop a calm spirit. When you go out and practice, you can focus on yourself and improving yourself. It also allows you to compete with yourself and see where you can make improvements. Archery is an avenue that allows you to have healthy competition with other people, meet new people, excel and become a better competitor. You many not be athletically talented, super strong or ever have seen yourself as an athlete, but archery provides the vehicle to attain these and many more skills, regardless of your strength and athletic ability. Archery also enables you to become friends with other people who have similar interests. You can really connect with them through this type of sport.
What percentage of archery are skills based, and what percentage is social based?
Braden: I believe that archery is 90% social and only 10% skill based. Sure, you have to develop your skills as an archer to improve competitively and to be an efficient bowhunter. But, when you look at the amount of time we all spend at archery tournaments and when we go bowhunting, the largest percentage of time is spent talking and visiting with our friends, and that is what I love about the sport. I love making friends with people at competitions. At an archery competition, you shoot with other archers in a group, and you move station to station with that group. Only when you are at the line are you participating in the shoot. The rest of the time you’re getting to know people in your group, and we talk on and off the field of competition. Each of the groups that I have shot with has been tremendously supportive, and they are also a lot of fun.
PSE’S Georgianna Braden
Georgianna, why would you encourage mothers to get their children and husbands into archery?
Braden: Archery provides a chance to spend time with your children and your husband away from cell phones, TV, video games and all the other distractions that keep families from interacting together. Your family can see that their mother enjoys archery and has a passion for it. Everyone in the family can participate in the sport of archery. Archery is a healthy way to introduce youngsters to competitive sports. In archery, they can learn that to get better at a sport, they don’t have to beat someone else. They have to constantly improve themselves. At our local archery club, we have several single moms who bring their children, have them involved in archery and shoot as a family and practice together. Shooting archery is a way not only for single moms to connect with their children, but also moms in a more traditional family. Everyone in the family can participate in a sport that’s fun. It gives the family a way to connect with each other and share an interest together. When a mom is helping a child learn to shoot archery, there is a trust bond that develops to help the child to trust the mom more and also helps the mom to trust the child. Both the youngster and the mom want to spend more time together, when they’re participating in a fun activity like archery. If there is anything I can do to encourage more women to get involved in archery. I’ll do it in a heartbeat. I also encourage them to get into bowhunting. I believe bowhunting gives a lady a lot of self-esteem, because it may have been a sport she’s thought she can’t do. However, the main reason I encourage women to embrace the sport of archery is that it’s just a lot of fun.
To learn more about PSE’s top quality bows and bowhunting accessories, click here.
PSE’s Georgianna Braden Explains How to Choose the Right Bow to Shoot
PSE’S Georgianna Braden
Editor’s Note: Georgianna Braden of Houston, Texas, is a petite, pixie like lady. If you saw her on the street or in the courtroom, you’d never consider her as one of the top female archers. She is not only a tournament archer, but also an avid bowhunter and an advocate for women’s archery. Georgianna, who’s been shooting a bow for 7 years, and her husband Michael are both members of the PSE Pro Staff.
Georgianna Braden’s bow of choice is the PSE Bow Madness. “This bow is very stable, forgiving, and fast,” Braden explains. “This is my competition bow. Many archers choose the Bow Madness as their hunting bow, but I like the Bow Madness for shooting competition archery. I like its axle-to-axle length. Because of the shape of the riser, if my form isn’t perfect every time, the bow is forgiving enough that you don’t see a huge variation of the impact of the arrow when I shoot. I shoot 52 pounds, but the first bow I ever purchased was 27 pounds. As my muscles have become stronger, I’ve been able to increase the weight of the bow I’m pulling by 1 to 2 pounds, and within a couple of months, I was shooting 35 pounds comfortably.
Georgianna Braden Shooting PSE
“After a year in competition, I knew that I wanted to try out hunting. So, I wanted to get my strength up to the point that I could pull a bow heavy enough to hunt with, which was 40 pounds, to legally hunt in the State of Texas. Often ladies think that shooting archery is like bodybuilding, and they say, ‘I don’t want to build up muscles, so that I’ll look like a bodybuilder,’ but with archery, this concern is not even an issue. I feel physically stronger when I shoot archery, but I don’t feel muscular. Archery just helps improve a lady’s upper body strength. I do feel sleeker. I feel like my arms aren’t so weak, and they’re not flabby.”
To learn more about PSE’s top quality bows and bowhunting accessories, click here.
Jason Patterson Says Bowhunters May Only Need a Magic 50 Acres
PSE’S Jason Patterson
Editor’s Note: The best thing that we can do as parents is to give our children memories that will last their lifetimes and impart the values and beliefs that we want them to teach to their children. By spending time with our children they learn the importance of family and the need to spend time with their children once they have them. Jason Patterson of Jackson, Tennessee, a member of PSE’s Field Staff, has found that bowhunting with his PSE bow is the thread that connects the generations in his family.
Most bowhunters believe that the more property they have to hunt, the more deer they can harvest, and the greater odds they’ll have for taking trophy bucks. However, PSE Field Staff member Jason Patterson has learned that the number of acres that you have to hunt isn’t nearly as important as the type and the quality of the property you hunt. As hunting leases continue to increase in price, more bowhunters who want to lease private lands are finding smaller properties that they can lease and manage to produce the maximum number of deer. When you have a small hunting lease close to home, you can hunt that lease more effectively, learn the deer’s movement patterns and often take more deer than you can take, if you have large lease further away from your home and work. “I have a place to hunt right outside the city limits of Jackson, Tennessee, where I live,” Patterson explains. “I have had these 50 acres for the last couple of years, and I’ve been trying to manage it by taking as many does as we can. Last year when I got my PSE Evo, I was amazed at how fast it shot. I am an outbound supervisor at Old Dominion Freight Lines. My hunting place is only about 15 minutes from my work, and I don’t have to go into work until 11:00 am. So, one morning before work, I was hunting this small 50 acre plot that had one, 1 acre green field. This 50 acre plot is surrounded by kudzu and sage that’s about head high, creating the perfect place for deer to bed, because there are small wooded lots all around the sage and kudzu. Too, I had planted clover in the green field. I hunt away from the field in the wooded lots when the acorns start dropping. We have a small shooting house on the edge of the field, and that’s where I let Oakley hunt during gun and deer season and shoot does. Last season Oakley took four does with his rifle. Last year I took my first buck with my PSE Evo. I’d taken several does with the Evo already, and there were two does and a buck on the field. My original plan was to take one of the does. Then the buck presented a shot at 42 yards. I’d never taken a deer that far away before with my bow. I’d started practicing in May before deer season arrived in October. I was shooting accurately out to 60 yards and was really surprised at all the new innovations present in the new PSE Evo. When I consistently could put arrows in a pie plate at 60 yards, I felt really confident about my shooting ability inside 60 yards.
Oakley Patterson
So, when the buck presented a broadside shot, I took it and double lunged the deer. The deer only went about 120 yards after taking the arrow. I also felt confident about the shot, because I’d been taking does regularly. We were trying as hard as we could to take as many does as possible off the property, since we realized this little 50 acre plot was a perfect deer magnet. The deer had a place to bed, a green field to feed on during the late fall and winter and numerous acorn trees to feed on during the early season. We realized that the more does we took, the more bucks the land could support. We were attempting to take all the does we legally could harvest.”
To learn more about PSE’s top quality bows and bowhunting accessories, click here.
Jason Patterson Says “Start Children Out Young on PSE Bows”
Oakley Patterson
Editor’s Note: The best thing that we can do as parents is to give our children memories that will last their lifetimes and impart the values and beliefs that we want them to teach to their children. By spending time with our children they learn the importance of family and the need to spend time with their children once they have them. Jason Patterson of Jackson, Tennessee, a member of PSE’s Field Staff, has found that bowhunting with his PSE bow is the thread that connects the generations in his family.
According to Jason Patterson, “I started my son Oakley shooting a bow when he was 10, because with the bow he could shoot a lot more than he could with a deer rifle. He didn’t have to go to a shooting range to shoot his bow, as long as he had a good backstop. I think shooting the bow provides more of a challenge for a youngster than shooting a gun. But don’t get me wrong Oakley and I gun hunt too. I like teaching Oakley to shoot his bow, because it’s something I can do with him. I can teach him about form and how to aim and also pull arrows for him. I get to be with Oakley, instead of him sitting in front of the TV set or playing a video game. I’ve learned that youngsters think shooting a bow is cool, which is very important. He gets to shoot a lot, especially during the summer months when he goes bowfishing. He’s improving his skills as an archer when he’s shooting at fish. Whether he takes a fish or not, he’s using his mechanical release, drawing the bow, creating muscle memory and learning to hold the bow steady – all elements he’ll need during deer season. I know that shooting the bow is becoming more and more popular in many school systems. Oakley still loves to shoot a gun, but if you give him a choice between shooting a gun or a bow, Oakley will opt for the bow.”
PSE’S Jason Patteron’s Son Oakley
With technology being so much a part of youngster’s everyday world, and with parents often having to work two jobs or perhaps both mom and dad both working to support the family, youngsters don’t have much of an opportunity to get out to hunt and fish as children did 20 or 30 years ago. But according to Jason Patterson, “With bowhunting and shooting the bow, if we have an hour or two after Oakley comes in from school and on Saturday, we can go out in the back yard and shoot the bow. If we both have activities on Saturday, we still can go bowfishing on Saturday night. If I have a chance to go deer hunting, Oakley can go with me. I want to teach Oakley to bowhunt so that some day he can teach my grandchildren or another youngster how. That idea makes me feel good that I’ve done the best that I can to pass my love of archery down to Oakley and possibly to future generations. I’m willing to give up all the animals I’ve ever taken and all the animals I may take in the future for Oakley to have the chance to take those animals. I feel like I’m making an investment for my grandchildren by taking Oakley bowhunting and bowfishing. Last year Oakley took his first deer during the youth season. He had missed deer before, but this was the first time he had connected. When I saw the joy and the excitement in his face that time was the happiest I’d ever been in my life. Then he took three more does that same season. I have learned that when I take Oakley deer hunting, the hunt is all about him. When he’s ready to leave, I have to be ready to leave.”
When PSE asked Oakley Patterson what he liked about shooting a bow, his answer was simple and direct, “It’s just plain ole fun.” When we asked him about his bow fishing trips, he said, “I never thought I would get to go bowfishing. That was a lot of fun too. When I saw other people taking fish with their bows, I was ready to start shooting. At first I missed a number of fish, but then I started getting better and better. I shot a carp that weighed about 11 pounds. I like spending time with my dad, and I like shooting my bow. I can’t wait to go bowhunting this season.” I think Oakley explained for all of us why we should consider teaching youngsters to shoot their bows when they’re ready and have the “want” to do that.
To learn more about PSE’s top quality bows and bowhunting accessories, click here.
Bowfishing for Fun, Excitement and a Tool to Train Youngsters with Jason Patterson
Oakley Patterson
Editor’s Note: The best thing that we can do as parents is to give our children memories that will last their lifetimes and impart the values and beliefs that we want them to teach to their children. By spending time with our children they learn the importance of family and the need to spend time with their children once they have them. Jason Patterson of Jackson, Tennessee, a member of PSE’s Field Staff, has found that bowhunting with his PSE bow is the thread that connects the generations in his family.
Jason Patterson was introduced to bowhunting many years ago by walking the banks of creeks and rivers and shooting fish from the bank. One day Jennifer McKinney, a Mossy Oak Pro Staffer, called Patterson, an area manager for Mossy Oak, and said, “Why don’t you and Oakley go with me and my crew bowfishing? I think Oakley really will enjoy it, because he’ll get to shoot a lot. So Patterson talked to his son Oakley about the bowfishing trip, and they decided to go this past June. “We were going to fish the Tennessee River near Camden, Tennessee,” Patterson explains. “I had never bowfished like this before, using halogen lights that shined down in the water and a deck where you could stand and shoot. That first night we went out on the water about 9 pm on Kentucky Lake, a lake on the Tennessee River that had a lot of grass in it this year. We moved into the shallow grass, saw fish in the light and shot at them. The buffalo carp, needle nose gar and catfish were moving into this shallow grass to feed at night. Since we could see those fish in shallow water, we thought taking those fish with our bows would be easy. But we soon learned that being successful at taking fish with our bows isn’t as easy as we had thought.” Jason and Oakley Patterson each shot at fish 100 times if not more. And, as Patterson remembers, “We missed a lot more fish than we hit. But we intended to learn more about this form of bowhunting. I also realized that bowfishing was an excellent sport for youngsters.”
When you bowfish on a lake or on a river with numbers of fish in its shallow water, youngsters will have nonstop action. Hunting is fun for youngsters but shooting is even more fun. And, shooting at lots of fish is as good as shooting can be. “We didn’t come off the water until about 4:00 am.,” Patterson reports. “About midnight we ran out of gas for the generator that powered the halogen lights from the boat. When we went back to the dock to get more gas, I asked Oakley if he was ready to go home and go to bed. He quickly said, ‘No, sir, I want to stay longer.’”
Staying up late at night with grown folks is a big deal for youngsters anyway, and then shooting his bow at night and taking a few fish is an adventure that Oakley can tell all his friends and relatives about for the rest of his life. And, Oakley was having fun. “Oakley was really excited about the whole bowfishing program,” Patterson says. “We shot grass carp, buffalo carp and longnose gar, and we had a few chances to shoot catfish.” On his first trip, Oakley took three fish, and his dad took six. “We probably missed at least 150 each,” Patterson reports as he laughs. “I learned that bowfishing could be a very humbling sport. Jennifer McKinney was nice enough to ask us to go a second time. This time we took about 25 fish and two big catfish, one weighing 18 pounds. Although Jennifer also took a nice catfish, once again, we missed more fish than we took.” On this trip, Oakley took a 40 inch gar that weighed about 9 pounds.
PSE’S Jason Patterson and Jennifer McKinney
Oakley was set on fire about bowfishing. Patterson has an aluminum boat, and he’s already thinking about rigging it up with a platform and lights. Then he and Oakley can bowfish anytime they want. They are also considering each getting a new PSE Wave bow to use for bowfishing. The Wave, designed for bowfishing, should help Jason and Oakley improve on the number of fish they’re taking on each outing. On their first two bowfishing trips, Jason was shooting his PSE Evo, and Oakley was shooting his PSE Chaos. All they had to do was attach a spinning reel to each of these bows and then attach the line from the reel to the fiberglass arrows they were shooting.
“Bowfishing is relatively inexpensive, because you can use any of the bows you have to most any closed face spinning reel and an arrow with a tip on it from Muzzy,” Patterson explains. “Oakley and I both had a blast bowfishing and stayed busy shooting and reloading almost all night long. These two trips provided chances for Oakley and me to really bond and be together. Oakley likes to shoot his bow, and with bowfishing, he had continuous action all night long. I really enjoyed seeing him shoot.’”
Don’t forget that there’s a learning curve in bowfishing, because instead of aiming dead on you have to shoot instinctively and try to aim under the fish. You have to calculate your aiming point with the depth of the water. The fish isn’t usually sitting still – you’re shooting at a moving target. Sometimes the action is so fast that instead of aiming, you have to react, draw and release the bow. In most of the South where temperatures may be in the high 90s and even over 100 degrees in the summertime, often the weather’s too hot for most people to sit in the boat in daylight hours. However, when the sun goes down, the moon comes up, and the temperatures fall, bowfishing can be a pleasant experience. You can build your muscle memory, while practicing a different style of archery.
To learn more about PSE’s top quality bows and bowhunting accessories, click here.
Jason Patterson’s Son Led Him back to Bowhunting
PSE’S Jason Patterson
Editor’s Note: The best thing that we can do as parents is to give our children memories that will last their lifetimes and impart the values and beliefs that we want them to teach to their children. By spending time with our children they learn the importance of family and the need to spend time with their children once they have them. Jason Patterson of Jackson, Tennessee, a member of PSE’s Field Staff, has found that bowhunting with his PSE bow is the thread that connects the generations in his family.
Jason Patterson has been shooting PSE bows for the last 3 years and before that shot PSE bows for many years. But he left the sport of bowhunting some time ago, because waterfowl hunting near where he lived was so much better than the deer hunting. But 3 years ago, he got back into bowhunting. He remembered how dependable and technical his PSE bows always had been when he shot PSE bows earlier. So, he wanted to go back to shooting PSE bows but he also had another reason a much deeper reason for returning to PSE his son Oakley. “PSE produces one of the top bows in the nation right now. I grew up in southern Indiana, and all my life I’d been a deer hunter. I moved to Tennessee when I was about 20 years old. At that time, deer hunting in Tennessee wasn’t as good as it had been in Indiana. Yes, the state had plenty of deer, but the bucks were smaller than Indiana bucks. So, I switched over to rifle hunting. Then I got bit by the waterfowl bug and forgot about deer hunting for a little while.
Oakley Patterson
Then when my son Oakley turned 6 years old, he wanted to try deer hunting. We started gun hunting for deer. Oakley is 12 now. When he was 10 1/2 years old, he got his first bow and is shooting the PSE Chaos. I had talked to Blake Shelby, the marketing director for PSE, and PSE’s Bobby Vargas. We decided Oakley was just now getting strong enough to pull the Chaos and be able to hunt with it. Because the Chaos is such an adjustable bow, as Oakley grows and becomes stronger, we can increase his draw length and increase the weight that he is able to pull. Right now he’s pulling 38 pounds, although he started at 32 pounds. Too, since we’ve gotten into bowfishing, Oakley has started drawing his bow and shooting much more, which has made him stronger. I’m the area manager for Mossy Oak Camouflage. One of the pro staffers for Mossy Oak I work with, Jennifer McKinney, invited Oakley and me to go bowfishing with her. That one bowfishing trip really set Oakley on fire. We’re bowfishing more and more this summer. As Oakley draws his Chaos and shoots it, the stronger his muscles will be, and the more weight he can pull.
To learn more about PSE’s top quality bows and bowhunting accessories, click here.
16 y.o. Kyle Knops shoots a 184″ buck with his PSE X-Force Bow!
Kyle shoots a 184″ buck with his PSE X-Force!
Congrats to 16 y.o. Kyle Knops from Boyceville, Wisconsin! He shot this 184″ buck with his PSE X-Force!
PSE’s Michael Braden on Teaching Shooters
PSE’S Michael Braden
Editor’s Note: Michael Braden of Houston, Texas, started shooting with PSE in the early 1990s, turned pro, shooting a PSE bow, in 1996, and won the ASA Rookie of the Year. Then in 2009, he came back to be a part of the PSE Pro Staff and has been shooting for PSE ever since, besides coaching shooters.
Michael, when a bowhunter comes to you and says, “I’ve been bowhunting for several years, and I want you to check me and my bow out to help me learn to shoot better this year,” how do you coach this person?
Braden: Each piece of the puzzle on how to shoot better is just as important as any other piece of the puzzle. Shooting better is not only about your equipment, but your form and all the elements that go into shooting accurately. I always start with the archer first. I want the archer to understand his or her shot sequence, his form and the execution of a good shot. Next, I want to help strengthen his ability to hold the bow at full draw and aim correctly. Archery is an individual sport, so you have to make sure that the individual is married to a bow that fits his or her individual needs. For me, the first considerations are draw weight and draw length. I start out by making sure that the archer can pull the bow easily and comfortably, and that the draw length is matched perfectly to the individual. The archer is the core part of shooting accurately. Therefore, the equipment has to fit that individual as perfectly as possible. If the archer feels good about his form, shot sequence, bow mechanics and execution, he’ll feel much better about releasing the arrow when an animal presents a shot. Once the archer is in good shape for bow season, then we start considering different equipment and why the archer may shoot better with certain types of equipment rather than other kinds of equipment. We match the arrow and the broadhead to each bow and each archer.
We’re seeing a lot of women coming into the sport of archery, and especially into the sport of bowhunting. One of the most limiting factors seems to be the ladies’ concern about the strength required to pull bows. How do you usually start a lady in the sports of archery and bowhunting and convince her that she can become proficient enough to be a bowhunter?
Braden: Women, like men, come in different shapes, sizes and strength levels. I feel that the most important consideration when teaching a lady to shoot a bow is to start out shooting very light poundage, so she instantly sees that she can draw and hold a bow. She doesn’t have to be a super strong athlete. We have to make sure that the bow is not intimidating to a lady interested in the sport of archery. I want a lady to be able to draw the bow really comfortably, even if I need to start her out on a very low draw weight. As new archers begin to shoot their bows, they will build muscle strength very quickly. If they shoot and practice regularly, they will build muscles they don’t use every day. Through practice and repetition, they will strengthen and hone those muscles, so they can move up in poundage relatively quickly. I think their shooting enough arrows in practice sessions to learn something new every time they practice is very important. If they only can draw the bow back five times before they’re fatigued, they won’t be able to shoot enough arrows to progress quickly as archers. A beginner who only can get off 3-5 shots in a practice session will be very intimidated.
If you had a lady come to you and say, “I want you to teach me to shoot the bow,” and you didn’t know her already or know how strong she is, what weight of bow will you start her with, and how many arrows will you want her to shoot in a practice session?
Braden: I’d start her pulling a bow weight in the mid to the upper 20 pound range and know that the lady make sure she could draw this weight comfortably. Hypothetically, I’d like to have a lady shooting 25-30 pounds and possibly shooting 30-40 arrows in a practice session, if she can shoot that poundage and that many arrows comfortably. From that baseline, we’ll begin to build her skill, muscle memory and the amount of weight she pulls.
How fast can you take this new lady, who never has shot a bow before, and have her hitting the target at 20 yards?
Braden: Within hours. Learning to shoot accurately, even for a beginner who’s never shot before, doesn’t take nearly as long now as it did several years ago. Today we have better equipment, better targets and better teaching methods. One of the big improvements in the speed at which a beginner learns is our ability to get the newcomer fitted correctly with the right bow. In past years, many newcomers would just buy a bow and try to learn to shoot it. Today, we teach, “Let’s see which bow you can shoot most comfortably and enjoy shooting, and then make the buying decision.” If the student is fitted properly with the right bow, he or she can be proficient enough to hunt in an extremely short time.
How many coaching sessions do you think would be required to take a person who’s never shot a bow before to a level of proficiency that allows that person to bowhunt?
Braden: I think 2-4 months of consistent practice and building up strength, understanding and knowledge of the sport, is enough time for anyone who really wanted to learn to bowhunt to become proficient enough to go into the field and take game when bow season arrives.
To learn more about PSE’s top quality bows and bowhunting accessories, click here.
Michael Braden Discusses Young and Old Archers – PSE Has a Bow For Everyone
PSE’S Michael Braden
Editor’s Note: Michael Braden of Houston, Texas, started shooting with PSE in the early 1990s, turned pro, shooting a PSE bow, in 1996, and won the ASA Rookie of the Year. Then in 2009, he came back to be a part of the PSE Pro Staff and has been shooting for PSE ever since, besides coaching shooters.
Michael, you shoot almost all the disciplines of competitive archery, and you also coach almost all the disciplines. Why do you like competitive archery so much?
Braden: I guess it’s because archery fits everyone. There are categories of archery for every age, gender and skill level. There’s no reason that anyone can’t shoot competitive archery. We’ve even proven this with our physically impaired athletes – many of them compete in the Paralympic Games. So, there are no physical or age barriers that prevent anyone from coming into the sport.
Say you know a +65 year old man who’s retired, has bowhunted most of his life and wants to consider the possibility of shooting 3D archery now that he’s got some time on his hands. How are you going to teach him to shoot target archery?
Braden: The first step is to identify his draw length, and how much poundage he can pull comfortably. By using different cams, we can test some different draw cycles to find the one with which he’s most comfortable. If this gentleman can pull 55-60 pounds comfortably, that will open a number of doors to different types of bows and setups that he may enjoy shooting. He can buy a bow with a moderate draw cycle and use a faster cam. I think draw length and poundage that the person is comfortable with are the first and most important factors to consider when getting anyone into competitive archery. Then, we need to determine how harsh a cam he can draw comfortably. If he has a longer draw length and can pull fairly heavy poundages, he has the option of shooting almost any PSE bow. If he has a shorter draw length and can’t pull a lot of weight comfortably, we’ll look at some shorter axle to axle bows with lower brace heights, to help him get some speed out of his bow that he may need to be competitive. When we’re talking about target archery, one of the most critical factors is making sure that the bow fits the archer, and not trying to make the archer fit the bow.
PSE Bow Hunting
As an archery coach, who is the oldest person you’ve ever coached to shoot competitive archery?
Braden: I had an older doctor friend of mine, and his objective was to be a proficient bowhunter. Money and time were no objects. He asked me to help him become the best bowhunter he could be, and I spent time preparing him for several different hunts. He went on his first grizzly bear bowhunt when he was in his mid-70s, and he had a successful hunt. He also took a moose with his bow on that hunt. At that time, he was pulling about 60 pounds.
Let’s look at the opposite end of the spectrum. How early do you start working with young archers?
Braden: I start with a youngster whenever he or she is old enough to pay attention and learn. I taught a youngster for several years, who is now 16 or 17, and she’s doing really well in FETA and NAA competitions. She also made the United States Junior Archery Team and will represent the United States at the Olympics in London. I also have my nieces shooting archery in their schools. I started them shooting when they were 10-12 years old, what I believe that 10-12 years old is a really good age to start a youngster shooting bows, They’re old enough to understand what you’re trying to teach them, and they learn quickly. They pay attention. Too, that’s the age when they’re exploring a lot of different sports.
With what bow would you start a youngster?
Braden: Both my nieces are shooting the PSE Chaos. PSE has this bow in a one cam or a two cam, so the youngster, coach or parent can choose which one of these two setups the youngster is prefers. I like the Chaos for youngsters, because it’s lightweight, the draw cycle is not very harsh, and the poundages go down very low. It also has modules that allow you to adjust the draw length as the youngster grows, a very important element for a bow to have when you’re starting children at 11-12 years old. They’ll hit growth spurts at different times and may grow a foot in a year, so you may have to change their draw lengths every 2 months when they’re in one of those growth spurts. Therefore, being able to adjust the bow as the child grows is important for several reasons. By adjusting the bow, you don’t have to buy a new bow, and the child doesn’t have to learn to shoot a different bow, since you can just adjust the one with which he or she is already comfortable.
To learn more about PSE’s top quality bows and bowhunting accessories, click here.
James Nickols Bowhunts With His PSE Bow and His 10 Year Old Son
PSE’s Field Team Member – James Nickols
Editor’s Note: Forty seven year old James Nickols from Sparta, Missouri, a PSE Field Team member, has been shooting PSE for 5 years.
I was hunting in Warsaw, Missouri, on some government land when I found some phenomenally large rubs. But I never got any pictures of quality bucks on this property. On this hunt, I was taking my 10-year-old son Devin with me to see a deer and experience bow hunting. He’d already taken a deer with his rifle. We were sitting together in a ladder stand when a nice little 6-point buck came by us. This buck wasn’t a monster, but he came extremely close. I shot him at about 12 yards. I normally would have let this deer go, but I had my son with me. I wanted him to see and experience a successful bow hunt.
We were set up on a trail between two ridges with plenty of acorns on them. There was a 35-yard wide and 50-yard long saddle in between these two ridges. I set up on the edge of the saddle to see both sides of the mountain. When we first spotted the buck, he was 75 or 80 yards away and my son really got excited. He was loudly whispering, “Deer, Dad, deer,” because he saw the deer before I did. I don’t know why the deer didn’t hear us, because I had to quiet my son down, so the deer would keep coming. Devin was fidgeting and getting buck fever, and he wasn’t even the one shooting. His leg was twitching, and his hands were moving, and I absolutely couldn’t understand why the deer didn’t see us. He came in from behind us, but then gave me a perfect broadside shot. When the arrow hit the buck, Devin said, “Dad, that’s the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen.”
PSE Archery – Compound Bows
Once the arrow hit, the buck went to the ground immediately, but I’m not sure whether the arrow got to the buck first or Devin did. It seemed like it all happened at the same time. Devin tried to start dragging the deer out by himself, but he only made it about 2 or 3 feet before the weight of the deer calmed his enthusiasm. Devin had been taking deer since he was 6 years old – in Missouri where we live, children can hunt from the time they’re 6 years old. But, all of his deer had been taken with a gun. This hunt was the closest he’d ever been to a live deer, and the first deer he’d seen taken with a bow. He’s been hooked on bow hunting ever since that hunt, and keeping him at home is hard now that he’s 13 and wants to be in the woods all the time.
Now that I’ve got the two pieces of property that I can hunt, I also can take Devin with me, and he can hunt that land too. We’re totally fixed up for this coming hunting season. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d ever have 10,500 acres to hunt and not have to spend any money except for $50/month for utilities (see Day 2) to hunt these two spots. We’ve got great places to hunt and plenty of deer that we can take. So, this should be our dream season with PSE.
To learn more about PSE’s top quality bows and bowhunting accessories, click here.
Bailey Simpson gets a Mountain Caribou with her PSE X-Force SS bow!
Bailey Simpson with her sister Meghan
“I got this Mountain Caribou in the August of 2009 at Ram Head Outfitters, our family business. My sister Meghan was my guide. She got a caribou on the trip as well, which made for an awesome hunt. I used my PSE X-Force SS, which I had just gotten in June and had been practicing quite a bit with.
Bailey Simpson with sister Meghan
We were hunting for about 6 days when I got this caribou. I arrowed it at 45 yards and it was filmed for Cody Robbins show, Live 2 Hunt. My caribou is currently number 5 in the Pope and Young record books in the velvet category!”
Bailey Simpson
To learn more about PSE’s top quality bows and bowhunting accessories, click here.
PSE’s Christopher Perkins Tells about His Invisible Buck and How He Took Him
Christopher Perkins – Bowhunter
Editor’s Note: Christopher Perkins from Athens, Ontario, Canada, has been shooting for PSE for the last 2 years. In 4 weeks of 2012, this 20 year old earned $18,000 in two professional archery tournaments – not bad for a summer job. But, Perkins never really set out to be a tournament archer winning championships and money and gaining sponsors. Like many tournament pros, Perkins just wanted to shoot better, so he could become a more proficient bowhunter. However, Perkin’s love of bowhunting and the desire to become a better bowhunter lead him to participate in archery competitions and world championships. He discovered like many of us have that the marriage between target archery and bowhunting produces a much better target archer and bowhunter than just choosing one of these two archery sports.
Question: Tell us about another deer you took.
I took a deer in 2010 on December 26 with which I had quite a history. I’d been after this older buck for about 3 years. Once I took him, we aged him at about 6 1/2 years old.
Question: Christopher, how did you find this deer?
In 2008, I found where he was holding. The second year I never had an encounter with him, but I had plenty of trail camera pictures of the buck. I knew he was still on the property and hadn’t been harvested by anyone else. I used Moultrie and Bushnell trail cameras on our 243 acre farm. Only two of us hunt the property. So, I loaded up with trail cameras to locate the bucks I wanted to take during hunting season. I think using trail cameras is important, because, since I didn’t have an encounter with this buck, I easily could have given up hunting him. I could have assumed that someone else had taken him, or that he had left the property, if I hadn’t had his pictures on my trail camera the second year I hunted him. This 8 point buck had 5 3/4 inch bases on his antlers and weighed 225 pounds field dressed. I believe that many times there may be big bucks on the properties we hunt that only move at night or just before daylight. Without using trail cameras, we’ll never see or know that we have a trophy buck on the lands we’re hunting. This particular buck was moving when I wasn’t on the property, or he was coming in to feed after I had left.
This buck was one of those really hard deer to hunt probably the toughest deer I’d ever hunted. He was a very smart buck. He knew where to be when I was in the woods, and he understood where he could be when I left the woods. He would come to feed either late at night or early, early, early in the morning. Therefore I couldn’t go to my stand early in the morning, because I’d spook him off his feed. Then late in the evening, I’d stay in the stand until black dark, and after I left the stand, he would show up. This buck knew what was going on, and he had patterned me to know when and where I would be hunting him. That third year I caught up to him at the end of the rut in really, really cold weather. I sat in my stand for 6 hours on December 26, when the weather was -27 degrees F. I’ve learned that deer will be on their feet when an area has a hard cold snap and looking for food close to their bedding region. To put the odds even more in my favor, I knew the time was the end of the rut in our section of the country, and he would be chasing does. When I spotted him, he was chasing does. Then I saw the buck coming in behind a doe he was so focused on that he wasn’t aware of anything else around him. When the doe stopped, he stopped, and I was already at full draw. Once he took the arrow, he only went 30 yards before he piled up. I took that buck with my PSE Vendetta bow the same bow I’d taken the buck with earlier that year. This buck had come in to the same food source. I’m convinced that when you’re hunting older age class bucks you need to have as many elements in your favor as you possibly can. With this buck, the cold snap got the buck up and moving and looking for food, and the time was at the end of the rut, which meant he would be looking for those last does that were ready to breed before the rut ended.
To learn more about PSE’s top quality bows and bowhunting accessories, click here.
Tomorrow: PSE’s Christopher Perkins Says to Marry Tournament Archery to bowhunting to Improve at Both Sports
PSE’s Christopher Perkins – Bowhunter Who Became a World Class Target Archer
Christopher Perkins – Bowhunter
Editor’s Note: Christopher Perkins from Athens, Ontario, Canada, has been shooting for PSE for the last 2 years. In 4 weeks of 2012, this 20 year old earned $18,000 in two professional archery tournaments – not bad for a summer job. But, Perkins never really set out to be a tournament archer winning championships and money and gaining sponsors. Like many tournament pros, Perkins just wanted to shoot better, so he could become a more proficient bowhunter. However, Perkin’s love of bowhunting and the desire to become a better bowhunter lead him to participate in archery competitions and world championships. He discovered like many of us have that the marriage between target archery and bowhunting produces a much better target archer and bowhunter than just choosing one of these two archery sports.
Question: Christopher, when did you start bowhunting for deer?
I went on my first deer hunt when I was 12 years old. I had to be 12 to get a license, and in Canada, you had to take a test before the government would issue you your license. I’d been shooting the bow for a year before hunting season began. I started bowhunting with my dad as soon as I got a license. That first year, I took my first deer, and it was a doe. I shot her at 4 yards. She came across the field and walked right past me. I drew my bow and took the shot. After she took the arrow, she ran about 50 yards and piled up.
Question: What did you feel like when you took your first deer with your bow?
I had a huge adrenaline rush. It’s a feeling that’s hard to describe. I thought I could take a deer out to 20 or 30 yards, but I’d only been shooting for a year. I couldn’t believe that I’d gotten within 4 yards of that deer before turning my arrow loose. I guess that first deer is what really fueled the fires of my archery career. I knew that target archery, at least for me, was a necessity to be a good bowhunter. Since I’ve had my PSE Vendetta, I’ve taken three other bucks with it. The first buck I took with a PSE bow on October 4, 2010, was an 8 point and I took him with my PSE Omen. The buck was 16 or 17 yards away, when I released my arrow. He only went 10 yards before he tipped over. I shoot a Rage Two Blade Broadhead, a mechanical broadhead that makes a big entry hole and a big exit hole. When you hit a deer with this broadhead, you don’t have to do much tracking. I was hunting on the edge of a food plot at a pinch point, where the deer funneled into the food plot. This buck was the only deer I saw that day. If you’ll aim behind the deer’s shoulder at mid body, you’ll have a pretty good hit. But, I try and aim at the center of what I consider a 2 inch target on each deer. Target archery has taught me to not look at the entire target, even though it may be 2 inches in diameter. So, when I’m at full draw on a buck and have picked out the spot I want the arrow to hit, I try and aim in the center of that spot. I concentrate on exactly where I want the arrow to go and forget about the deer, and keep my total focus on the spot I want to hit. Whether I’m shooting target archery or bowhunting, I want to make the spot I’m aiming at as small as possible. Every time I put my pin on a specific spot, I want to make a shot of a lifetime. I want to shoot the best arrow I’ve ever shot. Again, this philosophy comes from target archery.
Question: What type of sight are you using?
I use a multi pin sight for bowhunting called the Axcel Armortech Pro. My pins are set from 20 to 60 yards. So, when this buck came in, I put my 20 yard pin just a little bit low on the spot I wanted to hit, and the arrow went right into the buck’s heart.
To learn more about PSE’s top quality bows and bowhunting accessories, click here.
Tomorrow: PSE’s Christopher Perkins Tells about His Invisible Buck and How He Took Him
PSE’s Frank Pearson Became an Archery Pro in 1966
PSE’s Frank Pearson
Editor’s Note: Through a strange quirk of fate, Frank Pearson became an archery pro in 1966. He would have liked to compete in the Olympic Games, but becoming a winner foiled that opportunity.
Pearson explains, “I became a professional archer in 1966. That’s when I bought an archery sight and started shooting a recurve bow with a sight on it. The sight worked out pretty good for me. I won the first national event in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, at the NAA (National Archery Association) Indoor Nationals. Back in the 1960s, I had a drag racing car and won some money racing my car, which eliminated any chance I might have had of competing in archery in the Olympic Games. When I learned that the money I’d won in drag racing prevented me from being an amateur athlete in the Olympics, I decided to join the Professional Archery Association. I shot numbers of indoor tournaments to start with, and then in 1968 and 1969, I started shooting outdoor tournaments. I felt that the outdoor tournaments were more challenging, because you had to learn to deal with the wind and other elements outdoors, that you didn’t have to deal with indoors. At that time, I was shooting a Wing recurve bow.”
Somewhere between 1974 and 1975, the Wing Bow Company developed a compound bow. So, Pearson decided to start trying to shoot this device but didn’t like it very much. He got hurt several times when the bow came apart. Pearson recalls, “In those early days, the Wing compound bow had four wheels on it and an idler wheel on the limb of the bow, about halfway down the bow. When that bow malfunctioned, the wheel came down and hit me in the wrist. Then I couldn’t shoot my bow for a long time. When I finally came back and started shooting competitively again, I changed bow companies. I started shooting a Damon Howatt bow. The company at that time made recurve bows and hunting bows. I was shooting a Damon Howatt recurve against archers who were shooting compound bows, and I had a couple of major wins. I think that the major reason that I was able to win was because I didn’t really believe that the fellow shooting the compound bow could beat me. And, as most archers know, confidence is the key ingredient necessary to good shooting. I’ve also learned that when you’re younger, you’re much more cocky than you are when you’re older. Being cocky and full of self-confidence, you can get away with stuff that you can’t when you get older.
“Then in 1975, I won a tournament in Watkins Glen, New York, shooting my Damon Howatt Recurve, against the newer compound bows. Shortly after that, a new company out of Tucson, Arizona, named Precision Archery Equipment (PSE) approached me. Pete Shepley, the creator of PSE, had gotten word that I’d beaten the compound bow shooters with my old recurve bow. He asked me if I’d be interested in shooting one of those new compound bows. I said I would, and they sent me one.” Two months after Pearson received his new compound bow, he took the new bow, competed in the outdoor nationals and placed third with his new PSE bow. According to Pearson, “This PSE bow was also a four wheel bow, but it didn’t come apart like the first four wheel bow I’d had did. So, I decided this PSE compound was a pretty good bow. To be honest, one of the reasons I started shooting the compound bow instead of staying with the recurve was that the compound bow manufacturers were the ones who invested money in tournament shooters. I needed the money to get to tournaments and return home. Back then, I was a welder by profession. I was helping to build armored cars in Philadelphia, and I didn’t make enough money to pay my way to archery tournaments. I shot for PSE for a pretty good while.
“But, then I got a job with a company that today is called Outers that makes gun cleaning supplies. Outers bought Astro Archery Company and hired me to run their limb production company in Wisconsin. I worked for there from 1976 to 1977, before Outers sold out the archery department to a company in Canada. I didn’t want to move to Canada. Pete Shepley offered me a job working in Illinois, where I worked for PSE for about 6 months. Then Pete asked me if I’d like to have the job of running the limb department for PSE archery in Tucson, Arizona. I drove to Tucson, checked the place out, told Pete I’d love to have the job and started working for PSE in the limb department in 1978. I worked for PSE for 8 years, then I left the company and went to work for a couple of other archery companies for the next 20 years or so. My wife and I got fed up with professional archery and more or less retired from competition shooting.”
From the work history of Frank Pearson, you can see how much knowledge he’s acquired from working with so many different bow companies and so many professional archers over such a long time. He was in research and development and building limbs, shooting competitively and doing public relations. Pearson saw the evolution of the bow from the longbow all the way up to today’s modern bows. He’d been so involved in the world of competitive archery that he was more or less burned out and decided to only participate in fun shoots on the weekends. But, then, the phone rang one day.
Tomorrow: The Phone Call from PSE That Brought Frank Pearson Back into Archery
To learn more about PSE’s top quality bows and hunting accessories, click here.
PSE’s Frank Pearson’s Archery Teaching Career and he has Learned
PSE’s Frank Pearson
Editor’s Note: When we asked Frank Pearson of Vail, Arizona, what he did for PSE, he said, “I’m a pain for the engineering department at PSE and Pete Shepley’s archery coach.” When we asked Pearson how he got to be Pete Shepley’s archery coach, Pearson explained, “Pete was going out to Africa to try and kill one of those things that could kill him. He asked me to coach him on his bow shooting technique, so he could be as accurate as possible when he had to face that critter that could kill him.” Pearson has lived through and competed in the Golden Age of Archery – starting to shoot archery in 1949 with his first bow, a longbow.
Throughout the years, 71 year old Frank Pearson has been a critical part of the research and development for many of the new and modern PSE bows we’re shooting today. But, he’s also competed in and won some of the most prestigious archery programs in the nation, shooting at the highest level of archery. After becoming the pro of the archery pros, Pearson decided to step back and shoot on the amateur level, not because he had to, but because that’s what he chose. Today he owns and operates the Frank Pearson School of Archery (www.frankpearson.com), and has trained thousands of bow shop owners and the heads of bow departments in major sporting good stores all over the country how to set up bows and teach archery to their clients who come in to buy archery equipment.
As Pearson explains, “I started off shooting a York longbow and wooden arrows that my neighbor gave me and taught me how to use them. I hunted with that longbow.” Back in those days, Pearson’s longbow was used primarily for food gathering and he even took a deer in New Jersey at about 8 yards. “Back then, we didn’t have sights, and I think that the sight is the worst thing that’s ever happened to archery,” Pearson explains. “I equate bowhunters using sights to the PGA (Professional Golf Association) allowing golfers to use balls that easily can be hit 400 yards. If golfers had balls that would travel 400 yards, then many nice golf courses would be obsolete. When the sight was added to the bow, just about every form of archery competition at that time was eliminated.”
According to Pearson, because the sight eliminated the archer’s need to accurately and instinctively calculate the flight of the arrow to the target, all the skill set that was required to be an accurate archer at that time was eliminated. With the longbow, there was a marriage between the archer and the bow and their ability to work together as one unit. But, when a sight was put on the bow, all the muscle memory and the instant calculation of distance and arrow flight that took place in an archer’s mind, was no longer necessary. “When outdoorsmen only had the longbow, I saw some really great archers in competition shooting,” Pearson recalls. “One of the most amazing archers back then was Howard Hill. If you go back and read about him or look at some of his archery videos, I think you’ll be just as impressed today as I was back then. During my youth, I’d shoot 100 arrows a day, just like Howard Hill, Fred Bear and Ben Pearson.”
Frank Pearson hunted mostly rabbits and deer, but he also duck hunted and pheasant hunted with his bow, and no, he didn’t ground pound (shoot the pheasants on the ground or shoot ducks sitting on the water). Pearson remembers that, “I often shot one or two ducks on my way to school. Back then, the most dominant duck where I lived was the black duck. The school nurse would let me put the ducks in her refrigerator until school ended for the day. Then I’d take the ducks home and clean them. If you could shoot a black duck when he jumped off the water, you could shoot a pheasant just as easily, because they had the same flight pattern. When a duck jumps off the water or a pheasant jumps into the air, they usually jump about 8 feet high, before they start to fly. Generally they’ll almost stall out for about 2 or 3 seconds, (stop in mid air) before they start to fly in a certain direction. I’ve watched movies of Fred Bear shooting pheasants out of the air with a longbow. He always took the shot at about 8 feet off the ground, when the pheasant changed direction, from going straight up, to flying parallel with the ground. That’s the same technique I used to shoot pheasants and ducks as a boy. I didn’t know anybody else in my group of friends who hunted this way, because they all had shotguns. But, I just loved to shoot arrows, and I practiced constantly.” Pearson explained that as long as he didn’t have a sight on his bow he could shoot accurately at almost any distance. “With a sight, you have to know the exact distance you are from the target. When you shoot the longbow, you just pull the bow back, visualize the projection of the arrow and turn the bow loose. I got pretty proficient with my longbow out to 50 and 60 yards. Back then, I was using a Bear Razorhead broadhead.”
But, as changes to the archery industry came about, Frank Pearson didn’t fight the changes; he embraced them and became a part of the evolving archery industry.
Tomorrow: PSE’s Frank Pearson Became an Archery Pro in 1966
To learn more about PSE’s top quality bows and hunting accessories, click here.
The Chaos FC for the Teenager
2012 PSE Chaos FC
Editor’s Note: Blake Shelby, the Public Relations and Marketing Director for PSE bows was in charge of showing and promoting PSE’s exciting new youth products at this year’s Archery Trade Association (ATA) meeting, held January 10 – 12 in Columbus, Ohio. Shelby explains that PSE’s line-up of new products majors on new and better bows and accessories for young people in 2012.
Shelby: As we said yesterday, the new youth shooters today start at ages as early as 3 and 4. However, youth shooters go all the way up in age into the teenage years. So for the next class of youth shooters who need to step up after the Mini Burner, PSE has designed the Chaos bow, which comes in two versions.
The Chaos FC gives you maximum adjustability for young men and women when they hit a growth spurt. The Chaos FC features the FC cam, which is a dual-cam design with 11 inches of draw length adjustment. The Chaos FC can almost be doubled in weight, and is incredibly fast at 284 fps with a 27-inch draw. PSE has a youth hunting staff, and one of the members of that staff is Wyatt Gregory, who shoots the Chaos FC bow. This bow is offered in 29-, 40-, 50-, and 60-pounds draw weights. The 60 pounds version is a great weight for teenagers, and can be adjusted down to a 30 pounds range.
PSE has developed an extensive line of youth bows that fit the draw lengths of really young shooters all the way up to teenagers. Within PSE’s new line, you can find all the weights and draw lengths you need to fit almost any young shooter. These bows grow with the shooter, which is especially important if you have more than one child in the family that wants to shoot archery. As the older child moves up in draw length and draw weight, you can adjust that bow down, so the younger child can inherit the bow as big brother or big sister grows taller and stronger.
PSE has also developed the Chaos One, a one-cam bow that features a little more performance with 302 fps at 28 inches. When you have an older teenager that you know isn’t going to grow much more, you can get 6 inches of draw length adjustment in the Chaos One, as well as more performance. We offer the Chaos One in 40-, 50-, and 60-pounds draw weights. If you select the 40-pounds model, it will adjust down to about 36 pounds, as well as adjust up to around 43 to 44 pounds, so it has quite a bit of poundage adjustability. PSE is designing and developing bows that fit individual youth’s needs, regardless of their age, size, or gender. We’re also creating bows with as much flexibility in length and weight as possible, so that once the shooter is comfortable with the bow, he or she doesn’t have to give up the bow they grew up with in order to add weight or draw length. The Chaos One is the bow that Mark Drury’s daughter, Taylor, shoots. Taylor takes a lot of pride in her Chaos One, and it’s hard to get that bow out of her hands.
PSE is extremely conscious of the economy we live in. We know it becomes very important to the archer consumer to have a bow that can grow with the young shooter.
So for the young shooters in your family, take a hard look at the Mini Burner and the different models of the Chaos. I’m sure you’ll find a bow that will fit the needs of the youngsters in your family, to grow along with them, at an affordable price that still offers extreme performance.
Tomorrow: High-Tech Quiver for High Tech Broadheads and Arrows
To learn more about PSE’s top-quality bows and hunting accessories, click here.
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