Hunting and Fishing News & Blog Articles

Gearhead X16 Tactical-

Many shooters transition from compound bows to crossbows for a variety of reasons. Some welcome the horizontal format while others wish they could still use their vertical gear. If you are in this latter camp, check out the Gearhead Tactical X16 as it embraces more elements of vertical archery than any other crossbow.

 “Wow, that bow is light,”

Exclaimed John Salvatore when I handed him the Gearhead crossbow for the first time. We were headed for Africa and John wanted to update his launch capacity. I suggested the X16 for its unique benefits, less weight just one of them.
The bow was topped with a Hawk scope with illuminated reticles, so we headed to my backyard shooting range to test the bow and see how Salvatore liked it.

Unique Features-

Erector sets were the Lego blocks of the late 20th century and if you are a boomer, you will recognize the unique structure of the X16 immediately. This design is the hallmark of the Gearhead brand and their compounds and crossbow have similar construction.

The X16 shoots compound bow arrows that snap into a trigger box and launch through a Whisker Biscuit rest. You read that correctly, this crossbow uses one of the most popular compound rests and shoots regular compound arrows.

In addition, the bow comes standard with a Triggertech trigger which is the best in the industry, in my humble opinion. Trigger function is one of the most critical elements of crossbow accuracy and this premium upgrade makes a difference.

Tim Wells says, “Nailed a few wild boar with my bow and the big pig took FLIGHT. A flying pig! Just got off a crazy wild trip with arrows and darts flying like through multiple live targets. Deer, pigs, rabbits, gators, you name it, we slocked it. https://www.youtube.com/c/TimWellsBowHunter

CHECK OUT TIM WELLS AT THE LINK BELOW…

Tim Wells Bow Hunter 898,000 YouTube Subscribers

Whitetail deer were imported to Finland from the USA in 1934 and 1948 with seven animals, according to Gearhead Archery fan and whitetail deer hunter Esa Skogstrom of Finland. And the whitetail population has expanded to over 100,000. The animals have succeeded very well in Finnish nature.

“Now whitetails are remarkable game animals in Finland,” Skogstrom said.  “The first were imported from Virginia to a fenced area, but in 1938, but they escaped from the fenced area. That was the beginning of free-range whitetails in Finland.”

Although the population started to grow in the forests people were concerned about inbreeding.

“The next group of whitetails was imported in 1948, three males and three females,” he said. “Whitetails have been hunted in Finland since 1960s but bow hunting of whitetails was legally accepted in 2017.”

Skogstrom sent in this photo from a throwback moment on the Gearhead Archery website when he harvested his first whitetail with a GearHead B20 Bow in 2019.  He’s harvested several more deer since then.

We finally got a break in the intense drought. It was tough on the local deer herd and water and food were an issue. Last week we finally got a good rain. The very next day the native grass had a faint light greenish tint to it. It’s now September 2 (2022) and we’ve had several rains from a couple of storms and several long drizzles.

This morning a doe and its fawn meandered into one of my deer watching areas. The rain has really busted open the growth of native grass and local weeds of several types.

When the two deer came up close to where I was hiding I took video with my iPhone

You’ll notice that this doe still has its ribs showing. It is 9:22 in the morning and she is out and about. Her and her Fawn are hungry. (I got some close up video of her Fawn also. It’s coming later today. Along with iPhone pictures of a nice buck.)

 Speed kills. Greater speed means greater impact resulting in complete penetration. Animals with an entrance and exit wound are much easier to trail and recover. Secondly, the faster the arrow the less likely an animal is to “duck” a shaft. “Jumping-the-string” is a common problem among compound shooters, yet a sizzling arrow catches them before they can react.

Finally, the speed slows gravity… kind of. All objects fall at the same rate, yet a faster arrow drops fewer inches as speed increases. The flatter the trajectory, the more forgiving an error in distance estimation.

If you want a fast bow, I mean screaming fast, check out these three below:

TenPoint Nitro 505- The 505 frequently tests between 510 and 517 fps shooting a 400-grain arrow. I just spent a week hunting in Africa with the Nitro 505 and found it as easy to use as it is fast. The Acuslide cocking and decocking system loads the bow with the turn of a crank that nest in the stock so you can’t forget it.

BowTech Live TV is popular on the internet and one of their top shows is hosted by Aimee Burnett. Recently Aimee interviewed one of Bowhunting.Net’s top bowhunting contributors Rick Philippi of Keller, Texas.

Aimee begins with, ‘Hey Rick how’s it going?” Well, Rick could not have better news. And Aimee interviews Rick about his 2017 monster buck.

Levi Morgan, Mathews Team Shooter and professional archer, heads north to field test his VXR compound bow  prototype during an August hunt for Dall Sheep in the Northwest Territories.

It’s challenging and rugged mountainous terrain is the home of the legendary Dall Sheep. They like it high and rough, and Levi Morgan is up to the task.

The last half of May our temperature topped 100 degrees, and continued to go there daily,  for weeks on end. All too soon the weather report informed us that a drought was at hand. That definitely impacted the deer world around here. Even a casual look at the doe in the above picture and you notice how much her ribs are showing. And lots of deer look just like that.

Let’s shift to the picture below,  The farthest tree line is 700 yards away, and the field in between is sun dried natural grass. Normally, that field’s grass would be knee high and a flush green.

And everywhere you go, if there is natural grass and new growth, it’s sun dried and poor nutrition for the wildlife.

The persistent heat had, of course, an effect on the local deer herd. This year I’ve seen more fawns than usual. The rut in our area is a bonafide ‘trickle rut’ that stretches from mid October to late December. In turn, that spreads the ‘Fawn drop’ out from March until August. It takes an additional month until we start seeing fawns traveling with their mothers. In the recent picture below  I photographed a doe and her fawn walking along a fenceline that is a regular travel route for deer.

But lately (August) I’m noticing fawns that are alone. They are following travel routes where their mothers took them as they became familiar with their surroundings.

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Follow South Cox of Stalker Stickbows and guest Aaron Snyder of Kifaru as they hunt elk in Colorado with traditional archery equipment. They call in several bulls and the last one really comes in close.

GO TO MORE ‘WESTERN BOWHUNTING’

Camping alone on top of a mountain can be a fear inducing proposition. Sometimes you feel like you’re the perfect late night snack for a wandering hungry black bear. My senses were on hyper alert on those mountain hunts. A blade of grass or a thin limb brushing the fabric of my tent caused my heart to pound inside  my chest. Darkness led to fear until I felt I was the main character in a Stephen King novel.

Hunters push further and further hoping to unlock the numerous secrets of the woods. That curiosity can get us in over our heads and at times cause a paralyzing fear. As uncomfortable as it may be, following our curiosity and the challenges of the hunt creates an opportunity for personal growth. Before long, what we once thought of as impossible now resides right in our wheel house.

On September 2nd, the night before opening day of Montana’s archery elk season, curiosity, stemmed from years of my natural progression as a hunter and helping friends to pack elk out of some absolute pits around the state, had me hiking into a pit of my own. A basin that I had always shied away from due to its remoteness and the seeming impossibility of extracting an elk from. I made it to the trailhead at 10 PM. After a 4 hour hike to the ridge overlooking the basin, then 4 hours of sleep, I dove in at first light.

At last light that evening, during a raging storm, I snuck up on a wallowing bull and sent a well placed arrow at 40 yards. I was alone and 7 miles from my truck. The high of harvesting an elk quickly turned into that sobering “here we go” moment as I knew the next 48 hours would be an all out grind. 4 hours later I had the bull deboned and all the meat hanging. By 8am I got the first load of meat out to the trail head. It was an all-night slog with a short pitstop at my snow covered tent. Unbeknownst to me, my tent was leaky and inside my sleeping pad was literally floating in a pool of water. Lesson learned.

Thankfully I had two friends that eagerly drove 2 hours to help after getting my ‘bull down’ text. After enduring the wettest, snowiest conditions I’ve ever encountered in Montana, we got the remaining 250 pounds of meat out.

Crossbows on African Safari – TenPoint, Mission, Excalibur, and Gearhead face a gauntlet of hunting challenge.  Here’s how they performed.

By Joe Byers- The Crossbow Guy

An African safari is a grueling test for a crossbow.  It must endure 20 or more hours of constant vibration in the hold of an airplane, jiggling that attempts to loosen every screw and attachment.  Next, who knows what torchers anti-hunting baggage carriers will inflict.  Once in Africa, the bow and scope deal with clouds of dust that chafe moving parts like sandpaper.  Finally, there are very few archery dealers in Africa.  If something breaks… you are screwed!

TenPoint 505 My personal choice for the 2022 safari was the fastest production crossbow in the USA.  Although the advertised launch speed is 505, mine tested at 512, a blistering speed that delivers arrows in a flash, literally with a lighted nock.  To my mind, TenPoint Acuslide is the best cocking and releasing systems in the industry.  The bow cocks with a crank that nests into the handle so you can’t forget it and un-cocks with the push of a button, allowing for an easy release of tension at the end of the hunt.  You cock the bow on “fire”, and you know that it’s fully cocked when you hear the safety click on.  

The Nitro 505 comes with two rangefinding scopes, Burris and Garmin, but I stayed with the standard scope which is the best I’ve tested.  It’s tactical-style turrets adjust easily with no tools needed.  The scope is bright, speed adjustable to accommodate heavier arrows, and has an illuminated reticle in red or green.

There is no equal to going deep into the wilderness to bowhunt mule deer and elk.  There is just something about being far back into the mountains, away from roads, away from cell phones, and most of all… away from, so called “road hunters.”

A disappointing part for me can be hiking into a basin that you scouted in the spring and summer and now you have bivy sack camped there one day before opening day. In the morning you begin glassing and you spot someone plodding through the area, and that hunter is spooking game as they go.  After that scenario happened to me a handful of times that was enough for me.

It was then that I decided to go further, work harder and pack on more miles than other elk and mule deer hunters.   Crazy maybe? To some yes, but in my opinion the less people I see the better.

I prefer to get as far from an established trail, and roadway as I can.  Trust me; the mountains will beat your body up when faced with a public land bivy type hunt.  That is why in my opinion, besides good shooting skills and physical conditioning; proper backpack weight is crucial to ensuring that you can travel on foot deep into the mountains, And then hunt hard every single day in the far away mountains. The type of hunting I love is public land, do-it-yourself bowhunting.

I pack and carry all my gear, my camp, and my food on my back.  This enables me to get into some rough country, away from other hunters and into the un-touched country.  Doing it this way, you may sacrifice some nights when you could be sleeping in your warm house, tucked in that nice bed.

Garrett Bolekes named the big buck from his Moultrie Game Cameras ‘Slick’ and saw him during the following years. Suddenly in early November ‘Slick’ showed up in the area near one of his treestands. Garrett moved fast. That was a good plan. Click Below and watch what happens when he gets in that stand and gets his rattling horns out.

A Great Tip. Changing the focus on your binoculars and glassing through the trees and brush will let you pick up elk and mule deer that you would frequently miss.

Check Out Western Bowhunting…

Elk and Mule Deer use the Wind and Thermals all day long, every day. Bowhunters that understand how Wind and Thermals influence elk and deer movement in the mountains do much better than those who do not. Cliff Gray knows all about this, and in a few minutes you will too.

It’s True! Only 5% of Public Land hunters harvest 95% of the game animals. In this video western bowhunter and outfitter Cliff Gray gives you the particular skill sets and strategies that those ‘5% elk hunters’ employ year-over-year in order to have 10 to 15 times the harvest success of the average hunter.

NEXT: Wind And Thermals.

I don’t know who started the myth that mule deer are dumb animals. More than likely it was some gun hunting writers from the 1950’s and ‘60’s, back in the heyday of mule deer hunting, when deer numbers were sky high, hunter numbers relatively low, and a halfway serious hunter could tag a fine mulie buck nearly every season. Under those circumstances in the wide-open spaces where most muleys were found, smacking one with a .30-06 was a pretty sure bet.

On the other hand, bowhunting mule deer has never been easy, at least for  for me, and I’ve been at it since the early 1970’s. Way back then deer numbers were pretty high across the board, and locating bucks to stalk was more a matter of putting in some time and working at it than it was being Daniel Boone, or Fred Bear. I vividly remember one trip two of my college buddies and I made to the Ruby Mountains of Nevada back in the late ‘70’s. One sunny morning we glassed up 88 different mule deer bucks, most of them in the same large grassy bowl. Of course the combination of too many eyes, ears and noses, the archaic gear we had that limited my shooting to 30 yards max, and the lack of sophisticated spot & stalk skills we possessed did us in.

Since then mule deer have taken a beating. Habitat loss fueled by an exploding human population, mismanagement in some of the world’s great mule deer locales, and heavy predation by mountain lions, coyotes, and now wolves, have all reduced muley numbers well below those enjoyed by sportsmen when my dad’s generation was hunting them.

Those deer that have survived and thrived over the decades have evolved into a stealthy critter indeed. Mulie Bucks that live to be more than four years old are one smart critter, very nocturnal in nature and, like their whitetail cousins, most vulnerable during the rut or when they are still in velvet, during some of the early high alpine archery seasons that open in August. Then, though, they have the rugged high country wilderness as their ally, a place where most bowhunters just don’t have either the physical capabilities or the mental toughness needed to give them a run for their money.

Archers who call modern muleys dumb are generally those with little or no experience bowhunting them. Usually these are eastern or Midwestern whitetail hunters who would swear on a stack of bibles that their local bucks are so much craftier than the wisest muley that comparing the two is like a mental gymnastics meet between Bill Gates and Billy Carter. Not to dis a whitetail – a creature that has my utmost respect – but I have seen muleys do some amazing things.

Western Bowhunter Cliff Gray Tells Us How Big Mule Deer Bucks Are Like Brook Trout. Click on the Image below.