It’s Tune Up Bow Time

The smoke of Fourth of July fireworks and cookouts may be behind you as you read this. With that, the calendar in many hunter’s minds will have kicked into thoughts of Saturday, Sept. 10. That’s the date of the deer season opener for archery, just one week after the opening day of our dove season. 

Soon, my son and I will begin to accelerate the pace of hitting our archery range to work out any kinks that may have slipped in to our shooting forms. Here’s a tip for newcomers to the world of hunting with a bow: if you’re looking to buy a bow or have one that needs work, do it now. Archery shops across our state will be covered up with service requests to cut and fletch arrows and to tune and/or repair both old and new bows. It will be harder and harder to get that work done as opening day approaches. 

My bow could use a new string, and I’ll be taking it in soon to the same folks who I’ve had work on my bows and my sons’ bows for years. It’s worth every penny to go to them, knowing with confidence that it will be tuned with quality precision. They actually detected a crack in one of my bow limbs when I took it in a while back, and I was able to get it replaced under the bow’s warranty. There’s no way I would have seen it—until maybe it fully cracked.

Bow work is one service that I would not be looking for the best deal in town. Follow the old adage, “you get what you pay for.” Think about having a bow not tuned properly, sights coming loose or something to cause your shot not to be consistent and you miss that one chance at a big buck. 

Don’t skimp on a good tune-up at least every other season. Now once that’s done, it’s time to put in the sweat equity and start shooting. I never set a goal of shooting a set number of shots a day. Instead, I work on form, mechanics and accuracy. It really helps to have someone watch you shoot that might be able to detect a flaw you weren’t aware of. So start wearing out the target bag or foam deer target.

Make yourself a goal this season to get a buck entered during the bow weeks of GON’s Youth Big-Buck Contest. Sometimes these hot-weather archery weeks go unclaimed or it takes a low-scoring buck to make the Youth Shoot-Out. Top prizes for the 2022-23 youth-only contest include a $3,000 shopping spree at Adventure Outdoors and a dream deer and hog hunt with Blaine Burley at Woods-N-Water. Think about all that this summer as you working toward bow season.