Long article on benefits of hunting game with heavy arrows in lighter draw bows

[NorthernRaider]

Apologies author unknown at this time.

You’re hunting with THAT?
How would you feel if someone told you that you’d never be able to hunt elk with a traditional bow? That you’re incapable of killing a bull moose, or a wild boar and that an African kudu is beyond your abilities?
From magazine articles, archery shop advice, and friendly opinions many women hear “You can’t kill an elk with THAT.” “THAT” is a woman hunter’s recurve or longbow. It usually pulls between 40 and 50 pounds at 23 to 26 inches of draw. It’s usually of insufficient weight to legally hunt moose or elk in Alaska and Wyoming, to satisfy modern bowhunters who like to see heavy bows shooting light arrows or to join the Professional Bowhunters Society as a regular member. But with proper set-up and careful shot choice, it’s capable of killing a big animal more effectively than a 60-pound compound shooting light arrows and mechanical broadheads.
Vic Berkampas, 61, believes in light bows. He’s been bowhunting with traditional equipment since 1959 and has owned Vic’s Archery in Grandeville, Michigan for 30 years. He likes to hunt with the lightest bow he can—ideally 45 pounds—because he’s more accurate. And Berkampas has found that lighter bows can be effective.
Since most states and provinces have legal bow weight minimums of 40 pounds to hunt big game (although some are less), Berkampas and his wife Linda, 51, have tried their equipment at game farms to provide solid evidence of light bow performance.
“We’ve done a lot of testing on wild boar ranges where you’re not held so much to game laws and you can actually experiment with light poundage,” says Berkampas. “I was down to a 32-pound bow and still shot through them…I shot [a boar] with a large 3-bladed broadhead (to try to minimize penetration). I hit ribs going in and out and it wasn’t any problem.”
Berkampas has also killed cow elk with 45-pound and 40-pound bows. He has a 29-inch draw, which gives him a longer power stroke than most women have, and therefore more force when his arrow hits. His wife, Linda has a 26-inch draw. Four years ago, she shot through a 325-pound wild boar with a 33-pound Black Widow recurve. Berkampas recalls that other hunters on the same hunt, shooting 65-pound and 70-pound compounds, weren’t getting even half way through a boar.
What makes the Berkampas’ light tackle so effective? It’s the arrows. Berkampas advocates putting heavy arrows on light-pounded bows.
“I like to see a minimum of 12 to 14 grains per pound of draw weight which is much more than the 9, or even 5 grains per pound that people talk about now,” says Berkampas. “We don’t like to see that at all. We see all kinds of problems with people shooting those light weight arrows.”
Problems include arrow-tuning difficulties that need to be offset by using mechanical broadheads and poor penetration on game animals. In contrast he says, “When you have a heavy arrow flying relatively slowly it’s flying so perfectly through the air that you get the column strength of the arrow when it hits.”
Combine perfect flight and heavy weight and the result is an arrow that will deliver a broadhead with enough forward momentum to penetrate ribs on entry, and usually on exit. Berkampas tells people “Take an empty pick-up truck and try to stop it and then load it up with a big load of wood and try to stop it… Even if you do an energy comparison you’ll see that a heavy arrow going slow has got just as much capability as a real light arrow going real fast.”
The only thing that’s lost with heavier arrows is a flat trajectory, so a shooter will need more practice to shoot long-distance 3-D targets accurately. But Berkempas insists that at the distance most people shoot an animal during a hunt, the loss of trajectory is insignificant.
Berkampas recommends finishing arrows with two-bladed, cut on impact broadheads, 125 grains or heavier and larger fletchings for improved arrow flight.
Despite the effectiveness of optimally set-up light tackle, some states have increased their minimum poundages. In Alaska, hunters must shoot a minimum of 50 pounds to hunt mountain goat, moose, elk, grizzly, muskox and bison. But arrows can weigh as little as 300 grains. Out of a 50-pound bow, that’s only 6 grains per pound, well below Berkampas’ suggested arrow weight.
Tony Monzingo, Hunter Services Coordinator with Alaska Department of Fish and Game, explains that the regulation was drafted by the Alaska Bowhunters Association, which felt that the larger bodied game required deeper penetration—and therefore higher bow draw weight. The Association chose fifty pounds so women and teens would still be able to hunt larger game.
Connie Renfro, 34, is a flight attendant who hunts during multi-week breaks between global tours. “I think there are a lot of unnecessary weight limits being thrown around out there,” says Renfro, “because I’ve shot plum through an elk with my recurve. I mean it went right through.” She’s killed two elk, as well as caribou, goat, antelope, deer, and mountain lion with her Pittsley Predator recurve which she estimates is 48 to 50 pounds at her draw. She uses two or four-blade cut on impact broadheads for arrows weighing 10 to 11 grains per pound.
“You shouldn’t overbow yourself. That’s why I hate to hear them coming out with pound limits,” says Renfro. “There’s no sense. You see men do it more than women – they get into a heavier bow that they can’t shoot consistently. And that’s definitely an issue. You’re better off to go lighter and shoot it accurately than to have a bow you can’t draw and can’t hold still.”
After 13 years of bowhunting, Renfro feels shot placement is the key. “Make a good shot. If you hit them in the vitals, it doesn’t take much.” She chooses broadside or quartering away shots and limits her distance by her own abilities with most shots at 25 yards or less.
“I don’t have any concern about hunting an Alaskan-Yukon moose which is what we were up there for [two years ago],” says Renfro. “I’m not concerned about the weight of my bow—at all.”
Renfro describes herself as genetically strong (“A gorilla.” she says and laughs. “I’ve never met any other woman who could pull my bow.”) But she finds that she needs to do weight training to pull the extra pounds demanded by her Black Canyon longbow, about 52 to 54 pounds at her draw length.
With regular practice and by shooting consecutively heavier traditional bows, women can usually attain a comfortable draw weight of between 35 and 50 pounds. This comfortable draw weight is the maximum ideal draw weight for a particular woman, a weight that she shoots accurately, that she can pull even when she finds herself in an awkward hunting position, that she can shoot for a full 3-D course. But she can go higher.
Through weight training, wall climbing or other upper body exercise, a determined, fit woman might add 10 pounds or more to her draw weight. Working up to a higher bow weight is an option for bowhunters who want flatter trajectories, who want to shoot a few extra pounds to feel confident hunting bigger bodied game, or who dream of hunting even bigger African game.
But here’s the caveat: by choosing a heavy-for-her bow weight, a hunter chooses to make that exercise, as well as the shooting, a part of her daily life or else suffer the consequences—poor accuracy, risk of ligament, tendon or muscle injury and the frustration of a bow that she can’t draw after a couple of cold hours on a stand or a few hard days of hunting. The extra exercise is a reasonable investment for a hunter, and a fair expectation from the hunting community, if the extra draw weight is necessary for an ethical kill.
But in many cases, the extra weight might not be necessary.
Janet George, 40, a biologist with the Colorado Division of Wildlife and author of National Bowhunter Education Foundation chapter on elk anatomy, advises, “I think you should shoot as much weight as you can, only because you have a flatter trajectory and if something goes wrong it buys you more penetration. But on the other hand … I think a 45-pound recurve would be fine for [elk]. If somebody can shoot more, that’s fine, but I don’t know where to draw the line. I think a 40-pound bow could kill an elk just fine. Elk aren’t all that big. If you get an elk rib cage and measure from one side to the other, I doubt you’re talking more than 12 inches.”
George has been an archer since she was 12 years old, when she picked blueberries to buy her first bow. She’s bowhunted big game in Colorado for 21 years, and for the last 15 years she’s used only recurves. When she had her son in 1999, George wasn’t a stay-at-home mom. Instead, she introduced her seven-month-old son to elk hunting. “He only weighed 15 pounds and I could shoot my bow with 15 pounds in a kids backpack.” She laughs. “He would go to sleep as soon as I put him in and started walking. I didn’t get anything with him in the backpack, but I did go hunting.”
George’s acceptance of lighter bows began six years ago when a pinched nerve in her neck forced her to retire her trusted 52-pound and 58-pound Bighorn recurves—bows that gave her broadside pass-throughs on all animals she killed, including elk. While visiting family in Michigan, she fell in love with a Black Widow recurve at Vic’s Archery. It was 48 pounds at her draw length of about 26 inches.
Initially, George was concerned that 48 pounds might not be enough to kill an elk. After she killed a five-point bull she quit worrying. She’s since killed several deer including a yearling-elk-sized Pope and Young Whitetail, a cow elk and last season she passed up three and four point bulls, waiting for a shot at a Pope and Young.
“[Bow weight] is only one part of the whole equation and it’s the portion that people worry about and over-focus on. I believe that shot placement, good arrow flight and cut-on impact broadheads are just as important.” She takes broadside or quartering away shots and limits her shots to distances within her own ability—25 yards if conditions are right—and makes no compensation for her lighter equipment.
George shoots 485-grain aluminum arrows which at 10 grains per pound are a little lighter than Vic Berkampas advocates. She doesn’t always get pass-throughs—many of her shots are quartering away so the broadhead hits the far shoulder and sometimes her arrow has stopped at the far ribs.
“I think the arrow actually does more damage if it doesn’t go all the way through… Each time the animal bends and flexes, [the broadhead] cuts,” says George. “If you hit them right they’re not going to go far enough that you’re going to worry that much about an [exit wound] blood trail.”
Her broadheads are four-blade Zwickeys or two-blade Magnus. “A lot of people think two-blades penetrate better [than four] and the only complaint you’ll hear is [poor] blood trails. I haven’t noticed that big a difference.”
George compared her two broadheads on a green elk shoulder blade in her backyard (“I didn’t do science, I just shot at it multiple times,” she says). At 10 yards, she felt the four-bladed broadheads penetrated the shoulder blade and then the foam behind it better than the two-blades. She attributes the better penetration to reduced arrow shaft drag when the shaft passes through the larger entry hole punched by the four-blades. Regardless of which broadhead she uses, George is confident that her tackle will kill an elk.
When it comes to other big game animals, George is not so sure. After reading about a Colorado bowhunting guide, who in 1979 killed an attacking grizzly by stabbing it in the ribs with an arrow tipped with an old Bear Razorhead, she says she might consider her bow adequate for grizzly bear. “But," she says, “I certainly wouldn’t try the African “Big Five” with my bow.”
Although a seven-ton elephant might not be an ethical target for light tackle, African bowhunter Theresa Sanders, 41, found plenty of animals that were.
On her first trip to Africa, Sanders took fourteen animals, including a 55 ½ inch kudu bull, gemsbok and nyala bull. She was shooting a 43-pound Texas Comanche recurve, drawn to 23 inches. Before she went, she had to prove to her professional hunter that her light tackle was capable of killing a large animal.
Sanders and her husband Ron tested her set-up using a chronograph and penetration studies. They found her set-up could perform as well as some recurves in the 60-pound to 65-pound range shooting light arrows.
In the hunt, Sanders had complete pass-throughs on the largest animals—her gemsbok and kudu (which fell in 20 yards). When she hit ribs on the way in, they were completely severed with no loss of penetration. In fact, she found that her equipment was often superior to high-speed, heavy draw weight compounds and recurves.
“This past summer, compound hunters on the same property we hunt in South Africa, using bows ranging between 65 pound to 80 pound draw weight, very light carbon arrows and mechanical broadheads shot 16 animals, 12 of which had to be finished with a rifle,” wrote Sanders. “The failings were poor shot placement, inadequate penetration because of failure of the mechanical heads to open adequately, and simple poor penetration.”
Sanders used 680-grain maple-shafted arrows with two-blade cut on impact broadheads on her first African hunt. That’s 16 grains per pound of draw weight. Sanders stresses that arrows must be perfectly spined for the bow to achieve pass-throughs. After bare shaft testing at 20 yards, she finds that to get perfect arrow flight with her set-up she needs to cut an additional inch off before attaching the broadhead.
With her Comanche recurve, Sanders took only broadside shots at 18 yards or less, and still prefers broadside or only slightly quartering away shots, even though four years and 35 animals later, the 5’3”, 115 lb Sanders has worked into a Screaming Eagle Wolverine longbow, 55 pounds at 23 inches. Sanders plans to use the heavier bow for hunting moose, wildebeest and eland.
Here in North America, Sanders advises that 43 pounds to 45 pounds is adequate for most big game, including elk, but recommends that women who want to hunt moose should shoot more than 45 pounds. Arrows should weigh at least 550 grains, and preferably 625 grains. “And,” says Sanders, “pass up anything except the perfect shot.”
After two decades of bowhunting, Janet George has advice for women bowhunters. “Just believe that you can do it. I think that’s the biggest thing in archery. You have to have faith in yourself and your ability and your equipment. What it takes is practice—a lot—so you know you can hit what you want to hit. Know your limitations. Make sure your bow is perfectly tuned and shoot as much weight as you can. But, if it’s only 45 pounds—go elk hunting! If it’s only 40 pounds, probably go elk hunting!”
Says Connie Renfro, as she packs up for a three-and-a-half-week elk and bear hunt, “It’s a kick. Do it girl, do it!”