Here’s a valuable tool that my buddy Pete put me on to. Blades that I used to throw away because they were rolled over, now can be salvaged thanks to a bastard mill file.

These files only have serrations going one way so that it actually puts a preliminary edge on a badly damaged blade if you file in one direction only, it doesn’t just eat away the steel and keeps dulling things down.

Here is a close-up of a Slick Trick blade that I shot through a doe last year and into the dirt where it must have found a stone. You can see where the edge is rolled over and a normal sharpening stone is worthless when trying to do such rough edge work.

You can also see the striations of the file going in one direction only. Other files have a cross-hatch pattern which is what you don’t want to use for salvaging damaged broadhead blades.

Thought I’d share some of the things I keep handy during my pre-season tune-up and carry along with me when I go on out-of-state hunts (that was a lot of hyphenated words…).

Any deep-celled fishing tackle box works well and you can basically fit anything you need inside except a bow press. Sometimes I wish I knew my way around one, but then again I don’t claim to be any sort of archery gear expert so I don’t mind waiting in line at the local pro shop like anyone else. Besides, if I do have a major mechanical malfunction with my bow, Elite Archery’s guarantee will stand behind me and have me back and hunting in 24 hours.

Field points, spare broadheads that I’ve collected over the years (Spitfires, Thunderheads, Wasp, Muzzy 3-blades), Slick Trick Broadhead components including spare washers, ferrules, blades, spare launcher prongs for rests, and bolts for attaching rests and sights. You can even see a Whisker Biscuit that I got from a friend. I’ve never shot one, but know from watching him that they are incredibly simple to set-up and could bail me out in a jam.

On the other side of my tackle box is a spare string stopper bumper you can see hiding under my package of new Slick Trick blades, spare nocks, washers, and o-rings, a judo-point for small game opportunities, an Allen wrench set, string lubricant, some old Rage practice heads and a Rage broadhead (just in case I go delusional again!), and some gigantic ancient broadheads that might help if I end up having to take down a big beast (I’m thinking maybe cape buffalo or something with a sharpened up Zwickey-style broadhead).

Last but not least, I’ve got a sharpening system I keep handy for laying a slick edge on my broadhead blades (not pictured, but that will be the topic of my next post).

So, a bunch of stuff I need, a bunch of stuff I might need, and a bunch of stuff I probably will never use much less need. My archery tackle box might give you an idea or two about something you’ve been overlooking in your own gear repertoire and adding that item might save you a headache down the road.

Leave me some feedback and comments. Let me know what you didn’t see in my tackle box that you like to keep handy in yours.

I did a little tweaking to my Elite z28 for the upcoming season. I wasn’t real happy with the after-market string stopper I had on the bow and the adjustability wasn’t such that I could a good credit card’s width between my string bumper and the string at rest. So, I bought a String Tamer made by Norway Industries.

I also got a bunch of arrows re-fletched that had been damaged either by missing targets, shooting tight groups, or sending them through deer last season.

I had no complaints from my Spot Hogg sight last year and while I wasn’t completely thrilled with my LimbDriver rest, it is accurate and well-tuned and as long as that stays consistent I’ll be using that rest.

I’ve been shooting in the backyard for about the last 2 weeks and that gives me another 2 months to get in top form for archery opener here in Alabama in mid-October.

Time for a voluntary product review on an item I chose to use this fall because of my new interest in videotaping my hunts.

Retail Price: $24.99 (3 pack)

Good: The product is extremely easy to install and has such a large selection to fit such a wide array of manufactured arrows you can easily find one to match your arrow exactly and not have to tinker and make it fit with modifications.

I never once fired my bow and failed to have the Lumenok come on.

Bad: The light went out within 5 seconds of impact on 3 of my 5 archery shots this year in which I used a Lumenok.  In one case, the Lumenok was shattered by the movement of a doe’s shoulder going back and forth so I can understand why it blinked off.  In the other two cases, the arrow was carried off for 30-50 yards as the animal ran off and the Lumenok was off when the arrow fell to the ground.

The Lumenok works by creating a circuit with the arrow itself and any wiggling back of the Lumenok disconnects the circuit and Lumenok lighting.  Other lighted arrow nocks work by other mechanisms.  I know some work by passing by magnet activation and I would be very curious to see how consistently they work after impact is made.

Recommendation: I haven’t tried other lighted arrow nocks so I don’t know how their post-shot performance measures up to the Lumenok but I do plan on trying out another manufacturer when my last Lumenok is no more.

I hesitate to give the Lumenok a grade because I don’t have a reference to compare it to, but I will give it a B+.  I have a very hard time finding a product that I don’t have at least some complaint about, so that grade will allow me wiggle room on both sides to review another lighted arrow nock in the future and compare it relative to the Lumenok.

If you shoot lighted arrow nocks, please let me know what your experience has been with post-impact performance in the comments section of this post.  Be sure to specify which brand you are using.  Thanks.

Nikon sent me another product to test this fall and I feel that I did a much better job taking this item into real field situations and putting the product through the proverbial “ringer”.

Product Name: Archer’s Choice w/ APG Camo Case by Nikon

Retail Price: $279.95

Features:

*Angle compensator to 89 degrees vertical
*6X magnification
*Single button operation
*Meter or yards mode
*Up to 0.2 yard increment accuracy
*Battery source – 1 Lithium CR2 battery
*0-100 yard range

The Good:

*Before I even took the product into the field, I loved the camo protective case that the rangefinder came with.  The flap that is pictured above is a great feature that gives the optics lens full protection when not in use and easily tucks back over the bottom of the rangefinder to be securely out of the way when in use.  Throughout the course of the whole hunting season, I never had a single complaint about the case.  Nothing tore or discolored and I couldn’t even tell it had been in the field a single time by the end of January even though I had carried it upwards of 40 times afield.

*The next feature that grabbed me was the ultra long cord that attached to the bottom of the case.  If you pushed the adjustment all the way out, disconnected one of the grapples, and connected it back to the cord itself (that was a jumbled mess but you get the idea), it would easily stretch 4-5 feet long.  That was a great asset because I would loop it around a branch or my bow hanger arm and then it would be available for me to grab, get a quick range, and let go again without much movement at all.  I’ve never liked having a rangefinder around my neck because I can see it getting in the way of a moving bow string all too easily when I’m leaning forward for the shot.

*Great battery life – I never had to change the battery but i guarantee that I took hundreds if not a couple thousand distance ranges over the course of my experimenting in the backyard and in the hunting woods.  That’s pretty good battery life I would say.

*If you’ve followed me long, you know I like simple and efficient.  Check out this rangefinder’s readout.

Bingo!  Does it get any simpler.  I don’t think so.  I was impressed with the clarity of the optics and even more impressed that they transmitted a good amount of light that I could get ranges in very dark conditions right at the first and last shooting light of a hunt – a problem I have run into with other rangefinders in the past.

*The angle compensator also worked great.  The “Red Oak of Death” is a classic example of when this rangefinder was at its most valuable.  When you are talking about a 50 foot elevation change for a 25 yard shot, you better have a rangefinder that do some quick geometry for you.

The Bad:

*Nikon’s Archer’s Choice rangefinder had trouble getting a range with high humidity and any amount of moisture in the air.  It wasn’t until the middle of January that I ran into this problem, but no matter how many times I tried to get a range that morning the rangefinder kept spitting back readings of 3, 4, and 5 yards.  It was about 55 degrees at daybreak and it was misting so fine that you couldn’t really even tell it was raining.  By 9:00 a.m., the weather had changed and the rangefinder decided to work properly again, but those conditions wreaked havoc on this product.  So, if you find yourself hunting in similar conditions with any regularity, you might want to consider other options.

The (Downright Honest) Truth:

*Sponsors might quit sending me products to review if I keep on nitpicking, but I think this is a case in which I can’t ignore my own common sense.

If someone offers you a sirloin or a filet mignon for the same price, which are you going to choose?

The answer is so obvious that I won’t insult your intelligence by answering it for you.  In my own opinion, Nikon completely missed the boat on this one though.

My question to anyone who ever picks up a muzzleloader or rifle in addition to his/her archery equipment is this…

Why buy a rangefinder that maxes out at 100 yards (actually about 140 or 150 yards under the best conditions) when you can buy one that performs accurately at ranges 4-, 5-, or even 6-fold the distance for the same price?

Unfortunately, it is a glaring weakness of the rangefinder that leaves this product review on a very sour note.

Bottom Line:

Is this a great product?  Yes, minus the mid-January malfunction I give the rangefinder a A-.  It’s hard to explain how nice the case and optic quality (for the $$$) is without using the product for yourself.

Would I buy one for myself?  Absolutely not.  It doesn’t make economical sense!

I was trying to squeeze in as many hunts in the last 10 days of the season as I could and I went out a couple more times since the last post without seeing anything even remotely intriguing.

Warmer temperatures had kind of put a cramp in the rut, but on Thursday the 27th colder temperatures blew in and the weather was calling for a hard frost. With the right wind out of the NW, it was time to try the red oak tree again where I put down 2-Prong.

My hunting buddy Clint had long since tagged out and I convinced him to climb the tree with me to run the video camera that morning. Good decision!

Just after it was light enough to shoot, we smashed the antlers together and we saw a big 8 point staring at us 75 yards before we even stopped rattling. He had us pegged, but it was the rut and we had a decoy out that might save the day.

Not the case. I never could really tell if he saw the decoy, but our grunts kept him just barely out of range for a couple minutes before he saw a little buck down the hill and there is no competing with the real thing. As he decided to head down over, I decided there was nothing to lose and snort-wheezed in a last ditch effort for him to come in range and check out the decoy. Bad decision!

It was almost an hour later before we saw another deer. It looked to be a buck carrying a wide set of antlers but he was over 200 yards away crossing the field in a direction that would take him straight away from us. I told Clint to hit the antlers real quick, but it was so still out that we decided to try a couple loud, aggressive grunts instead. Great decision!

My view was blocked due to a large pine tree trunk being in direct line with the path that the buck took, but Clint was giving me second-by-second commentary and he was scrambling to get the video camera rolling. By the urgency of his actions and words, I could tell everything was going to come together fast and before I could reach around and grab my bow the buck was closing to within 50 yards.

I’ll let the video tell the rest of the story.

Wow, talk about coming in on a rope!

To fill in a couple of the parts you couldn’t see. When the buck crests the hill, you can see him make eye contact with the decoy and until it was too late, there was no doubt in his mind that the intruder had made those loud grunts.

He comes in downwind and when he hits the decoy’s scent stream I think he picked up our scent but it wasn’t enough to completely spook him. It probably didn’t help either that our “decoy” was actually a shot up 3-D archery target that looked like crap.  But that is the reason he kind of skittered off to the left at the last second before the shot.

I was right to be confident with my shot because it took him straight through both lungs right on the crease and angled just a hair back; however, following the blood trail was nothing what I expected.

First off, the arrow was almost completely bare. Yea it had blood on it, but not soaked like most shots that pass through the chest cavity. Next, the deer made it out of the field when he was standing up on top after the shot 100 yards away. When we walked up on top an hour later, you could literally see the blood trail go the whole way across the 75 yard wide field contrasting with the bright white frost.  It was another “blind man” blood trail.

At that point, I figured he would be just inside the other timber line and I would be able to spot him before even leaving the field. I was dead wrong, but fortunately not too wrong. The deer made it another 100 yards amazingly before coming to rest in the bottom of a creek ditch. With neither lung functioning, the deer had made it a legitimate 200 yards minimum. I can only assume that the extra adrenaline he had pulsing through his veins kept him running the extra 60-90 seconds he needed to travel so far. I counted that just on the video he was in sight for 60 seconds, let alone the time it took him to make the extra 100 yards out of the field.

The last surprise of the day came as I was approaching the deer.  I realized I had shot another midget buck.  He only weighed 138 pounds live weight! That is just bizarre considering some 3.5 year olds on the same property have pushed the scales barely over 200 pounds.

I’ll wrap up the post and the 2010-2011 Alabama deer hunting season with a couple photos we snapped before dragging him up the hill to the truck.

This was my favorite picture.

You can barely see the exit wound in this picture, but you can see it was a bit back of the crease and gives you an idea of the slight quartering angle on the shot.

Lastly, another picture showing off his impressive antler width - by far his most notable feature.  He had a 18 7/8″ inside spread with 20″ main beams, but his lack of tine length didn’t quite allow him to break the 115″ mark.

4 days left in the season there was no way I was passing him up.  Finally got a bow kill on the video camera.  Shared 2 of my buck moments with my dad and my hunting buddy.  What an end to another great Alabama hunting season!

With exactly a week to go in the Alabama deer season, I decided to switch up my strategy and hunt an evening trying to catch a buck following does onto a food plot.

After sitting in the tree for about an hour, I heard deer walking in the creek behind me and saw this yearling buck sneaking along. He was straight downwind of me but for some reason didn’t ever realize that there was danger lurking nearby.

About 45 minutes later, I saw a large set of antlers going up the hillside on the other side of the creek. He was moving at a good clip so I grabbed my grunt call as fast as possible and tried to get his attention. I thought he never heard me, but 10 minutes later he came circling in to my position about 45 yards away.

As hard as I tried, I never could coax him those critical 15 yards closer to my tree. I just didn’t have any cover underneath my tree and there wasn’t any fooling him when he could plainly see there was no buck there to be making the grunts.

He walked off through the food plot and that was basically the end of my evening. I did have another couple deer enter the field, but it was at last light and I couldn’t even tell if they were bucks or does it was so late.

With one more Alabama buck tag in my pocket, it was time to single out a solid management 8 pointer to close out the season.  I had not quite 10 days to punch the tag, but with bucks coming to the call I figured I would at least get a chance.

The very next day, I climbed back in the stand where my dad and I had rattled up the big broken off 8 point and “Freak Jr.”  It was another perfect morning for hunting the rut and it didn’t take long for a couple small bucks to move through following a doe fawn.

After the sun came up, we decided to try and make our own luck.  When I looked up and saw this stud of a buck coming, I was trying as hard as I could to try and put just 8 points on him.  I knew who I was looking at though and this buck was a heavy 10 point that has carried a similar rack for 3 years that would probably score within 2-3 inches of itself every year.

After he eased down to the thick stuff, we waited until about 8:15 and banged the antlers together again.  This time 2 bucks responded but one was a yearling buck and the other was a 2 or 3 year old 9 point - not exactly an “over-the-hill” 8 point.

We saw a few other deer in the far distance that morning that were chasing does down in a deep hardwood draw, but nothing else that came close enough to consider a real encounter.

This is going to be a long post, but trust me…well worth it.

Dad and I spent all night Thursday debating where to go for his last morning sit with me on Friday before he had to travel back to North Carolina.  I finally chose a huge red oak that is perched on top of a dog-legged ridge with a winter wheat field on the high side of the ridge and a long clover bottom along the low side.

The red oak is on the crest of the ridge and once you climb high enough in the tree you are a solid 50 feet above the clover bottom below which makes a shot awfully tricky but enables you to call deer from on top and bottom to within archery range quite easily.

I was really excited to get two climbers up the tree and have dad running the video camera, but that didn’t quite work out.  Halfway through our pre-dawn trek to the designated red oak, the wind was wreaking havoc on dad’s headache and we had to adopt an alternate plan.

I was still going to head for the red oak, but he was going to sit in a covered box stand that was at least semi-protected from the wind.  The cool thing was that he could see me and I could see him although a line of brush running along a creek through the middle of the field prevented him from seeing deer on my side of the branch.

It took me a longer time than usual to get my bow hung and some limbs trimmed and rearranged to make shooting lanes and a little makeshift cover.  By the time I sat down to catch my breath, dad was buzzing my cell phone that he had already seen several bucks crossing the field several hundred yards in the distance.  I called him back and told him I would wait 10 minutes or so before trying to rattle.

It wasn’t 5 minutes later when I saw an old familiar friend “2-Prong” cruising the field edge about 250 yards away from me (against the far woodline in the picture above).  He was headed south and on a mission so I grabbed my antlers as fast as I could and smashed them together for 15 seconds or so.  I hadn’t even gotten turned around from hanging them over a branch and 2-Prong had already changed directions and was staring in my direction.

I grunted as loud as I could a couple times to cover the distance and that was all it took.  Not fast but very deliberately, 2-Prong began plodding towards my position.  The funny thing is he was in direct line with dad’s covered stand to get to where I was calling from.  This next video show you all you need to know.  Keep in mind that dad was zoomed in previously trying to video the deer 10 minutes earlier that were crossing 300-400 yards in the distance.

2-Prong chose a path that carried him within 15 steps of dad’s covered stand and I was totally unaware that the 3 year old 8 point was in 2-Prong’s wake.

As he reached the line of brush when dad swings back to video the 8 point, 2-Prong dropped into the creek and grunted as he popped back up on the other side. I’ll tell you what - when you’ve got them talking back to you, you’ve got them right where you want them.

Now, here is an extra video that dad recorded as I was busy trying to get 2-Prong to close within 30 yards for the shot and I had absolutely no clue that these other bucks were in the field let alone the 8 point that was only 30 yards behind 2-Prong. I was so focused that I had tunnel vision and completely missed the fact there were 3 or 4 other bucks checking out the “big fight”.

You can hear my shot and watch the reaction of the monster half rack 8 point at about the 20 second mark of the video. Being perched 50 feet above 2-Prong, I just threw a couple deep grunts behind me up the ridge when he crossed the creek and the old buck bought it hook, line, and sinker. He stepped just inside the hardwoods off the clover bottom and I settled my top pin tight behind his shoulder to release. I had no prior experience shooting at a deer 50 feet below me in elevation, but I could instantly see blood gush from the entrance.

I got full penetration but the arrow stayed in the deer as he crashed through the brushy creek and into the pines across the field (you can see the start of the pines in the far left of the above photograph).  I couldn’t see him fall, but I knew from the reaction of the other deer that I had now become aware of that he hadn’t made it far.

What a rush choosing the absolute perfect set-up to call deer and have an old cull buck like 2-Prong to read the script from beginning to end.  I called dad to share in the excitement and he told me had gotten great video of the deer as they marched past him but had not seen the buck go down.  It was truly an awesome experience to share with him and I was thrilled to have spent the past 4 days chasing whitetails as hard as we possibly could and finally having it come together.

Just to remind all my readers - if you aren’t shooting Slick Tricks, you are missing the boat!  Needless to say, it wasn’t a difficult track job.

I had more encounters with this buck than any other deer this year.  I think I had seen him 4 times previous and had even reached full draw one evening before letting down because I wasn’t completely confident in the shot.

I believe 2-Prong was a 5 year old this year and had shed his left antler off last year with a chunk of skull attached, hence the reason for his crazy double prong points.  I always thought him to have a tank of a body and although he had big proportions, he just wasn’t a big bodied deer in the absolute sense of the words weighing in at 168 live.

Dad thought this would make a good picture so we snapped a few action photos of the cart making the drag easy.  I thought this was a great idea even though I generally hate 4-wheeler/truck bed shots.

I’ll wrap up the post with an autopsy report.  I reinserted the arrow to give you an idea of how steep of an angle I was dealing with.  I hit the deer about midways up on the entrance and exited the center of his brisket before anchoring in the off knee joint.  Not exactly a common shot trajectory.

As you could see from the above picture, the blood trail was unbelievable and that was because I severed the brachial artery as it runs through the deer’s armpit.

With overcast skies, cold temperatures, and a wind out of the northeast, I decided to try a spot where I arrowed the G2 Midget Buck from last year.

I set up near a 30 yard wide thicket of cane on the side of a mature loblolly pine ridge and waited for daylight.

It didn’t take long for the first buck of the morning - this narrow racked 8 point - to come off the food plot on the ridge behind me and filter down past the stand.

I gave him about 20 minutes to clear the area before I tickled the antler together and was surprised when this yearling buck jumped the creek 50 yards in front of me and came in to investigate the little thicket of cane I was above.

The yearling buck wasn’t even through checking out patch of canes when this 2 or 3 year old 6 point came in posturing and acting very aggressive towards the little guy. Have to give the yearling credit though. He stood his ground for a moment before he realized he was badly outmatched. I think this is some great footage.

It was almost 2 hours later when I saw my last deer of the morning. A buck we nicknamed “High Rack” (for obvious reasons) eased through the woods but ended up downwind and left the country before getting within 100 yards.

This buck is incredibly unique and was actually harvested yesterday on the last day of the Alabama deer season by another hunter on the property. He had a definite strain of deer dwarfism though as he weighed only 150 pounds live weight as a 3 maybe 4 year old buck.

10 days left in the season and still hoping for a cull buck or management 8 point to enter the kill zone. Good thing is the deer activity has increased exponentially in the past week and with bucks coming good to the call, a shot opportunity will almost certainly present itself before time runs out.