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How loud is your bow?

H

hoosierhunter

Active Member
After standing down range to listen to two buddies bows, I'm of the belief that deer react much more to the arrow vanes than the actual bow. They may flinch from the bow crack, but the vanes are very noisy heading down range. I think it's the continuous down range noise that turns the flinch into an actual drop. The reason I say that is because when you see a jumpy deer they are constantly flinching from noise but you rarely see that extended drop to the belly movement unless they are shot at. My theory is because the noise they twitch from isn't heading directly at them. Maybe I'm crazy but I can't put another logical reason behind it.....
 
One thing I noticed is if the arrow flys by you from side to side the vane noise will be loud. If you stand directly behind the target and the arrow is approaching you the noise is gone. Granted I can't hear like a deer but my that was my observations.
 
"If you stand directly behind the target and the arrow is approaching you the noise is gone."

I'll just take your word for it Mike:rolleyes:
 
The change in noise is attributed to the doppler effect. Same as a train coming at you has a higher pitched whistle vs. going away. Same as your arrows will be higher pitched coming toward you, but lower pitched going away, which is why it is harder to hear them going away, or at least differentiate them from low frequency background noises.

For what it's worth, maybe you are on to something. Larry Wise has a good example talking about speed and the speed of sound. As he explains an average by today's world arrow speed of 0.4 second flight time on a 40 yard shot, vs. the 0.1 second speed of sound, leaves a deer with 0.3 seconds to react to a sound. Which is still enough time for an object to drop 1.5' theoretically. What you are talking about is 1: Hearing the noise, 2: determining if it is the noise of an object traveling toward me, and a threat, 3: telling the body to drop. It would be interesting to know if there have been any studies that relate deer reaction time to noise. I've seen plenty of videos of deer "jumping the string" but often wonder if there was some que prior to the shot that may have gave them a "jump start", pun intended?

However, in my experience, the majority of deer out there are just not quite quick enough. ;)
 
The sound of the bow gets there before the sound of the arrow. Clap your hands at a nervous one and see just how fast they drop.
 
No doubt the bow sound gets there first. I'm talking about the continued disturbance created from the vanes cutting the wind and turning the arrow.

As for clapping your hands, I've definitely bumped metal stands with dee at high alert and the reaction is very different from releasing a shot.
 
Another interesting thought is how deer not being shot at react to an arrow. My experience is their reaction is delayed significantly as compared to the targeted animal. They typically react to the targeted animals reaction above all else.
 
I have never really had a deer duck very much from the sound of a bow string or arrow. I shot a deer at 40 yds two years back and he hardly flinched at all. I think guys get in trouble when they verbally bleat to get a nervous deer to stop and then take their shot. Most the time you'll be fine, but you've just made that deer stop what he was doing and put them on alert. I would think the initial thwack would be what they react to most.
 
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