Nowadays when it comes to bow hunting all the cool kids tend to use quivers that mount right on the bow. They’ve been around forever. My opinion is that they put more junk on the bow, and there’s to much junk on modern compound bows to begin with. It adds weight, unbalances the bow and makes carrying everything that much more awkward in the bush. It’s worth noting that most people (including pros) will disagree with me on that - but it’s a decision everyone has to make for themselves. Those that disagree with me shoot as well or better with them than I do too. It’s all ergonomics and yours will dictate which way you go.
Not for me, thanks.
For others, this is an excellent way to carry arrows afield.
I’ve been getting away with an old Vista back quiver for ages. It’s great for tournaments and 3D matches because it’ll hold lots of arrows and a couple cans of beer. But for hunting, it’s less than ideal. The arrows rattle around and make noise, and securing them for silence makes it really hard to pull them out fast.
Mine is 35 years old and has a million miles
on it. It’s also falling apart.
Back in my youth the king of bow hunters was this guy below - Chuck Adams. His trademarks were a big happy grin and stylish toque.
He’s shot pretty much everything that walks the earth anywhere in the world. Back in the day the amount of power in your bow was basically dictated by your anchor weight. I could shoot all day long at 75lbs, and the brawnier guys like Chuck, here, were in the 80 and 90 pound bows. This guy lived to hunt and write about it…and soon the media corporate shithawks got their talons into him…and he became over-commercialized and hyped. The years passed…and I fell out of the sport for awhile and Chuck seemed to fall out of the hunting rags that I read. During his career Hoyt tied him up and he became their company PR puppet. Nothing wrong with Hoyt, mind you - they make some of the best bows out there…but I am a Matthews shooter myself. Again…that’s all ergonomics. When you go buy a bow…shoot them all before you commit to buy. The one that feels the best is right for you.
The other thing Chuck became famous for was that hip quiver - it’s more of an “arrow holster”. Strangely…nobody in the industry seemed to pick up on it. Back in the day some skilled custom leather workers made them by hand…and they cost an arm and a leg. I really need to do something if I want to hunt this year…and I have wanted one of these forever. The construction is straight forward, but the kicker is the arrow retainer at the top. I need to make something similar and I’m just stumped.
I took the problem to esteeemed blog visitor-Poli…and bounced the idea off him. He mulled it over and made a few suggestions. I can’t afford a nigger-rigged half assed solution here, my hunting arrows are about $35.00 apiece with warheads on them…and I can’t afford to loose them. I’d hate to run into something worth shooting and not have the arrows to do it with too…
Before the age of camo…
there was green plaid flannels.
They worked just fine….
Poli suggested something for the upper retainer that was pure genius: we might be able to use one of those blue camping mattress foamies to improvise a silent, secure retainer. It’s sheer genius - I shoulda thunk of it myself… but I don’t ride that short bus to school for nothing I suppose…
☹️
We’ll give it a try and if it works…we’ll have a dandy little end-of-winter project to do down in the Reclusium.
Mr Todd
ReplyDeleteI have that same back quiver! And like you grew up with Chuck being the man and he got me to using a hip quiver, my go too even in the thick crap down south here, I have a real nice leather one now can’t remember where I got it or the name, maybe three rivers archery? Happy shootin
That’s what I’ve been hearing Mr. T! How’d ya do in the last hunting season?
DeleteSame old story,every time I was about to shoot one of those young uns my wife wanted for eatin, I would hear something or see them act like something was coming, and think to myself , had a couple big uns on camera, that may be the big un so I held tight and that always ended the way you imagine it would! Tag soup! Next season right!
DeleteWhy don't you just take a regular bow quiver and fasten a strap to put it on your belt? Jeez. Keep it simple.
ReplyDeleteNoise, DC. Most hip quivers are noisey and that’s not a big deal for tournaments. When you’re hunting though…you gotta get close and any noise at all will give you away.
DeleteAnd yeah… I could probably find one somewhere…but making my own gives me something else to do and play with…
AHA, well I'm too old and slow to be tracking nothing. Down here in Texas we just sit in a blind, watching a game feeder 25 yards away. The deer and hogs know to the minute when the auto-timer goes off and the feed gets slung out. You can set your watch by the animals gathering around the feeder waiting for it to go off. Hogs, deer, turkey and other assorted critters all right there. I haven't hunted in years, though. Tore tendons in my elbow and haven't pulled a bow back in decades.
DeleteI was told by an experienced bow hunter that he preferred a centered back quiver for woods hunting. The design placed the arrows fletching behind his head where it snagged less overhead growth. He tried the belt quiver for a bit, but it got hung up walking by brush and he decided too much noise was created.
ReplyDeleteI'm just passing this along - I'm not a bow hunter.
I have used the hip quiver in the past - I found it to be prone to catching on stuff as I walked and it flipped back and forth all the time as it is attached to the leg as well as to the hip.
ReplyDeleteSince bow hunting is mostly stand hunting, the bow mounted quiver generally doesn't bother my balance because I take it off and hang it during my sits. If I am still hunting, I have a four arrow quiver that works pretty well as it is very light.
Nice to see the old pics of hunters in work clothes. Nowadays it's $1000 worth of camo dialed into your locale.
ReplyDeleteSo on the topic of crossbows...I've been considering getting into crossbows for hunting. Never have yet. I was looking at this https://www.academy.com/p/bear-archery-x-trek-380-crossbow last month. Seemed ok spec wise compared to bows double or triple the cost. Any thoughts on that?
ReplyDeleteLook for a real stiff closed cell foam, probably denser than the sleeping pad you mentioned. Industrial supply houses may have something or search for commercial foam supplier. Keyhole it for the arrows, but just a no gap slit for the narrow end of the keyhole.
ReplyDeleteSteve S6
Bowhunting as it is done according to modern doctrine is a gadget reliant method that is ALWAYS done from a treestand. Getting to and from the treestand is not considered hunting, and hunting is not taking place until you are up in the stand with your gopro on. As such, modern bowhunters are only concerned with transporting all of their uh, vital gear, as efficiently as possible to the base of the tree so they can start hunting. You would think that the bowquiver would have fallen out of favor with people why typically need to drive something to the base of the tree that can carry all that essential gear, (Like laser rangefinders. You spend the whole season in the same tree and cleared out shooting lanes from it months before, you think you could shoot everything once and know the distance, or heaven forbid, estimate range out to 50 yards), but I digress. The concept that bowhunting can only take place from a treestand is so highly engrained in our society now that even the Fish and Game Departments of the various states equate mandatory "Bowhunter Education" with nothing else but how not to fall out of a tree. Archery itself is not part of "Bowhunter Education" believe it or not.
ReplyDeleteIt really comes down to what kind of a hunter you are or want to be. If you want to take the route of the tree sitters, you will probably see and shoot more game, but you will spend a fortune on the "Vital" gear. Curiously, most tree shooters do not remove the bowquivers from the bow once perched in their tree couches. It seems that changing anything about the tuning of the bow will throw their accuracy off just a little. It is the compound bow after all that is doing all the work to overcome the shooters utter lack of any real archery skill.
There are some people who still hunt from the ground. They may post up behind a tree, or stillhunt through the forest. They tend to go light in the gear dept in order to be able to move through brush and whatnot with a minimum of effort. Most of these guys are stickbow shooters. The compound bows were obscenely heavy for many years, but they are now much lighter and compact, so these newer ones lend themselves to ground hunting as well. Groundhunters may or may not like the bowquiver. Those who shoot barebow tend to like some form of side quiver as a back quiver is a nightmare in thick woods.
Too true, A. Sadly, all too true. I used to do the gadgets too and tree stand but not anymore. A stripped down compound does make a passable still hunter though, even with a release.
DeleteIn my prime I scoffed at rangefinders. If you do your homework on the 3D tournaments you won’t need one. I don’t mind a stabilizer for targets but I’ll take them off for hunting
used to hunt tree stands. then one year at the start of the season i fell out of the tree and broke both wrists. once healed i figured i couldn't afford the risk of lost work time again. i began to exclusively hunt on the ground. scent control and movement became most important factor. arrow storage was not a factor any longer, only quick access.
DeleteMy wife has these tough lil foam things that she separates her toes with so she can paint her toe nails. Tough and quiet. They come in different sizes and you can bend them to make the open gap smaller. Just an idea from a redneck in Texas
ReplyDelete