Arrow Speed and String Jumping Deer with Ranch Fairy 

Great video. Thank goodness we don't have everything extactly figured out. I spent most of my younger days doing exactly that. Now in my older years, I've realized the variablity is what makes the special moments when everything aligns perfectly for success much more memorable.

Great topic. 100% legit considerations. In my 30+ years of bowhunting, the original challenge still remains, and that is to get them as close as possible, NOT to see how far away I can hit one. Less distance the arrow travels, less reaction comes into play on very unpredictable animal movements. Over time the data should at least trend into more usable and less gray area information I would hope. Thanks for investing all the time to put the data into usable information, even if not immediately. Keep up the great work!

A fantastic discussion and so nice to see you back online Garrett. If there is a "zone of protection", it is plausible that this "zone" is magnified by louder noises. It is also plausible that faster objects make more noise but this would be interesting to prove - take the same arrow and shoot it at different quantifiable speeds and measure the decibels at a constant distance. If true, then a slower quieter arrow may reduce the zone of protection or even out a faster louder arrow at a given distance. It would seem for sure that reaction to arrow noise is impacting reactions more so than bow noise since the shot parallel to the animal versus perpendicular to it affects reaction. Great discussion and i look forward to more!

Great discussion. I have seen deer react in a seemingly more exaggerated manner when the report of the bow or crossbow is louder or more metallic in nature. My old bow emits a dull thump when shot. I shot a buck with it after stopping it with a bleat. The buck looked up at me and didn't move until my arrow had passed through his body. There has to be something to the nature of the noise that gets the deer moving. Thank you for all the time you put into this study.

Intelligent dialog with actual documented data to analyze...this is what moves hunters (and society) forward for the common good. Great video.

Some great data that really gets me thinking. The head up vs head down discussion makes total sense to me. I am going to be paying more attention to that in the future. Thanks for sharing.

This is the type of discussion we need more of. Absolutely on point and is progressing the discipline. This is the good work.

I think that as the noise amplifies it causes the "its getting closer" fear response, I believe the sound is the key variable. Some can surely hear better some may be more on edge, it's not an exact science.

Interesting discussion and a lot to think about. It seems the deeper I delve into this stuff the more I realize that every shot is different. Every animal is different. Shot placement seems to be the most important thing to determine lethality. For me, I want an arrow that isn't on one extreme or another. I tried heavy and I didn't like the trajectory and pin gaps. I don't want to go super light and have tuning issues or durability issues. I ended up with a 450 grain VF TKO with 23 grain insert and 125 grain head (14% FOC) and it's launching at 285 FPS out of my 62 pound Bowtech SR6 at 29" draw. It has been great for deer and I would have no reservations about using it for elk. In the past two years I've shot deer with Exodus, TOTA, and Grim Reaper Pro (1-3/8 mech) and they've all performed great and worked well. The only reason the Grim Reaper didn't get an exit was it was quartering away and it hit the far shoulder. I feel that most people would benefit from a basic, middle of the road setup with good quality components, and lots of practice! Shoot 3D courses with your hunting setup. Practice shooting from a stand/saddle/hill, etc. Be confident in your setup.

This topic was discussed in one of the Bow Hunting October Whitetails videos with the Wensels and Rick Blase way back in the day and they concluded that under 18 yards your arrow would usually get to the deer before it had time to drop enough to evade the arrow and over 30 yards the sound of the bow didn’t seem to make the deer move as often. I doubt they spent as much time analyzing things as you did and their equipment was quite a bit different but it’s interesting to compare their take on it verses yours.

Chuck Adams did an article on jumping the string in Outdoor Life or Field & Stream around 2001. I found that a pretty good article. Now with new equipment with the speeds they do, changes the game a little. All in all the animal's alertness & body language is key.

Garrett, thanks for sharing this. I’ve been following your channel for a while and appreciate your methodical and engineer-minded approach to hunting and gear. I’ve also been following ranch fairy for a while now and the data that Troy and the rocket man are gathering and sharing is just fantastic. This data driven conversation within the archery hunting world is one I hope to contribute to and can’t wait to hear/see more about it. One thought I just had: how about turkeys and their reactions? I’ve never really paid attention when watching bow shots at them but maybe there’s something interesting to glean there? Anyway, keep up the great work and congrats on your MN public land deer this year!

Amazing work!!! Don’t ever stop the research!

Great video Garrett keep them coming

Head up vs head down is a big deal. If that head is down they can really get that spine low. While head is coming up and back is going down. Head up they don’t seem to get as low. I aim lower if head is down vs not as low if head is up

I’m a firm believer that at those lower light shots they hear the bow/arrow and the lighted nocks only help the deer see/process it faster

Great job Garrett. I also think reaction time Verys, like the fly and chop sticks or the ruler on the back of the hand Slow mo video of an arrow coming towards you. Then run at full speed, it's real interesting

Great stuff! IMHO... I really believe you can compensate for most of these issues by making good choices and simply changing up our shooting practice before the season: 1) Practice from a tree stand with ALL the gear you hunt with. 2) ALWAYS aim for the bottom third of the deer target 3) Consider ANY shot that hits above the horizontal center line of your deer target as a BAD HIT! I also like to set up multiple targets and only shoot one arrow per target. Its like I tell my kid... you got an eight inch balloon inside that deer, pop the balloon and its all good, miss the balloon and Dad is going to have a long day! Final thought's... practice like this and take ONLY CLOSE HIGH PERCENAGE SHOTS!

This is very fascinating. Thank you for sharing

Great conversation on the zone of protection. I truly think that zone will vary day to day for the animal. I don’t think there is a specific answer. Myself for example, I know I’ve reacted differently at different times in life when things have come at me. I think it goes to a neurological level of, does the brain connect the sound with danger and what action is needed to avoid the danger. I’ve avoided danger with quick twitch muscle reactions not knowing what I’m doing and the opposite holds true as well.

@ranchfairy, Dr Barnette's frame of a biological "active zone of protection" is a very sound point for considering the probability and predictability of terminal arrow performance. I believe that wave dynamics research gives some explanation for the biological intuition/response for the animal behavior we are observing. Arrow frequency and its corresponding vibration variable is a good factor to consider. How that dynamic could be quantified in the field is a problem worth figuring out.

Its is the sound of the arrow! Not to bow. We were having trouble sighting in a bow they were going into this berm. I stood down range to watch where they were going. Thats when I discover how load an arrow sounds comeing at you sounds like. have you ever hear a shotgun slug going over your head. sounds alot like that. They hear it comeing. Great job in this presentation. My calculation were off. I thought it was 30 yards or .33 seconds. That is what my videos show. BUT your data set show they are starting to react even sooner. My study was with an old action camera at 1080 @30fps. Haven't got to try my new camera 4K at 60fps

Aim for the Heart, increases the percentage of vital hits if they squat or not.

Great video. Another question to bring to the table is the volume of the sound. Possibly they hear the bow and they pay more attention then hear and react to the arrow. The faster the bow, louder the bow and the faster the arrow the louder the arrow. So a slower heavy arrow might have a quieter shot and not key them up to react as violently. Likewise how pressured is the deer, have they been shot at before and recognize the sound? So many variables. With the head up/down conversation, in addition to the ability to change center of mass, there's a possible difference of which senses have the most focus. Head up more attention to vision than hearing, head down more hearing than vision.

this discussion was great.

what if you could create a non-lethal paint ball and match the db on the shot ? What a great point

Can you please share your spreadsheet?

54 years of bowhunting here has taught me that hoofed animals are far more likely to jump the string if their head is down vs up when you shoot.

Great topic. After many years of miss placed shots I will never shoot any bow at a deer with its head down!!! When I use to shoot at them with the head down I lost about 15% of them due to them ducking the shot! I always try to get them to stop now to make sure the head is up! Now that I have changed my ways I haven't had a bad shot yet!!

Here's a theory to look at. We already know the lighter faster arrows are louder, so maybe the z.o.p. is bigger that a heavier, and more silent arrow. Thinking about a threat assessment from the deer. Kinda like a lion stalking up on one when they are moving slow it doesn't trigger the z.o.p. but the pounce does.

Great video have you done any testing on sound of the bow in decibels? Also fletching types? Would be interesting to see the comparison with speed, sound, and distance. Thanks for all the great info.

My question is that if the noise of the bow gets the animals attention right before they hear the arrow coming with the heavier setup the bow should be quieter which would skew the results of the data right?

Great video

Just getting to this video now, great stuff! Just had a buck duck at 17 yards and i adjusted the following week and missed low on a doe at 27..wonder if they react differently (bucks vs does)? I also wonder if arrow speed affects how loud an arrow is, thus changing the size of the defense "bubble" that was talked about.. Also faster arrow means lighter arrow which could mean louder bow since the arrow may not be able to absorb as much energy as a heavier arrow affecting how loud the bow is🤔

I wonder if the reason that the deer didnt move when it was stopped with the mouth call was that its senses were focused on figuring out what made the noise. It wasn't paying attention to the noise of the shot or arrow. But the other deer that did jump were paying attention to everything around them which is what caused them to jump the string. It would be an interesting test to see how deer react to a shot when their attention is focused on something.

Great info Garrett. So, why do animals jump in the first place? They don't know about arrows. What makes them think they have to get out of Dodge? Watching deer in my yard they hear stuff that you would think make them come unglued, but it doesn't. Black birds and bees are thoughts.

Any possibility a slower projectile is louder during flight than a faster projectile? Is it possible to even see if there is a decibel difference at different speeds?

@DIYSportman do you still have the same thoughts after a year? Any progress made on Darell's theory?

I'm glad I'm not the only one whose ears ring in complete silence....low poundage and semi heavy arrow...they don't seam to react...heavy puondage bows seem to be louder in my opinion

do different arrow rests play into this?

Arkansas is about 7-12 yards. Especially in the northern hills and hardwoods

Yea, I think you can over think this topic. Unless you sleep with your bow, stay 30 yards and in, but pay attention to the deer's attitude.

great vid well done

Garrett, you mentioned your wife’s set up is around 200 fps. What yardage is her first and second pin set up for?

During testing of my heavy crossbow bolts, I stood down by my target and had my cousin shoot my crossbow so I could see how loud my crossbow bolts were in flight. They sounded EXACTLY like a small flock of birds flaring their wings for a landing. I have never had a deer jump or drop using those bolts, and I think it’s because they sound like something natural.

You might consider the attack distance of the predator the deer evolved with.

I think we are all missing a very important variable . The visual of the bow going off , then the arrow in flight. Deer have a much better ability to pick up movement than humans. It's a rods vs cones thing thats over my head , but it's solid scientific data that they pick up movement better than we do. My anecdotal evidence , and I don't have video to back it up, comes from living in a state (Ga) that has a very long rifle season. Over the years , I've had deer in eyesight when a rifle goes off. I'm talking so close I almost jump out of my stand ! Deer , for the most part, are oblivious to that sound . I've only had one case from memory of a deer even flinching, and that happened 3 days ago from a ground blind w corn on the ground, in my backyard . A shot went off across the road that made me jump almost off my stool. That 2.5 yr old buck at 15 yds , tensed up like it was waiting for impact for a split second, then continued to scarf corn . It doesn't matter how fast the speed of sound is if the deer reacts to movement from the bow, then arrow. I've also tested deer at close range just to check my theory. Calm feeding deer will often come unglued at me throwing a pinecone with almost no detectable noise . I get it, not much can be done about the movement of the shot or arrow , except a solitary deer ,if you can shoot when the deer is looking away or there is an obstruction hiding their line of sight to you. The sight variable , imho, is as big as sound. It's just not a multi million dollar industry like sound dampening. Food for thought.

Being I worked with horses, animals who's eyes work pretty close to deer eyes, I think you overlooked the fact the lighted knocks will catch their eye n cause a reaction? They see yo the. Side very well

Are you a NASA engineer? All this fantastic information is very interesting. There are so many variables in the field there will never be an absolute answer to some of these questions on reactive animals

The idea of a protection zone is an interesting hypothesis but seems really hard to validate even using statistics. I also feel like it can't ignore arrow speed given an animal's ability to react isn't infinitely fast and is likely a fixed reaction time. Given a fixed reaction time and a fixed zone of protection, I don't see how arrow speed doesn't matter? What am I not understanding?

Everything I've learned in developing TAP String Stops and in studying bow/arrow noise supports what is being said in this video. Some of the key points that I firmly believe in: (drawn only from my many years of experience with Compound bows) 1) Arrow speed DOES matter! Especially at ranges of 20-25 yards and less. In my experience deer react just as quickly to the bow shot noise from slower bows (quieter) as they do faster (louder) bows... in MOST cases even a "quiet" bow is more than loud enough to cause a deer to physically react (drop)... so, having a significant amount of additional arrow speed increases the odds of lethal hits at distances of 25 yards or less (in MOST cases! -- there will always be some anomalies that occur). 2) Building off of point #1 ... it's BOW noise.... NOT arrow noise that is the key factor leading to deer reacting to the shot at these shorter ranges. At ranges of 30-35 yards and beyond the arrow noise plays an increasingly greater role in deer reaction to the shot and I think most people are in agreement with that perspective. 3) The dominant FREQUENCY range of the bow shot noise AND arrow flight noise DOES play a role as well.... how big of a role is difficult to say and in my opinion will never be fully determined! But it DOES matter in my experience. Higher frequencies don't carry as far in open air or penetrate surrounding objects as well as lower frequencies.... higher frequencies though can be perceived as more alarming to wild game and are perceived as "louder" than their actual amplitude would suggest (human hearing perceives the same way)... so, in my view there must be a "sweet spot" range of dominant frequencies that are most conducive to the bowhunter in terms of limiting deer's reaction to the shot.

Animals that are closely packed in a herd are connected in The Ether in all move together just like birds in a flock do not affect when they move birds outside of that zone

Head down don't shoot! They duck the most when their head is down. They duck the arrow sound more than the bow sound. If they could see the arrow it is even worse. I know some guys that are going back to camouflage fletchings just so they can't see it coming.

The sound of the bow will take under 6/100ths of a second to reach the buck from 20m.

I think it matters if the deer have previously been shot at as well. Take a deer that has been hit and survived..... He may me more cautious of the sound of an arrow.

I love this stuff. I always had a theory about lighted nocks too. I believe deer see that light coming towards them.

I think the here the arrow before the bow.

Until archery is as fast or faster than sound deer react always. How much is a variable that is undetermined and situations apply this is always going to be an unknown. Rich is a great dude and i love his channel but he is also new to crossbow and archery hunting. He has lots of great ideas and knowledge but he is not perfect no one is. Whom ever says though that animals do not react does not pay attention. They always move sound of bow or arrow they are moving. Really this is why plan B arrows and bolts is great. You hit they die you miss they live two both best cases of scenarios. The unknown variables thats hunting!

I have a different outlook on long range archery kills. Do they capture the essence of bow hunting? No. Are they ethical? Absolutely given the right equipment and this is mathematically provable. My recurve shoots a 600gr arrow at 155fps. My crossbow shoots a 500gr bolt at 440fps. A 20 yard shot with my recurve on a deer would be perfectly ethical and is commonly done. However what if I told you that my crossbow can reach a target 85 yards away in the same time my recurve reaches a 20 yard target? The only difference is the crossbow bolt has 5x the energy and is too far for the deer to react to the sound. The 85 yard crossbow shot is WAY more ethical than a 20 yard shot with the recurve. If we're going to discuss the ethics of long range shots with modern archery equipment then we will have to question every single shot taken with traditional equipment.