2016 Archery Bear Blog

[Stay Sharp]

I'll use this space to keep a journal now that Ive drawn a WI fall bear tag. I will be hunting zone D with Northern Bayfield County

I plan to hunt with a bow and arrow as I have no interest in hunting bear with a firearm. Now the struggle Im faced with is which bow to hunt with. I have a wealth of longbows and recurve bows and currently Im leaning towards using one of my homemade traditional bows. I plan to make my own broadheads and arrows as well as other homemade items. Ive killed deer with all homemade gear in the past but Ive not taken a bear. I have 6 months to shoot all my bows until I make up my mind which bow to use. I will chronicle all of that here.

 

[Stay Sharp]

Im making a new set of single bevel broadheads for this bear hunt. Im messing around using field points and 7 1/4" circular saw blades for the main blade. Im slotting the field tip (ferrule) and can peen the tip of the ferrule onto the blade but the joint at the back end is more challenging.

I starting messing around with a prototype. Now Im thinking of instead, using a threaded adapter rather than a reshaped field point.

Beveling made easy with the right tool for the job.

[video=youtube;OmJW7zdfiR4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmJW7zdfiR4[/video]

 

[Stay Sharp]

The steel ferrule was pretty heavy. I wanted a little lighter version for the bear hunt broadhead so I switched from the re-shaped, steel, field points to aluminum adapters.

Since they are aluminum I can use a micro saw and a Dremmel tool to cut the slots.

 

[Stay Sharp]

Then it was back to the saw blade

I used my broadhead sharpening guide to make the single bevel.

I will use J.B. Weld in the slot cut in the adapter to fuse the blade and I will peen over the tip of the adapter in the hole in the blade to further trap the blade on the adapter. The J.B. Weld and eventual paint will have the final broadhead around 180 grains. Here is a video of the fit up before fusing the parts.

[video=youtube;Y0GNV9IzqcE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0GNV9IzqcE[/video]

 

[Work2hunt]

Very cool. I'm not a sharpening expert, but why a single edge bevel?

 

[julia]

It's great, you can create arrows. I think I'll buy some arrows, I do not have the conditions to create them.

 

[Stay Sharp]

Very cool. I'm not a sharpening expert, but why a single edge bevel?

The list of reasons is long. Dr. Ashby has written at length about the benefits of single bevel broadheads. Search on Dr. Ed Ashby and get ready to do some reading. The bone splitting ability of the single bevel head from even low power bows is what got me interested many years ago when I started making my own broadheads. Then I started testing the theory on cadaver deer focusing on bone hits. I ending up writing a companion piece in Traditional bowhunter Magazine with Dr. Ashby a few years ago because of the work I was doing with single bevels and the fact that back then, they were the new hot thing. The single bevel head spins through the animal unlike double bevels. You must match the spin direction of the single bevel with the spin your fletching imparts on the arrow in flight. It makes the pass through much more efficient.

Here is a link to some of the testing I did on early prototypes of my single bevel heads.

http://ronkulas.proboards.com/thread/39/homemade-broadheads

 

[Retterath]

that's pretty neat

 

[Stay Sharp]

The first head is fused to the threaded adapter with J.B. Weld and by peening the tip closed in the hole in the blade. Then it was primed and painted.

In the universe of possible colors for broadheads, Ive always felt that glossy plum has been under-utilized. I hope to rectify that. Who knows, it might catch on. I took an indoor and an outdoor photo and you would think they were two different broadheads based on how the colors seem to have changed based on the lighting.

I calculated exactly just how much J.B. Weld and how much purple paint would be needed to get the head to exactly 180 grains....................... Nah, I just got lucky. The goal was 180 grains but I didn't think I would hit it spot on. Its better to be lucky than good. Now I just need to make a few more.

 

[HannahBunek273]

I think that Stay Sharp is a professional hunter with a perfect arrows

 

[Stay Sharp]

The archery bear hunt is fast approaching. In a little over a week, I make the trek to far Northern Wisconsin near the town of Cornucopia just south of Lake Superior's Squaw bay.

I will be hunting with Art Hyde of Northern Bayfield County Guide service. Over the summer the focus has been on practice.

Now the camo has been washed in baking soda and when dry will be placed in the homemade ozone locker.

More practice and then the homemade broadheads will be rehoned with the homemade broadhead sharpening guide. The countdown clock is ticking fast now. The season (for me) opens on Sept 12th.

 

[Slugz]

Good luck.......I'm betting your attention to detail will produce results!

 

[Reflex]

Wow!, this is awesome. Have you tested how "tough" the JB weld is on the structure of the broadhead? Just wondering if the weld would break on impact of a solid object. Very cool though!

 

[Stay Sharp]

Ive used this same setup on deer without problem. A summer of shooting has shown no ill effects to the heads.

 

[Stay Sharp]

The bear hunt was short and sweet (almost too fast) I just dropped off both of my bear at the Butcher. Normally I would do them myself but Im 5 hours from my home butcher shop.

Interesting and exciting story on how I ended up killing two bear. Im putting together a video with pictures and video explaining.

 

[Stay Sharp]

Part one one of the trad archery bear hunt

[video=youtube;EgeX6JQGkAw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgeX6JQGkAw[/video]

 

[Stay Sharp]

Part 2

[video=youtube;mCimT43VNKo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCimT43VNKo[/video]

 

[ivorytip]

wow, awesome hunt! and what the crap is the odds of that???!!!! haha that's crazy!

 

[Stay Sharp]

This bear hunt came about as the result of The owner of NBC guide service (Art Hyde) donating the hunt to the Wisconsin Bowhunters Association for their annual convention 4 years ago. As I wait in town for the 2 bear to be skinned and deboned and frozen for the return trip home, I ran through a lists of the costs associated with this "free" hunt.

The cost that bugs me the most is the skin and debone at $400 for the two bear since I do custom butchering and even have an addition on my house that is a game processing and sausage making kitchen and I have processed my own bear in the past. But because Im so far from home, I didn't have a lot of options. The other costs were either optional, dumb luck or self inflicted but here is the tally so far.

The total experience however has been priceless. It was a hell of a ride. Now its time for the WI archery deer season.

 

[Stay Sharp]

Here is an update on the bear hunt. The meat and hides were picked up yesterday (Thursday) for the return trip. I didn’t think it would necessary to unroll the hides to inspect them at the butcher

(again, I hated having to use a butcher since I do my own butchering and processing and sausage making but I was away from home and it was warm so I was in a tight spot so I used the local butcher)

After making the long drive home I unrolled both hides to salt and flesh them and discovered the butcher destroyed the hides. I instructed him to skin the bears for rug mounts so I don’t know why he cut the rear feet off and both hides were so full of knife cuts/holes from skinning that they are both useless. In addition, he used a saw to cut the spine and rather than using a knife to cut at a vertebrae joint behind the skull, he sawed through the back of the skull ruining the skull mount. Clearly this butcher shop had no experience butchering bear. I called the butcher to vent my frustration and he apologized but offered no satisfaction and stated that the feet were included in the box with the hides (as if that were some sort of consolation)

On the up side, both hides were to go to a nephew who is a fledgling taxidermist in training and the hides were going to him so he could practice since I already have bear on the wall and bear skull so I did not intend to mount them for myself but that is beside the point. This butcher clearly had no business processing bear.

Currently Im cleaning/whitening the skulls. Here are the hides with the feet positioned so at least a picture could be taken.