Claude Pollington the Whitetail Wizard
Forget Multiple Sight Pins On A Bow
It was years ago, and I was hunting Colorado for elk. That evening a young hunter came into our camp with a sad tale of woe.
“I had shadowed this big 6X6 bull elk for most of the day,” he said. “The bull finally slowed down, met up with some cows in a grassy alpine meadow, and just before dark the cows and bulk walked into the black timber and within 30 yards of me.”
The young man had time for just one shot. He came to full draw, went to put his 30-yard pin on the heart-lung area of the bull, and as adrenaline coursed through his body, he mind back-fired.
He had five pins for various yardages, but in the heat of the moment, he forgot which of the five pins was for 30 yards. He doesn’t know for sure, but thinks he put the 50-yard pin on the bull and missed.
The bull and the cows launched into a wild and panicked run down the mountain, and the dejected hunter had a long hike back to camp. During the two-hour hike, he had ample opportunity to ponder his improper actions.
There’s nothing much that can be said under such circumstances. Muttering “too bad” didn’t seem adequate, but what more can be said?
Hunters come in to buy a new bow, and ask us to mount their five-pin super deluxe archery sight, and I always ask them what the different pins are for. They always reply ” 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 yards or some other combination of yardages.
I ask if they are competent at judging yardage, and they often reply that they carry a laser range-finder. That is fine, if time permits, but often a deer or an elk offers one opportunity for a shot, and it doesn’t include much time for using a range-finder. Judging distance is an acquired art that comes from guessing the distance to an object, and then stepping off 36-inch steps.
On a once-in-a-lifetime hunt, misjudging yardage can cost a hunter a wonderful trophy. Under such conditions where a bow must be drawn while calculating the distance, and the shot must be taken immediately, there is no time to try to remember which pin is for what yardage.
I tried pin sights years ago and gave up on them when I introduced the red-dot archery sight over 20 years ago. A red-dot sight isn’t for everyone, but once a bow hunter learns the basic principles of its use, it is extremely fast to bring on target.
An elk is a big animal. Most bows, with a draw weight of 55 to 60 pounds, will push an aluminum or carbon arrow at a fast enough speed to shoot an elk at 50 yards. The trick is knowing the exact distance within a yard or two.
I developed the “gapping” method for the red-dot sight. It means knowing the distance to the elk, knowing how much your arrow will drop at various distances. A bow sighted in for 20 yard shots will be slightly (an inch or two) low at 25 yards, two to three inches low at 30 yard, eight inches low at 40 yards and 12 to 14 inches low at 50 yards.
The above are rough averages, and may be slightly different based on draw length, arrow weight, amount of poundage, anchor point and other factors. Each hunter must establish a table of arrow drop from 20 to 50 yards based on the equipment used.
So, if the elk is 30 yards away with a bow sighted in at 20 yards, a dead-on hold will hit the vitals. If the animal is 40 yards away, the hunter must “gap” (hold over) roughly eight inches higher than normal. A bull at 50 yards will require a holdover of 12 to 14 inches above the desired point of impact.
There is no substitute for practice at longer distances if the hunter plans a western antelope, elk or mule deer hunt. The same principle applies if a hunter uses a single pin. Multiple-pin sights can be a recipe for disaster until the hunter trains specifically for such shots, and can remember which pin is used for which distance. It’s easy to forget.
A single pin or a red-dot sight allow the gapping technique to be used. It offers a quick and easy aiming system with a single sight in front of the eye, and holding over the desired point of impact is much simpler with a single aiming device.
Guess wrong with a multiple-pin sight, and chances are very good that the hunter will shoot over or under the animal and miss, or even worse, make a non-fatal hit.
My method of gapping is not confusing, but does require cool nerves and a steady hand, and an ability to accurately judge distance. When that opportunity you’ve waited for walks out in front of you, draw, aim, and accurately place the arrow where it counts. It requires practice, but so does everything else about bow hunting.—The Whitetail Wizard
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