My Epiphany - Dr. Ed Ashby and the Ranch Fairy

I have been bow hunting a long time and taken quite a bit of deer. I have had long blood trails and even lost a deer that I could not recover. I had ideas of shooting arrows through areas of deer that I was always told not to do. For instance, the quartering-to shot. I was told to never take that shot and always go behind the shoulder broadside or quartering away. Now, with the arrows I was shooting I noticed that there seemed to be something off. There were some flight issues. They weren’t always hitting straight. I was told it was my grip or form or whatever, I would go slow and concentrate on form and even got my grip to where there was no grip. I was shooting with loose fingers in a relaxed open hand. Still, something was not right. I then went to weighing every arrow to make sure each arrow was within a grain or two of each other. Then I would change the orientation of the arrows when knocked to see how they flew and mark them showing which way needed to be up when I shot them the best. Nothing worked quite right. When I shot deer I would get full pass-throughs, I wouldn’t get pass-throughs, long tracking jobs, short tracking jobs, and so. Then I accidentally discovered the Ranch Fairy while watching The Hunting Public on YouTube. I now know about bare shaft tuning, high FOC, broadhead tuning, and a new term I never heard of called “Adult Arrows”. Ranch Fairy discovered the work of Dr. Ed Ashby and brought it mainstream to YouTube in great detail. Ranch Fairy takes Dr. Ed’s 12 Arrow Penetrating Enhancing Factors and presents it in a way you can understand the information easily in his videos. Ranch Fairy teaches you to try new things to get the best out of your arrows to put an animal down as quickly and humanely as possible. It isn’t as easy as looking at a given spine chart and grabbing broadheads off the shelf and hitting the woods after some practice shots. Ranch Fairy takes heat from long-time bowhunters over his videos and he hits at the industry for their set standards, but he backs up the information he presents with actual necropsy evidence showing the damage Adult Arrows do to the quarry for a quick kill. For years I just took the advice given to me from the pro shops and I was never satisfied with how my arrows were performing. I always started trying to fix shooting form first the go-to my arrows with what I was told from the shop. Now I know and will implement this new information I found by accident to get my arrows more inline with doing what they should have been doing in the first place; putting a deer down as quickly as possible. This will take work and testing to get my rig where it needs to be but I won’t be subject to a magical arrow spine chart displayed on a countertop at my archery shop and told, “Just go use this and you’ll be fine.” I owe it to my sport and the animals I hunt to be better than that. Go check out Ranch Fairy and watch what he has to say. Keep an open mind and hear him out. The best part is that he backs up what he says about building Adult Arrows with physical evidence and not a printed-out countertop chart.

The Split - Civilization Sickness

Over the years, I have felt that a large problem people have in their lives is there is no real release or way to unwind from their day.  People go to bars to drink alcohol to “relax” and forget their day.   Then repeat it all tomorrow.  Or go to a friend’s house to watch the game on tv, and so on.  There is not a release.  That does not recharge you.  After about two hours in the city,  I become agitated and short.  So, when we have to run to the city to stock up on essentials, I can last about two hours before I have my fill of the city.  Some would consider it a town, but to me, it is a city—the traffic congestion—bad drivers.  People are roaming through whatever store you’re in and not paying attention to who they cutoff or wander into; just generally inconsiderate of those around them.  Mindless.  You don’t have that in the woods.  I have to leave the city to get back out to the quiet rural life.  I can’t say “country life” because that would imply me listening to country music, to which I do not.

When we get home, I head into the wood line on the edge of our yard or sit on the back porch and watch the woods, the birds, or whatever wildlife may happen to wander by the yard. That’s relaxation.  It is bringing yourself back to nature.  Getting in tune. Take a 10-minute walk down a trail in the woods. Take a seat and rest for 20 minutes, and absorb the sounds and the woods' openness.  That should be enough to unwind for a bit.  That is natural out there.  Then head back do what you need to do to complete your day.  But get away from the noise and the people of the city.  I believe a lot of anxiety and rage comes from people being on top of people in the urban environment. It’s not natural.  My suggestion is not a kumbaya thing; it is about getting back to nature where we belong. People have split us up from the natural world.  According to them, there is us, the humans, and there is nature.  With this split, you hear we are invading the animals’ space and that we humans do not belong. That, to me, is not natural to say that. But are we invading?  We have forgotten we are part of nature.  Now, you don’t have to be a hunter to enjoy the woods.  Just go out and try it.  Take a short hike.  Take baby steps at first and build yourself up if you aren’t sure about it.  But try it.

And in closing this post, I ask you, “Where did we come from?”  Should we be crammed together in the cities and neighborhoods?  I don’t think so.  Fred Bear once said, “Immerse yourself in the outdoor experience. It will cleanse your soul and make you a better person.”  I say go out and try it, see for yourself.