00:00:00 Speaker 1: Hey, this is Tyler Jones and you're listening to the Element podcast. What's going on? Everybody? We are currently driving, which that seems to be what we do most of the time. We have been traveling a lot lately too, and not just together but in separate, separate directions. And you just heard him laugh. Our co host, Casey Smith is hanging out with me. Dare I say it again? He's not driving? How about that? How about that? What's going on? I've been a little into the weather man and I'm still not. I felt good most of the day to day, but you know, the last hour so I've kind of been dragging a little bit. I think the allergies I'm mixed in with the cold that I had or whatever, is kind of getting to throat sore and my voice is just a touch quiet. So yeah, it'll be all right though. I'm doing fine as opposed to your your usual you know, status of Mike Peeker. Peeker he'sn't temporate, He's on ther hoping to get him back into the lineup soon. What is going on here in work truck? Um? So We've We've got a few little stories to bring to you. But first I want to make sure you guys know that we've got a pretty awesome interview coming up. And I feel like we could have, uh, we could have talked a lot longer. I had a kind of a limited time, uh slot that we could do this interview with Mr p J. Riley of Lancaster Archery. Um. But man, like I'm I'm just terrible when it comes to like knowing gear for one, uh and for another, you know, archery stuff especially, I just haven't really done a lot of modification. I don't have a lot of money, and there's a lot of money to be spent in archery, and so uh, you know, there's there's reasons other than that as well. But man, he's got me ready to spend about six seven hundred bucks. But yeah, it's it's a really good interview that we did. And Casey, like you said, it was under the weather, so we had to do a three way conversation on the phone, and so Casey's audio may sound a little rough, but man, it was a great interview. So we'll get to that in a second. First of all, before you runder the weather, you're down south, tell us about what happened. I went on my probably last bachelor party I'll ever go on, which is so sad. No, not in the least little bit. It would have been around the first batch of the party, but now that we've done nine of them, like, I'm about tired of him. We had a great time, don't get me wrong, but like I just I'm not into the staying out late thing anymore. Man, It's just not my gigs. I do my best to like have a good attitude about it because I know that everybody kind of deserves their fun or whatever. But and of course, you know, we had our much wilder days when we were younger. Now it's kind of more go out and eat and go to one joint and listen to a band play and throw some beam bags. That's what we did pretty much, you know, and laugh at the other people who we may have used to being in our past lives, if you know what I mean. But uh, anyways, Uh. They all took place down the Guadeloupe River, which I haven't spent much time at, uh, mostly because it's all private for the most part, and it kind of makes me mad. So uh, one time I went there with a college girlfriend and we were like gonna try to fish. We pull up to the bank and just start fishing. Some guy pulls up real grumpy. You know. Ever since the end, I've been kind of mad at it. But we had a private condo there on the on the water, so you know, had river access and you can walk up and down the river anywhere you want to. And it's not like it's real deep, so you can go as far as you want it to. Really, and I had a pretty stellar day Saturday afternoon. I caught a bunch of big rainbows and a giant sucker. Like I know, it's a sucker, but I was. I was pretty pumped, dude, Like, I mean, the thing was probably five pounds plus and he had a big old head on him. He fought hard, you know, That's what I was looking for, right, Yeah, but we had fun. Man, those were some big rainbows. Yeah, they were They were solid. They were solid fish, and they fought hard too, which was cool. Uh they jumped like rainbows, you know, rainbows will jump five or six ft on the water. And uh they they were eating like they're supposed to. Unlike you're throwing eggs and corn and crap to him. You know, we were throwing I was throwing a size fourteen pheasantel underneath the UH indicator and just drifted it through the slow runs and ripping them out. Man, did you see any of them before I saw? I did, and I saw a dead one in the water, which I don't know if it's because temperatures or somebody caught him or what. But I saw that there was a rainbow in the water, so I knew there would be. And I mean the river's known for being Texas is only hold over rainbow population, you know, so I knew that there was a chance of them being around. But I really didn't go down there with the intention of catching rainbows. I thought i'd catched Smalley's and in Long your sunfish, which I caught both of those two. But the rainbows were definitely the highlight of the trip. Yeah, and and the reason I saw him was he posted posted those on the Instagram story. So yeah, if you're if you're not on Instagram following us, then you're probably gonna miss out on some of what we talked about because we posted a lot of stuff on our story, So make sure and do that. Yeah, a lot of our day to day stuff is Instagram. Yeah, it's kind of it's kind of like almost like a blog of our lives. You can see where how much Mexican food we really do eat. It's about a constant flow between the two of us. So, uh, yeah, that was I was very surprised. There was some really nice rainbows that you're catching. It's fun. I'm ready to go back, and I didn't. I didn't think I would say that before. You know, like, I wasn't really looking forward to being on the squad just because it gets that reputation for tubers and drunk people and stuff, in which there was that around. But everybody's all friendly and they all ask you know what you catch and that kind of thing. So, and there's more fishermen around to you. So it's cool. You told him a sucker, told him a sucker. Uh, but the uh you said you were on River Road, right, I've been there several times playing what's that playing? Playing? And uh we floated a couple of times. Um, you went by the ice house there road ice House played. There's several times. That was almost like our home away from home. Pretty big venue. I mean, I remember hearing that on the radio a lot when I was in college. Yeah, there's some good bands that come through there. For sure. It's a cool little place down there. Um So I guess uh, I don't have a whole lot of news from this weekend. I I tried to relax. I don't relax very well. Um, but mainly instead of relaxing, went out and did some fish and talked and shot some stills of some white tails and stuff like that. And um, sorry that coughed threw me off. But today we did basically our first what I would consider preseason white till. I'm I'm definitely dumb. Oh no, it was a good, good day in the woods. It's just it's it's really really really early. But you have a little reasoning for why we want to put a trail camera out right. So my thoughts are this. If you've listened to this podcast and you know my story a little bit, you probably know that I've kind of semi chase to Buck named Teenager for the last several years. So we both kind of had a rain day to day, which because of the early morning rain, it was raging human today. I'm talking hadn't with this much outside of a football practice. I don't know ever, probably so anyway, Teenager, Um, I told k see today. I was like, man, I don't want to make this deer an obsession, but I we dude know he lives in a pretty small block, but we need to we need to figure out where, you know, because he's all over this block and the block is big enough. I mean, it's several hundred acres that we you know, we need to figure out how we can get him patterned and killed. And I don't know if we're going to or not, but I felt good about that last trail camera we hung. My thought though, was that UM teenager has he's only really like decent buck on this property that we've seen in the last couple of years, UM that we would consider like a shooter. And so that's there's there's one point there to be made. He also has um some coloration features that UM I have found to be uh help me identify him. And so I think that even though they don't have their horns right now, that he's got some probably solid basses that are starting to come out right now, because I know most pretty much all the bucks around here have got a couple inches popping out. And if I think if we find if we get pictures of a deer you know, it's got good basses and by the time we picked this camera up, he'll have grown some horn. Um it has a certain coloration and the body and and yeah, I just just a big, big body buck and um so anyway, yeah, I think that what my my plan is if I can find him, because until the rut, I don't feel like he's gonna move a ton because last year dur in the summer, we didn't pick him up in the same spot we picked him up in the postseason. Several time we picked him up there this year in the rut to that spot that we didn't get him preseason. And I think that from other preseason trail camera hangs from last year, we learned that, uh, those deer pretty much gonna stick. Like if you find them preseason when they're out there munching on forbes and doing the summertime thing, like, they're gonna be there until the weather changes, you know, and that's usually mid to late October for us here. So you have a really good chance. Why we have a lot of hunting to do this next season, and we would really like to be able to pattern a deer and get a buck killed in October. You know, and that would be a great deer to do it on because he has, you know, a relatively small home range. And just because we didn't find him in the summertime last year, it makes me like you said, they're gonna be in that area during the summer if you can find him wherever that is, munching on forbes and stuff. Well, they also don't become as of that, you know, or I guess to go along with that, they don't um seem to move much at all because it is blazing hot and you know, even even though we're not super close to the Gulf, we get goulf humidity you know, quite a bit here, and it's just like it's not fun to go outside in June, July, August around here, you know. So, uh, you can only imagine what a deer with a big munch of fur on him, you know, it's heavyweight buck is gonna be probably not moving much, especially during the daytime. So what we're trying to do is get into his bedroom pretty much and find him. And so I think what I'm thinking is if I start may, then maybe that'll give me enough time to um whenever we go back out to set some more trail cameras for our other spots, uh check it and be able to observe the data and either move the camera one more or two more times to try to find him or you know, know that he's there or whatever. And so I figured if we started now, I would have the time, I'd be able to to recognize him, and I would be having I would have the time this summer too to uh move it a couple of times if I needed that, which I didn't have last year. That end, we got to do some tree scouting, which is the second camera we hung. Yeah, that was a big part of why we hung it there. Yeah, exactly. We found a large standard schemards amongst a bunch of um post oaks, which we kind of knew they were there because of previous tree scouting expeditions, but I went back confirmed it and hung that camera there and hopes that you know, by last year, the first Schuemart I saw hit the ground was in September. It was like late late September, so it's it's like that's the the October tree for sure. Those postokes don't start falling until like early November, it seems like. So I remember we were talking, and we thought the first two weeks of October, if we weren't hunting Schuemart's shoemarts, then we were idiots. And when we weren't hunting Schuemarts, so we we we figured this out in mid October. Yeah, so yeah, that I knew there was a Chumart in there from when I was in there in March looking for his sheds, but I didn't know how many there were, and there was a lot, and that gives me a lot of hope that in October that would be a great place to to kill teenager. Not to mention, we saw his track. We did see his track. His track, Yeah, I mean it's we We saw what we thought was his track during postseason, I guess, and that was and we thought that because we had true camera pictures of him like during that time period. Yeah, and he's the only buck in the area that's that big, So it's just more than likely it's him. And that's pretty cool because we set up a camera on the trail where his track was. So feeling pretty good about that man, for sure? Yeah, we got we we I don't know, I feel a lot pretty good about our camera Hanks today overall, I think that we're getting a lot better and better just every time we hang one at just our system is is a lot more in place. We know what it's gonna take. We know by using junkie cameras, like what we're gonna have to you know, cheap cameras. We're gonna we're gonna have to do this to make sure that this didn't set it off. And you know, yeah, and I mean to be honest, as of right now, bang for your buck, those Stealth Camp twelves or Peo four teams that we're using are pretty dang good. I mean, you know, we got we want a deal to Yeah, we don't have any connection with stealth camera anything, but those cameras are working pretty good for us. You know, as far as like that cheaper camera level, like trigger speeds, good pictures are pretty clear, like they're they're pretty good for public plan hunting. Yeah, they have been. They've been great, man, And you've got the majority of them. You got on a discount right like they were running a special or whatever. So that's yeah, it's like thirty five bucks a camera or something. I think Academy might even have them one sale right now I'm not sure, but yeah, maybe something to check out. Go get you one if you're interested in cheap cameras that work pretty decent. Um, don't get the ones around us though, because we've I be getting them. Um. So, Uh, there was one more spot we went and visited. Uh it's a spot that we are calling the pulpit, and it had a lot of buck movement from like late November on, which is kind of when. Yeah, it really seems to be the heaviest. I mean there's definitely movement all November rut movement. But um, anyway, we went back in there and dude, there was for this time of year, there's a lot of traffic in there. Like, I don't feel like it's just a rut spot. You don't know what they're doing. But there was, you know, a decent amount of tracks in there, and uh, decent amount of looks like buck tracks. I would think, you know, bigger tracks and stuff. I don't know, but I'm excited about that place. Man. I feel like it's a sensitive spot. You know, if there's it's you know, it's public spot. If there's anybody else that moves in in the area, it's gonna kind of mess it up just because it's it's a sensitive but it's gonna be pretty cool if we hunt it right right, you know, and and do it right on the wind. And yeah, we saw some large deer moving to that area, like you said, and uh, pretty cool. You show me a spot that you were really excited about hanging in a cedar tree, which I've never excited about it after we looked at it today because it's thicker. Yeah, I mean, there's definitely I don't know, it's just gonna take a lot of work to get a stand in there right and and uh make it fit and everything. I think we're where we originally hung. The camera might be our best bet as far as getting shots in both directions, you know. So, but it's a I mean I think that spot is it's a killer spot. I mean it's it's like heavy pressured area, but it's on the fringe of like where most of your hunters are hunting, you know, and so it's it's like this little, uh fringe spot where the deer have found, you know, there's a lack of human pressure and they moved through there apparently, so where they did all into last year. So I think you're onto something too. With the how we're getting our system down on trail cameras and stuff. We're hanging them all similar, you know. We we we're learning these things about like the grass and shadows and where you can and can't hang one and get a hundred thousand daytime pictures of nothing, you know, and uh like kind of the bank for your buck hangs too. I know last year we hung some cameras where we uh only got like four or five deer pictures on them, you know, because it's like, well, let's see what's moving through here. Well, if there's not a lot of sign of something moving through, probably not a lot of moving through, you know. And when you start hanging on those places and orienting your hangs to where you know or believe there to be buck betting or a food source or something like that, then you can really start actually getting value out of those camera hangs and not sweating your Petudi off to go in there and pull a car that's six pictures on it. That's right, man, That's what we did there with Teenager last year in the summer time. So Squito City, Oh it's terrible, terrible. So um, I guess after that we went and pick some blackberries, uh or dow berries not. I'm not sure. We'll have to We'll have to probably brush up on what the difference is there, but uh, we just call them blackberries and they are looking good. I'm looking at a whole cup of them right here, and Uh, I'm gonna make a deer backstrap um steak tonight with BlackBerry glaze on it. Like no, no, it's not sup. That's all the rage right now? Man, what are you doing? I know I'm gonna do a good old put a whole I'm gonna see it real good on the outside with a real hot grill or skillet, and we're gonna we're gonna glaze it up. Man. So I'm excited about It's the it's the same recipe that Casey did what the helk uh steak last year and it is very good. And we actually have video online that you can go watch that lays the whole recipe out and shows you how to do it, and it is I mean, it's money. So make sure and get out and uh get you some blackberries. Uh. You know, ditches are public right away, you know, So you get out there in the ditch and find you some blackberries and and you're doing nothing illegal to be picking on them. So get out there and uh and do it man, and uh, I guess it's a good time to go to the interview with p J. Riley. What do you think anything else? It sounds good to me. All right, let's get with him. Alright, So on the phone we have p. J. Riley. He's a freelance writer and he also works with Lancaster Archery. What's happening in PJ? Are you guys doing today? Doing great? So? What's been happening in your neck of the woods? I hear it's it's been raining, a lot, raining a lot. Uh. Just it seems to come every weekend when we're trying to shoot three D s or shoot field archery. The turkey hunting, I have nothing out, but turkey hunting seems to be really good this year. Everybody's killing turkeys. Well's I unfortunately have not got Yeah, I unfortunately not gotten out. But other people are. Yeah, we feel you. We actually live in a part of the US where turkeys don't really exist. As as crazy as it sounds, we are in a part of Texas that does not have really any birds at all. So well, I feel your pain because that's where I am in Pennsylvania, like a couple here there, but I can't hunt right around home. I'd have to go a couple hours away. Yeah. Yeah. So do you do any fishing? I would assume you deal with some boat fishermen. Yep, yep, regular fishing, bow fishing. Uh, yeah, we do a lot of that. Trout bass or baths fishing is just getting good. Trout cheese has been in for about a month, um, so yeah, I've been been picking that up when I can. Of course, the streams of all been getting blown out by these like a real gully washer range st Yeah, I understand. Yeah, We've We've got guys down here in Texas that they like to combine their bass fishing and their bow fishing. So it's a it's you know, it's one of those things where they thought it was a carp but it wasn't. It was a large amount. Yeah, that happened there we go. Bow fishing won't won't get good for about another I've got a month to two months. Uh, it'll start getting good. The carp start coming into the shallow water, and of course the water drops the levels are better, so yeah, yeah, well cool. So you know, the whole reason we really wanted to do this podcast is, um, we always look for a different angle than what's kind of out there and kind of hot in the media right now. And so one thing that we are very much interested is all the little things that have to do with archery or bow hunting and and what I mean by that is a lot of guys are infatuated with the newest bow that's coming out from Matthews or Hoyd or whoever. But um, you know, we want to know about the little things that go on those bows that may affect certain parts or certain aspects of accuracy or effectiveness or uh, you know, different velocities and all these different things. So we're we figured you would be the guy to talk to and you know, personally, right now, uh is a time where I traditionally would start shooting in preparation for next hunting season, and so slowly I would start to dial things in. In the last you know, decade or more, I typically kind of relied on, uh, just my early shooting years, you know, almost in the same fashion as like, um, you know, once you learn to ride a bike, it's just like riding a bike, you always get back on it, you know, so, and I know that's not probably the best way to do it, but being busy, you know, most of us don't have a ton of time or even a great space to kind of stay consistent with it. And uh, you know, I finally have a good spot at a at my home that I've just moved to, uh to shoot in the evenings. And so I think I'm going to dive into a new rest this year from my from my bow. Um, you know how important is arresting the spectrum of boat accessories and what should we look for or what should I look for when I'm looking to purchase one? Sure, Um, the drapaways are the are the way to go these days, that's what's most popular. And uh, um you know, just it's pretty much all of them are full containment that you know, something there. But the bow hunters in particular looks for so you know you can lean last right you're going through brush, you don't have to worry about your arrow popping out. Uh. And just for consistency, so just uh you know, the rest gets out of the way, so it's not um causing any adverse action. Um a popular one and there's certainly nothing wrong with it. Of course, there's a whisker biscuit. It's simple, it's full proof. Um, you put it on there, you don't have to worry. Um. But if you're looking for a little higher level of accuracy. Um. They always say, if you look at the pros, they can shoot whatever they want. There's not a pro out there that shooting a whisker biscuit. Obviously there's a reason for that. Um. Now, you know, for the blow hunter and wants to kill a deer twenty yards whisk bisc it is perfectly fine. But you know, if you want to take your game a little bit higher, a little more precision, maybe extend your distance, I'm probably gonna want to go with a drop away. That just seems to be, uh, what's hot right now? Yeah? Okay, see what are you thinking? Man? Well, I like a lot of people, um and kind of like each other. Where I'm seeing the rest of I've had for quite a while, and I don't know if I'm really it ready to move to something different, but I'm shooting uh something that's uh isn't or is a drop away, but it's not a full containment, you know, So there any any world or any realm where someone wouldn't want to pull containment rest. You know, like to say, somebody has an arrested six or seven years old, is there any reason for him not to go to one those full containment rists. No, Um, it's you know, it's just simpler. Um. The when I started hunting, the popular one was arrest called the t M Hunter. It was two prongs that were fixed. Uh, and I mean for shooting accurately. It was great you're intended to fall off. I mean that was just something you got. I mean, you know you are moving around in the tree stand you hit something boom that I would fall off, you know, didn't take much. Um. So yeah, I mean full containment, that's just simple by everything. And and you know where I had to have make sure my arrow was positioned correctly, um on the rest. With these full containments, you don't do anything. It it's you know, gravity takes it to where it's supposed to go every time when you go to shoot. M hm. Yeah. And I can definitely should have benefit of that because there's been multiple occasions. I probably won't say how many times, but where I'll I've drawn my boat and you see your air lying down on the riser, and it's not a good deal at all. You know, it's a bad situation to be in whenever you have an animal at the other end of that. So I'm with you there. I think that you know, moving to that full containment risk is gonna be a good thing for me in the future. Uh. And then I like, you have shot those two prongs, you know, uh risks in the past where you had to kind of tune your fleshings to go through the prongs and and all that. And uh, I know that there's a lot of guys who are still shooting you know. Uh that kind of traditional kind of equipment, not really traditional in the sense of a tread bow, but you know some of the older stuff. And I have a trophy taker rist that's a fall away wet red and it's kind of common practice to put like mole skin or some sort of soft material on that rist to decrease the sound of the air being drawn. And you know, cut cut out on some of the clanking or whatever if they're falls off like an instant there. You know, But is there any anyway or can you see that that kind of can affect accuracy? With just some uh, I guess that's the right word. There's some deviation there to wear, like if it's wet or over time it starts to wear and he gets softer, if it gets dirty or get some stuff in the way. Would you shy away from putting something like that on your wrist. No, it's because if you tune it, if you tune set up, tune your bow, shoot the true painte You're gonna have to figure out, you know, level knock travels, level knock travel whatever is wherever you have to move the rest or move your knocking point in order to you know, shoot through paper and get a bullet hole. That's that's what you'll do. And so with a drop away the rest, you know, whether you've got molest in there or not, you'll you'll have to figure that out to tune in. And then once you do it, you're good. I mean, it's you're good to go too. So being that guy that I spoke about earlier that doesn't have a whole lot of time sometimes to change things up. You know, guys like you that get to work in the field of archery sometimes and this may or may not be here, but I'm saying that guys in in your fields sometimes can really get detailed with stuff and it's hard for I guess the blue collar or common man to really relate, you know. So for for me, um, and then talk about a controversial controversial subject um broadheads. I you know, I shoot a um mechanical n ap hunter grain and it's got like the cut on contact kind of rage looking head um, you know. And and I've before that it was just the regular spit fire. These are called spitfire, max, I believe, and uh, you know, they've been around forever. I've killed tons of deer with them, never had any issues on some pretty big deer. Um. And I would like to shoot fixed blade, but I don't feel like I really had the time to fine tune on them and shoot the maccuras accurately. Plus um, you know, Um, if your broadhead shoot differently than your field tips, then you want to be throughout the year, throughout the season kind of testing those broad heads into a target to make sure you're still where you thought you were last time you before you moved your bow around, took it, you know, several hours away to hunt, and then you've got to sharpen those broadheads and all this and that. So I mean, is there is my theory okay? Or is there a better theory out there? Well, here's the thing. As long as you're heads are the same weight, like the shooting a hundred grade field point hundred green broadhead, technically your broadhead should always fly like your field point. If it's not, that's a tuning issue. That's not a broadhead. Iss your very seldom. The only way it would be the broadhead is if your arrow isn't cut straight and so the broadhead is not sitting flush, or in the rare instance that threading the feral on the broadhead is dent. You know, sometimes that happens. But for the most part, if you tune your bow properly, you should be able to shoot any broadhead you want. And one of the things that we see is people, a lot of people a lot of times go to mechanicals. Mechanicals are awesome, you know. I mean, I've shot lots of things with them. You know, they killed just as good. You know, some of your bigger game you may run into issues. If you hit bone, you hit the right spot with a rage or whatever, Man, you got a heck of a hole. But a lot of times people go for the expandables because they shoot the six blades and it's a typical thing. Is it hits low right? Um? And they're like, oh a lot, I don't want to recite in I'll shoot mechanicals. Oh they hit right with my steel point. Well, actually there's a tuning problem there that's being hidden in some fashion, and it is tedious. But one of the things that if I could recommend anybody do if they have the time, it's the bear shaft too. If you can get a bear shaft to hit exactly with your field points or with your fletched arrows, your bow is tuned to perfection and you can shoot anything you want. Um. It's just amazing how your accuracy goes through the roof when you take the time to bear shaft to But it is tedious. So yeah, when you say bear shaft, are you talking about no fletchings or no broadhead or yeah, no fletching. Okay, you shoot it with a field point, you know, just the same as you're fletched arter, but you take the fletchings off, and technically you should be if you have the proper arrow for your bow. A lot of time it has to do with arrow length. Of course, arrows spying is critical. Um. A lot of times what people do is they're usually under spine. They're right, you know, you're shooting a twenty nine arrow seventy pounds? Can you should you be shooting four? Should you be going three fifty for the spine and so you know, maybe they're shooting four hundreds. They don't want to switch, but they really should be shooting a stiffer raw. Um. So if you can't, but if you can take the time to bear shaft and get that bear shaft to fly, just like you're fletched Arabs man, you can shoot anyone. I'll I shoot Magnus buzzcut stingers. That's probably one of the least Arab dynamics to broadheads out there. I'll shoot that thing a yard. It will hit let with my field point. That's also, I mean, it's just you know, it's but what some things that I had to do that you know are maybe everybody can't I shoot a Matthews Halan thirty two and so they have. So what happened was is I went to bear shaft or actually I shot my broadhead, uh for the first time when I got the halo thirty two. Shot my field point. Now, I shot a field point, fleshed arrow through paper and got a perfect bullet hole. Perfect. I'm good to go. I shot a bear shaft and it showed it was way to the right. It was really ugly, So well, that's not good. And so what I discussed what it was showing was it was showing a week spine. But I knew it wasn't the spine because I was shooting three arrows. It can't go any stiffer. Um. So with the Matthews bow there, they have what they call the top hat system. It's these little tan spacers in the axles and they have three sets of them, so you can move that camerarond. And what I had to do was move my can to the left. Once I did that, change the spacers in there. Perfect bear shaft tune flew perfect, and then you know, and then that was the only thing I did. Put the broad head back on hit right with my field point. Wow. Um. But you know there's other you have, like a wit with the Yolks system, so you have to play with the yokes to kind of kilt the cam one way or the other times. Have a roller guard, you change the angle of the roller guard to influence the cam. Um. So it's a lot of that stuff where like you said that, not everybody has the time to do it or you know, really knows what they're doing there with the bow. So um but actually original point, Yeah, the expandables. A lot of people go to that just because they their bows out of tune and they don't they don't know what to do about it, right, Yeah, that's probably Yeah, it's it's a lot of people. Um, you know, you're your fletched arrows will fly perfectly, but if you can imagine that, if you're the less you ask your fletchings to do the way more forgiving now right, starting with the fundamentals. Oh yeah, if they don't have to steer much, you can make little mistakes and then they'll hide it, right right, I got you. Yeah, So, um, you know, kind of moving on here. Um. We had Chris b on the podcast recently and yeah, yeah, so he's well he's a competition guy, but he also hunts and stuff, and so being a competition guy obviously shoots a long stabilizer, but that carries over into his hunting setup to have noticed. And you know, I've heard most guys can't shoot the difference, um, and you know, say like what six inch or so and then something that's really long. Um. But I like things. I like small winds because I feel like they end up in big victories, and so I like things that may just barely give me an edge. You know. So what are your thoughts about stabilizers for hunting setups. I think the stabilizer for bow hunter is probably the least utilized and least understood implements that people put on their boat. And the perfect example was, had a customer come in he had just bought, uh, this was back when Holly had the carbon element. He had just bought a Holy carbon Element super light bow because he wanted to go out and you know, he wanted he was going to do all kinds of hiking. He wanted the light set up. So he comes into the shop and he's shooting and he calls me. He's like, pig, I just can't get a tight group. And I'm watching him shoot. He has no stabilizer on, and I said, police stabilize on it. No, no, no, I don't want to do that. That's you know, that's gonna add weight. That's terrible. I don't want to do that. So he kept shooting, and you know, we're playing with his form, and his form was good and everything, and his name is Yaquis. And I said, yet, please, I'm telling you what we're in here in the shop. It's not going to hurt anything. Put a stabilizer on them, all right, So for this tilting stabilizer in there, and then the next three shots we're all touching. He said, I'll never forget. He turned to me, he said, well, that doesn't mean you're right. Yeah, it's so. It's what happens is, first off, you have your you have the riser and the limb pocket. If you're stabilized, what I mean, what we want people to do is understand what they're getting and what they're not getting. If you're stabilizer doesn't reach past the limp pocket, it's not doing any stabilization. So basically, the little s coil dampeners, all they're doing is killing vibration, not stabilizing the boat at all, which means torque is a very real issue for that person. Um So I shoot, I hunt with a fifteen inch front bar and a ten inch side rod um and I have four six ounces on the side rod and three ounces out front. I'll take it in the tree standing. My arrow is still longer than the stabilizer, so at some point my arrow would hit something before my stabilizer would. Um. But just for that, you know, if if you're the typical that what they say, the typical white tail shot is twenty yards and under. Do you need that for that? Not necessarily, but what if you want to shoot thirty fifty yards with confidence? Like not just man, I sure hope this goes in. You're taking the shot and you're saying, I know this is going to hit that thing like the heart. You probably want to play with a stabilizer set up just because you you know, if you were just if you were to have two people to shoot that side by side fifty yards with a stabilizer set up like that versus without, I guarantee the stabilizers group is going to be tighter. Yeah, so we can we we see the resistance all the times to the long bar. I want that that's too much. It's gonna get the way it's too heavy. You know, I get it, understand it, and and you know I'm not saying everybody has to shoot fifteen inches. That could certainly be overkill. But it's understanding what you're getting on what you're not getting, that's what's important. Mhm. And I'm I'm probably a traditionalist when it comes to archer equipment. I'm kind of slow to change. Um. And of course I've got a front stabilizer. I feel like that's kind of since the probably eighties or nineties has been kind of the way people do things. But back bar, side rod, whatever you want to call it, that the other stable It comes out the back down to your left side if you're right ended shore is U is kind of news for me. And I don't want to understand what the purpose of it is and what it can do for you to shoot, because so can you kind of explain what that is? Sure? So, Um, one of the most common things is does is it offsets anything on the other side of the boat. I don't shoot with a quiver on, so that's meaningless to me. Basically, the only thing I have on the other side of my bow is my site. Um. But if you put a side rod on, okay, or if you of the front bar on, what you want is to have all your weight out at the very end. Well, that's gonna cause if you know, if you have a decent amount of weight, then your bow is gonna want to fall forward constantly. With a side rod, you counter that and kind of bring that boat up a little bit. The end result is when you are holding on target, your pin is just a lot quieter and steadier. You put it where you want it. Everybody's pin floats a little bit. The question is does it float a lot? Does it flow fast? Is it's slow? You know what you want is little movement and slow. That's you know, that's just keys to accuracy. Keeping that pin longer where you want it on a side rod helps balance your bow, and it's you know, it's different for everybody's hand. Um what feels right, but that's what it's doing. It's just balancing that bow when you're at full drawal. Mm hm, I got you. So it's it's uh. I guess you can compare it to like when we're filming hunts. Sometimes when we're filming brea or whatever, we're using the thing called the gimbal. It's pretty much doing the same thing. Right, You're putting weight down the bottom. So that I think of the top is steadier. Huh, it makes get see it. So so how did how do you determine if as a hunter that you need one or would you say that everyone should kind of start losing that direction? Well, here again there are there are the pro archers. I mean these. If anybody could shoot a bear bow accurately, it's going to be Levi Morgan. I mean one of the best archers on the planet. Levi Morgan hunts with a fifteen inch front over Kennet Sidelin. Why does he do he? I mean, of all people who wouldn't need it, it would be him. But he does it because he knows that that's just what I mean when he comes up and he puts his pin on it. Man whatever he gamed that to in big troup. So I would say everyone probably could benefit from it. Now, that's that's purely from an archery accuracy stander. That's not factoring in if you have to go hiking all over plate. John Dudley is a perfect example. He also is a very accomplished archer. He doesn't always shoot a long stabilizer and he's doing a lot of hiking. He keeps his bow more lightweight and compact Um, that's that's his choice. Um. And he certainly has the skill to do that. UM. But I would I would say more people would benefit from a good stabilizer set up than knock, just if for nothing else. For tork Um, the most common problem that we see, particularly with bow hunters is guys who grabbed who gripped that bow grip. You know, they grab it like a pistol looks like a pistol grip. They grab it like a pistol grip. Well, the main thing that causes his problems with torque um So they're gonna be twisting that riser. It doesn't even take much, just a little twitch. And you know, especially at fifty yards you're con missed by three ft um. So a stabilizer, especially, you know, a longer front line resists that torque, It fights it. Um. That that would be my thought on stabilizer. So I think everybody could benefit from one, But there's other things that they're considering. It will Yeah, sure, And I guess that you're kind of saying that we almost need to look at stabilizers as a system has more than you know, here's a front one and here's a back one, right like it's it's how it all plays together with your bow set up. Yeah you could. It's it's possible that you could have just a front bar and be fine with that. Um. The reason I hunted with a bench rod front one for years Actually the reason I went to fifteen so I could cut down my weight. I don't You don't need as much weight out on the end the farther you get away. Yeah. And I had something like I don't remember, like ten ounces out front, which then I have to counter that on the back, so I had even more on the back. Usually I have a three to one ratio, three on the back to one out front. And uh so I went to a longer one so I could cut down on my weight. Yeah, that makes sense. So speaking of that, UM, how do you feel about those uh what they call them quiverlizers or something like that. I just where they take the quiver and it's managed to stabilizer horizons to the ground. Have you ever used one of those? Is it like I kind of kind of flaued the ingenuity, But I don't know if it's functional, you know what I mean? Yeah, I I have not. I have not used one. I'm and I can't remember I can't remember if I've seen one up close, but I would wonder in my arrows are twenty nine inches when I now that is, I mean my target stabilizers thirty inches. I know I don't want to carry that in the woods, so I'd be curious to see how, like where is the weight in that and and how many arrows are you carrying? I mean, I think I have five in my quiver. I take. I have a removable quiver. I never shoot with it on MHM. So yeah, you know, it kind of seems to be a Western kind of thing, like a lot of the guys out there using it more. You know, some of that that open touch yourself, what's more, spot and stalk. But I can just see where. Um. You know, you go through the season, you shot a couple of deer, and you know your your quivers down the three arrows as to where it was five. You know you're shoot a different system at that point in time. Yeah. I guess if you're shooting and missing by your fifth shot, your weight ratio maybe just get worse every shot. Yeah, actually we don't. I know, we don't sell many of those if we even carried I can't I don't know if I've even seen it in our shot. Um, but um, yeah, there's lots of gadgets out there. It would put your hours in a handy place, no doubt about that, you know, there in front of you. So not for me though, Speaking of the gadgets, are there any other accessories that are that are maybe not Maybe you wouldn't reference them as gadgets as much as them being a very important but overlooked piece of um, you know your bow that relate to accurate shooting. Yeah, so, UM, I don't know that people put necessarily as much thought into their sites as they probably should. Um. What I see is a lot of people don't even know that there are different size pins, that the fibers are different sizes. Um. You know it's going down as small as the typical hunting size of their ten thousand nineteen twenty nine thousand, um. And with the ten thousand being the smaller, and just that, you know, the smaller that your pin is, the more precise you can be with it. However, the less light it's going to tramp it. Um. So being hunters where we're in low light situations a lot, the um ultimate goal seems to be to fine tune then and get something that's finite enough that you can really take precise aim. But yet we'll transmit enough like that you can see it, you know when it's the very last few minutes of daylight. Um so. And also fiber um you know these sites Now you see sites that have the fiber wrapping all the way around the scope housing all of that fiber is gathering light which is transmitted to the very end which you look at. You that there are sites that are less expensive that only have you know, like two or three inches of side and you know, so guys like, oh wow, I just get that one in and without thinking mm hmm at you know, five thirty at night on the November or whatever and just about a daylight. You probably they're not gonna be able to see that pin m m. And they don't. They don't realize that until it's too late, you know. J I I have a a spot Hog seven pin that's the pro hunter. I think, you know you probably that's awesome. Sing yeah, I love it. I've shots, I've shot it for you know what four or five years, I think, and it's great. But I did go with the ten one thousands, uh five off and and it's great, especially when you start getting down to that bottom a couple of pins. You know, you really need that that precision. But I've always wondered, um, because I can tell on that side particularly, you know, as you're starting to really kind of push the lot hours, they're getting a little them and there's there's times it might just be a minute or two that I kind of missed. It's kind of like the camera light thing, you know, where just gonna barely missed those couple of minutes. But I mean those are big button minutes, you know. And I wondered if if maybe through for three y'all, or through spot hoggers, through any other assite manufacturers, if they actually include, um, say for lock your you know, the distances that you would be comfortable shooting and you don't need the smaller optics for could you put you know, a nineteen one thousands in those and then a teen one thousands in you know, your longer range side. Yep. So, UM, I shoot a site called the True ball um ACKI Touch and it's a five pin site. It's a five pin site that's all feels slider. I'll explain that. But anyway, my first three pins are nineteen thousands and my bottom two are ten thousand exactly. Yeah, and so it's so it's it's got five fixed pins. But then it also I can move the whole scope housing up and down. So my pins five pins sixty. So then I have these notches where I can also get seventy eight. I can keep going down. Um. I would always use my bottom pin beyond sixty. Um. But that's a that's a site where they offer you can get two different you can get different sized pins, just for that reason. Mm hm cool. I'm very glad to know that actually exists. That's that's great. I mean, and even just so this year, Troue Ball upgraded its fiber. I mean, who knew there was different types of fiber. I had no idea. But what I know is I got the new fibers into my pins, and my sixty yard pin it was orange. I had trouble seeing it when I got the site idea. I mean, it's just even in regularly, it just didn't pick up light. True Ball has this new fiber they put in. Man, that thing glows like it's incredible. Now, So there's apparently there's even different grades of fiber optics that can be used, um, which which really helped help me anyway, if my wife only knew how much money you're making me spend right now. Yeah, Well, while we're on the topic of site to a lot of guys don't consider what's called leveling your second and third axis, um to to make sure that your site truly is level in all conditions, especially tree stand that's going to be your third axis if your site is. If you haven't taken the time to level all those things side hills, up and down shut, you can miss. I mean you can be your site can be dead on flat ground and as soon as you go to shoot at the downward angle, you can miss wide left easily. UM And guys don't always think about that work. You know, pick a site that where you can level the second and third axis and then actually do it. M M. But this is all part of that, all part of the process to hyper accuracy. You know, you guys now shooting hundred yards with no problem. I mean they'll take that shot in the heartbeat because they know they're equipment can do it, and they've practiced it, and it's it's definitely possible. Well, what about what about the bow grip because I kind of have a fat one that's made out of wood and I like it a lot. Um the fact that's man out of wood for one, because the metal gets really cold during the season. UM. But I know that the more contact you have with the bowl, more margin for moving the bowl as you shoot. So what kind of grip do you prefer? Yeah, if if you're if you favor the fat grip, then you're really not gonna like the kind of grip you should be shooting. It takes, it takes from getting used to um, but narrow and flatum is what is going to give you the most consistent It's basically consistency that fat grip. The more contact you have, the more things that can be different from shot the shot. UM. A lot of the pros quite honestly take the grip off and just shoot with their hand on the riser because it's really thin and it's nice and flat on some boats, not on all, but some of them or some of them will take the grip off and just put like tennis racket tape around there to give a little cushion. UM. So, yeah, a good grip is kind of key because that's your hand can do. You can do all kinds of bad things with your hand in there, so I can. I mean, I figure if you look at me shoot, you can understand all these things that I'm telling you that these are the reasons, you know, we'd like to. So I've seen videos how where some people are saying, ah, it doesn't there how you gripped the ball, you know, whatever feels comfortable open hand, you know, or gripping it around, whatever works for you. And I just thought, man, if you watch the pro shoot, basically every one of them has the same hand to visition pretty much. A little slight variances, but almost I don't even say all, because they all have the same hand position. Um. And they do that for a reason because it's consistent, repeatable and consistent. That's what they're looking for. So this past season, UM kind of trying to strive for some of that consistent deep well back, I'm always shot with one of those wrist traps, you know, Like so say, if you weren't shoot with the open hand, you know, you put the wrist trap on the the ball bow falls and it's right. And I pulled it off because all it ever did for me was pretty much just caused a moment of anxiety when a deer was coming in and me trying to tinangle my gloved hand through that little wrist trap to get a hold of my boat. And then Tyler called me a poser and said, I was just trying to do it because I didn't want to look dumb with with my wrist traps. So I thought it was because of real reasons. Now, what is your opinion on on those wrist traps like that? The first thing is, and that's one of the other things we see is those wrist traps you should never have difficulty getting in because it should be loose enough that you can just slide your handwriting without thinking about it. We always see people who have it tight against their hands, which is not a good thing because then that's influencing, that's putting torque into the system. Because your hand is that you want your hand to be nice and relax. Anything's pulling on it one way or the other, that's not a good thing. So that that wrist trap I use one should actually be open enough that you you don't even think about it because it's such a big opening to slide your hand into. Yeah, so's the why do you use it tree stands? You know, shooting at a downward angle on flat ground. I have never dropped my bow, and I say out of a tree stand. I never had, but I can see where if something happened, and just it was the shot really surprised me, I might not grab onto my boat and shooting at a downward angle, you know, gravity is working against me anyway. Um, so it's just kind of a safety measure, um, to make sure you don't drop it. But it's it's not it's you know, it's something that I don't even really think about. It's just second nature. Just slide my hand right into the BP. I don't even know it's there. If you get those ones that are made out of parrot cord, they really sit up nice so that you don't you know, it's not flopping around. It sits where you need it to be, and you just slide your hand right in. Alright, cool, So let's talk about them the small stuff, okay. Um, for forever when I was shooting, I would uh knock my release onto the stream, pull back and shoot. And then all of a sudden I show up to a bow shopping. I'm seventeen and they say that I have to have a D loop and I've never I didn't know anything about him at that point in time, you know, and then now that's just that's common practice, right, so our D looks here to stay. Is that Is that going to be something that sticks around forever? I know it kind of changed my drawings a little bit and us for everyone right by by about a half an inch. So, um, is that I don't I don't see it being a fad. But is that gonna be something that sticks around? Or is there another better answer to that? Still? I think that is gonna stick around. Um. It gives you, you know, it grips the string above and below your knock, and the main purpose for it is so that you're not wearing out your bow stream. I mean, I don't know. If you go back to the days we're actually the serving on the bow youth would be monofilament line like fishing line, and if you clicked that, you know, after a while you wore through it with your relief, and then all of a sudden that thing would do just what you expect. It would be like a bird snap would just go and it would just come off and you were out of business. Uh huh. So then we advanced to the more you know, the braided line or or you know thread material that we have today for uh string serving, and now you have the dew behind it. If you break that up, that's easy to just put a new one on. Sure. Yeah, it's a lot easier to replace a five leaf than it is uh you know hu chick or bows treeks. So that makes perfect seas. So what if let me ask you this, what if I'm out You know, I'm in the back country year, I'm calorad a country or whatever, and one of my little monkey tails flies off while I'm on a trip. Should I replace it a STAPs? Do not worry about it? How much effect is that going to have on my shot? Almost none that I wouldn't even worry about that. It's you know, it's mainly a string silencer. Depending on where it is, where it's positioned, it may be giving you just a scotch more speed if it's in the right spot. Because anything you put um on your string closer to the cams does increase your speed. As you get closer to the d loop, it's going to actually slow down your error speed. So get to know but those things are so light. It's that speed is going to be negragible if you lose one, don't worry about it. Cool. It's good to know I don't have enough things to try to keep up with when I'm out runn around hunting. That a little baggy full of rubber things. It's just not want to have to keep keep the backpack all the time. Uh So, um, let's talk about it in between there. So you got your deal loop and your mnentails stream, damter science or whatever you want to call it. Um, there's a peep side in there and peace for a long time have been pretty pretty much the same. You know, they're there what I would call like simplistically perfect. And I've seen um some different tweaks and changes that people have tried to market and put on peach stots. Is there really need to change them? Is there a reason to try out anything new on a peach spot or is it just a plastic circle that you look through and that's about as good as it get for for hunting. That's what you Yeah, that's it. It's a circle to align your eye up target. The new fad is to have these peeces that are in a tube. Um, it's it's not. It's like it's a tube basically. Instead of that flat peep that you used to see in it would be an elongated tube. UM that huts down glare and it gives you a more precise Um. It makes sure that your alignment is even more precise. But for hunting, I mean just a plastic circle. Sure. Yeah, it seems I've seen something that you know, they have a bar coming up from the bottom and it's I guess supposed to eliminate extra pens and kind of clean clean up your side picture. But in my mind, it's just cluttering your side picture because instead of having a VPNs, you've got a huge bar in your your eye. Yeah, and quite frankly, like people like me, um, I'm far sighted. I don't think I would see that bar anyway. It would just be this big blurry thing in there. So yeah, sure, yeah, I totally agree. I don't. I don't something that close your eye is not going to focus on whenever you're looking at the deer that's twenty eight yards away, you know. Just yeah, well cool, p J. I thank you so much for being willing to come on here and share some of your knowledge with this man, I know that we didn't get to just probably skim the surface of all the interested details of archery and even more of what you know. But I do know that we can get on Lancaster Archery's website and their YouTube channel in particular and and learn a lot from you there. Correct. Yeah. Yeah, We're constantly putting up new things, just anything and everything that crosses arm that we can think of, UM, just to help people, um, you know, become better archers. That's obviously what we want. Whether you're a hunter, target archer or just shooting in your backyard, you know, whatever you want to do, we'd we'd like to help you do a little bit better. That's that's kind of our mission that likes to archery awesome. Well, we appreciate that we will link up to UM, the website, will link up to YouTube and many of these products that you talked about here. UM. I just would like to say thank you from myself personally, because this is kind of, um the beginning of uh a new journey into kind of fine tuning my archery set up, which I haven't done and probably like over a decade. So thank you for for for all the information and we look forward to being in touch with you in the near future. Yeah, if I would just for your listeners to know we have full time customer service reps that um I'm working and if people have questions about something, if you can't find something on YouTube, or you just have a question, you have guys that that's what they do all day is answer people's questions about bows, about setups, looking for recommendations. I mean, I would encourage anybody to give those guys a caller, some of the most knowledgeable archers you'll find in and you know that's a service we provide just for that reason, just to help people out. I mean, you don't have to buy anything, you can just to ask him questions and and they're fine with awesome. Well, we'll put the phone number as well, uh in the notes, So if you're listening, just look right below the show here and you can find all the contact info you need. P J. It's been a great, great evening. I appreciate your time and we'll be talking to you soon. All right, thank you, guys. I sure appreciate you having me, Yes, sir, thank you man. There's a lot of information to take you in right there. And I feel like it will be another one that I go through and listen to, you know, listen back to and make sure that I gather everything that he said, and we'll probably try to have him on again because I feel like we just had to cut it shorter than it should have been. Yeah, we'd barely skim the surface. I didn't even plan on ask him about sites, and we got on that and that was like one of the more interesting things we talked about, you know. So there's just so many things, so many little intricacies and details about uh, you know, archery, shooting and all the different gadgets you can use to really make yourself a better hunter as long as you use them, right. So, speaking of information that you can use, we have a giveway going on. Why don't you tell us about it so you can be the lucky winner of an Element T shirt. You'll probably seen them on our social media. They're pretty cool. I wear mine a lot, especially when I want to be super comfy and I want to live in it. You can probably live in it. Actually, it's it's like that soft, but it's like that athletic fit, so it's gonna fit you well and conform to it's not a big baggy T shirt and they look super styling with our tree logo on it and stuff, and you can support us. So what you need to do is go over to our YouTube channel and subscribe to that, and then also go to the rock Trolls video and comment on that video and tell us, hey, what's up guys, awesome, vin super cool, y'all are awesome, I love you some money something awesome like that. Don't say bad things, um and whoever does that. And it's also subscriber will be entered into the drawing for the element tea. Yeah. And so honestly, if you mess up and you don't comment on the rock Trolls video, I think I'll still put you in. But you have to have commented during this period of comment you know what I mean? Like you, you can't have commented like six months ago and being the and being the running for this thing. So it's got it. It has to have been within the last what two weeks I guess is when we started this thing. So go do that and we will be looking forward to giving a shirt away to somebody. So anyway, thanks for hanging out with this man. I hope you guys are getting out living your element even though it's getting hot, and uh man, we'll look forward to the velvet pis. I know that I'm ready to start seeing them on social media. So it's coming soon. It's coming soon, and I'm getting hot and telling you right now, I've been editing the buck that we killed last year. I've been editing that video and it's like, I can't wait until it's November. Oh my goodness. Anyway, I hope you guys are getting out in it and having a good time. God bless you. Thanks for listening, and remember this is your element living in

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