Hello.
(TL;DR: Any hints for hunting small game with bow and arrow?)
I'm hopefully getting around to actually hunt with a self made bow this year, after years of building bows to hunt with and then always ending up going with a shotgun for one reason or another. Around here (Finland) the most common quarries for bowhunters are waterfowls, grouse and hares. Most bowhunting advice on the other hand is mostly concerned with bigger animals, like deer, boar or elk. So if going after small game, what changes?
One thing that comes to my mind is that with small game arrow speed and accuracy become even more important, while penetration doesn't matter as much as if you are shooting a bow that is legal to hunt with here (meaning at least 40# or so), any kind of non-blunt point will pass through anyway.
On the question of points I would think that blunts would do well for willow or black grouse but I'd hesitate to use them for the larger wood grouse or hares. As I'd prefer to go with just one type of arrow, I'm thinking a small broadhead with some type of "shock collar" a little way behind it might work well (and from what I have read, some Finnish hunters have had success with this kind of setup when going after wood grouse).
So what I'm currently thinking is this: I want a fairly fast shooting bow fairly close to the minimum required draw weight and light arrows. Willow shoot arrows seem to fit the bill as they are extremely light, even though they seem to need straightening after nearly every shot. Maybe 3/4" broadhead followed by a "shock stopper" (is there an actual name for these things? Basically just something that stops the arrow after it has achieved some penetration and transfers it's remaining energy into an impact shock.) maybe 2 inches behind the head. Possibly fairly large fletches to help keep arrows that missed from going way too far. This would also help the arrow to recover faster and as shooting distances are short (with waterfowl and willow grouse especially), the slowing effect of large fletchings shouldn't be a problem at these ranges.
Previously I've mostly hunted with different breeds of pointers and even when hunting without a dog I've mostly trusted my shooting skills to bring down birds after they'd taken to flight. Clearly that needs to change, as I'm definitely not yet comfortable enough to shoot a (fast) moving target with a bow. I've stalked doves and wood grouse, so I'm not completely unfamiliar with that style of hunting, but any advice or links to articles, posts or videos on the subject would be welcome.
So what do you think? I know I'm overthinking these things, I usually do, but how much am I overthinking? Which of these ideas do you actually know don't work and which ones do you think don't work? Any other ideas, suggestions or experiences you'd like to share regarding small game hunting?
