Hunting season prep: the pro shop checklist

Every year, the last two weeks of September in this shop look the same. The bench is stacked, the phone does not stop, and somebody who has been hunting for thirty years is standing at the counter asking if we can get his bow back by Saturday.

We usually can. It would be better for both of us if we did not have to.

Here is the sequence that works.

A month out

Get the bow on the bench. New strings if last year’s are fuzzy, served out, or simply a year old. Full tune after: paper, center shot, nock height, cam timing. Then shoot it.

A month out means we can order a part if something is worn, and you can shoot the bow enough afterward to trust it. Two weeks out means you get whatever we can do that day.

Check your arrows. Every shaft, one at a time. Flex it and listen. Spin it on the point and watch the nock end. A cracked carbon arrow is not a group problem, it is a hand problem.

Pull your broadheads out and look at them. Not the box. The actual blades. Last season’s broadheads have been in a quiver through weather.

Three weeks out

Broadhead tune. This is the step people skip and then complain about in November.

Field points fly true off a bow that is slightly out because a field point has no steering surfaces. A broadhead has blades, and blades will take a small tuning error and turn it into six inches at twenty yards. If your broadheads and field points do not agree, the bow is out. The broadheads are just the messenger.

Bring the bow and the actual heads you will hunt with. We will get them printing together.

Shoot from where you are actually going to shoot. If you hunt from a stand, shoot from elevation. Your twenty-yard pin is honest on flat ground and optimistic at a steep angle.

Two weeks out

Layer check. Put the whole kit on and draw your bow in it. A jacket that binds at full draw is a jacket that will cost you a shot. This is the one thing about SITKA and layering that no size chart can tell you.

Scent control routine. Whatever system you use, start it now rather than the night before, so your clothes are actually clean and stored when the season opens.

Licenses and tags. New Jersey Fish and Wildlife publishes the current requirements, seasons and zones. Go to the source. Regulations change and we are not the authority on them.

The week before

Do not change anything. No new rest, no new release, no new arrows. Whatever you are shooting now is what you know. Confidence is equipment too.

Shoot cold. One arrow, first thing, no warm-up. That is the shot you will actually take in the woods. If your first arrow of the day lands three inches from your twentieth, you are ready.

Pack the night before. Twice as many people forget a release aid as forget a bow.

What we can do while you wait

Some of it. Nock height, a peep tie-in, a rest tweak, a quick paper tune when the bench is clear. Strings, full tunes and anything that needs a part cannot happen while you wait in the last week of September, because there are eleven people ahead of you with the same idea.

That is the whole argument for going a month early. Same work, no anxiety, and you get to shoot the bow before it matters.

Call (201) 843-7788 or read more about what a tune involves.