Post-hunting season is a great time to evaluate your gear and look ahead to next hunting season. Check in with an archery technician, make sure you keep practicing and store your gear properly. If you follow these guidelines, you’ll go into fall prepared and ready for the season. Here are five tips for maintaining your hunting gear during the post-season.
1. Wash Your Clothes
Make sure your hunting clothes have been washed in a scent-free detergent before you put them away for the season. Keep them away from clothes that have been washed with scented detergent. Keep them in a sealed container or vacuum-sealed bag so they don’t take on other scents as they sit over the summer. When you take them out of storage in the fall, they should be scent-free and ready to go.
2. Practice Your Form
Make sure you keep up a practice schedule, even in the off-season. If you put away your bow as soon as hunting season’s over and don’t pick it back up until it opens again in the fall, you might be in for an unpleasant surprise and find that your bow went completely out of tune from unuse. Practicing during the off-season will not only keep your archery skills sharp, it will keep your bow sharp as well. Take the things you’ve learned from the previous hunting season and use this time to practice your form and shot process. It will be easier to keep your bow in tune this way and you won’t lose the momentum and valuable knowledge you gained during this hunting season.
You can practice with field points like our Multi-Purpose Field Points and Bullet Points. Each are made with stainless steel, quality machining and superior material. Practicing with these points will help protect the quality of your broadheads but still allow you to practice on a regular target all year.
3. Practice With Broadheads
To help give you the most accurate practice conditions, practice with your broadheads. It’ll help you perfect your form and give you a good idea of how the arrow flies with your particular broadhead. Switch to practicing with your broadheads closer to hunting season and make sure you’re practicing with foam targets. Sailing your broadheads into a regular target too often will eventually dull the broadhead. Practicing with a foam target will cushion the broadhead and preserve its sharpness. Practice with your fixed-blade broadhead, like our Bomber broadhead, or a mechanical broadhead, like our Commander broadhead.
4. Make Sure You Have the Right Equipment
The off-season is a perfect time to do an equipment check. Visit an archery shop and have them reassess you to make sure you’re pulling the correct draw weight. If you’ve been practicing and hunting frequently, you might have built up your muscles and it might be time to increase the draw weight. Make sure you’re using the right arrows for your draw length and draw weight. The archery technician will be able to assess your form and how your arrows are flying to recommend adjustments.
5. Store Your Gear Properly
Make sure you’re storing your hunting gear properly. Keep your bows in a protective case and don’t leave your arrows lying loosely around. If you hunt from a treestand or blind, check your state’s regulations about leaving those items on the hunting property. You might have to take them down from public property and put them away until next season. If you hunt on private property, ask for permission before leaving your gear.
Take the time this off-season to work on your form, practice with new equipment and store your equipment properly. If you do that, then you’ll be in good shape for next hunting season.
What are your post-season gear maintenance tips? We’d love to hear from you in the comments!
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